We give Dell a lot of crap at the Mac Observer. This is mainly because of the childish antics of Michael Dell and some of Dell's VPs. Today, we come not to bury Michael Dell, but to praise him. We, or rather I, will also offer my humblest apologies to Will Shakespeare for butchering and twisting his art in that little attempt at humor.

Seriously though, Dell has launched a new project and I have to applaud the company for this effort. Dell will be working with fellow Austin, Tx. based Hart InterCivic to develop a computerized voting system to replace all of the outdated punch card, fill-in-the-bubble, tabulating, pull the lever, vote-a-matic systems that were behind the Florida election debacle from this past Winter.

There has been a *lot* of talk about fixing the problems in the many US voting systems during the last 6 months or so, but Dell is actually working on doing something about it. I respect that immensely. Not that they are the only company working on this, but Dell is a "Big Deal" in the world of technology, and it seems as if the company will be putting a major effort into this project. Their name will lend a lot of credibility, rightly or wrongly, when it comes to selling a new voting solution to election boards across the country. Of course, Dell stands to gain a lot out of a successful product of this nature. They could easily sell hundreds of thousands of computers in the US, and even more in the rest of the world, but that's the nature of a (more or less) free enterprise system. The company sees a problem that needs fixing, is willing to try and fix it, and should reap the rewards from doing so. The American voting public would also benefit from a *successful* rollout of such a system, and please notice that caveat.

The flip side is that it is more than likely that any such system coming out of Dell and Hart InterCivic would be based on Windows, and that's a scary thought. Ease of use, Security, stability, and Windows: That brings on nightmares of singing muppets asking me to choose which one of these things just doesn't belong here. Hopefully Hart InterCivic is manned by a bunch of Linux/Unix/Unix-variant fiends so that we might actually have something worthwhile. A dedicated small OS custom built from an *nix variant (a variant that uses a license that would allow the company to keep their Source proprietary and secret) would be perfect for a voting system, and it could be made to be nearly bullet proof.

I hope to have more information on Hart's modus operandi in the near future, but for now I simply dug around the company's Web site. It is run on a Windows server, and it looks like a Windows company owns it. You know what I mean. Everything looks proper, but none of it looks good. That's strictly conjecture based upon my own prejudices, and it not to be mistaken for serious journalism. The funny thing is that Data Tomato, the company that actually developed the site for Hart InterCivic, has a pretty darned cool Web site. Go figure. Hart InterCivic does have one interesting looking voting product called eSlate, check it out. If you do visit that page, make sure you click on the image for a bigger view; it looks like a handheld, but it's not.

And I appear to be digressing...

Speaking of great computer companies, and this is the real point of this column, it would be dandy if Apple would follow in Dell's footsteps for once. Apple should find the right company to make a Mac based voting system, and pay the development costs of making it. Even if it cost a hundred million dollars of that US$4.1 billion in the bank, it would pay off handsomely for Apple. Just as Dell could sell a bagillion computers from whatever product they get out the door, the same goes for Apple. Apple's system would no doubt work better, look better in that "how do I do this?" kind of way, and be a lot more secure. Apple totally groks the concept of interface, and no Windows-oriented company that I have seen has yet to be able to emulate that understanding. When we are talking about a paradigm shift like computerized voting, remember that a big percentage of the voting population is over the age of 60. Making it look right and feel right is 99% of the battle.

I am strongly hoping that Apple is way ahead of me on this, and that they have been steadily working on a solution that simply hasn't been announced yet. I don't think that is the case, however, and that's too bad. There is a world of opportunity at *someone's* feet when it comes to guiding this country out of the 1960s for our voting procedures. For the sake of my favorite computer platform and the country itself, I personally would like to see that *somebody* be Apple.

As it is, it will probably be a Dell, Compaq, HP, or Microsoft that eventually makes the big push in this arena. If we're lucky, it would be IBM, and if that were the case it would be Linux-based. That's an acceptable alternative to Windows for me for something like voting, and IBM is eating, breathing, and living Linux these days.

That brings me to that caveat I mentioned. If and when computerized voting is ready for prime time, it has to be done right. If not, if there are mistakes, lost votes or some kind of hacking weirdness, it will put the move to new technology for voting back a decade or two. Worse yet, it will really sap the public's interest in the process, an interest that is a pathetic lows in our apathetic society, and that benefits no one but bad politicians hoping that no one is noticing what they are doing. It is my assumption that any Windows-based system will have just those kinds of problems sooner, rather than later.

The idea of having the kind of farce we saw in Florida (no matter which way you were pulling, it was a farce) in November and December is simply not acceptable. If Dell can do it right, then more power to them. I will be among the first to sing their praises if that is so, and I reiterate my praise for the company for even taking on the challenge. In the meanwhile, here's hoping that Apple follows in Dell's footsteps and makes a Mac based voting system that really works.