Touchscreen voting machines on the way out?

Gov. Charlie Crist wants to scrap the controversial touch-screen voting machines used in Broward, Palm Beach and 13 other counties and replace them with optical scanners that would count paper ballots.

"It's important to make sure people have confidence in our voting system. We all remember 2000. That's why this issue is so important. What could be more important to democracy than ensuring the integrity of our elective process? It's at the very foundation of it all. You go to an ATM machine, you get some kind of a record. You go to the gas station, you get a record. If there's a need for a recount, it's important to have something to count," the governor said Wednesday morning at a gathering of Florida newspaper editors and reporters.

The Republican governor will detail the change at a joint appearance Thursday with the state's leading critic of touch-screen voting machines, U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, in the heart of Wexler's district west of Delray Beach.