U.S. voters have endured hanging chads, alleged undercounts, machine malfunctions and a president elected by a vote of the U.S. Supreme Court, not to mention repeated accusations of voter fraud. Even with the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which ushered in the era of electronic voting at a cost of $4 billion in federal tax dollars, we still don't have it right. In six states and parts of 14 others, electronic voting machines can't produce a paper trail, making manual recounts impossible.
HR 811, which has 216 co-sponsors, endeavors to fix all that, requiring voter-verified paper ballots in every precinct in the nation by the November 2008 election. It also mandates random audits of 3 percent of all precincts after national elections, requires retrofits to machines with reel-to-reel printers and spooled paper by 2012, and provides a paltry $1 billion for states to come into compliance.
Critics, including Utah election officials, voting machine vendors and national associations representing state, county and municipal officials say the bill tries to go too far too fast. They've unleashed a legion of lobbyists and a litany of complaints. Deadlines: unrealistic. The audit process: onerous. "Durable" paper ballot requirements: too restrictive. The pool of money to help states comply: grossly insufficient. Retrofits for existing machines: non-existent.
The bill is well-intentioned, and paper trails are a must, but you need only look to Utah to see why parts of the bill don't make sense.
Utah spent $27 million for 7,463 electronic voting machines just two years ago, and audits confirm that they work splendidly. Voters see their selections through a window on paper similar to a cash register tape. Election officials can unspool the tapes and perform manual recounts in the event of a memory chip failure.
But, as written, HR 811 would force the state to somehow modify its machines to print voters' selections on a sheet of paper that could be stuffed in a ballot box. In other words, they want us to fix machines that are not broken with equipment that does not exist. Congress needs to kill this bill and try again.
