That Elusive Paper Trail
We're just over a year away from another presidential election, which means we're just over a year and a day away from more electronic voting machine mischief. The 110th Congress is trying to forestall that mischief, but some state and local officials aren't happy about the effort. From yesterday's Sacramento Bee:
Seeking to address concerns over the integrity of elections, a House panel is weighing controversial legislation requiring states to bring back the paper ballot as the official record.
Many, if not most, states are expressing concerns that Congress is moving too fast with pending legislation that would take effect in time for the 2008 national presidential elections, with primary balloting beginning in January.
Only 17 states have voter systems that would be in compliance with the proposed law.
...Only four state secretaries of state are backing the legislation to date, according to an aide to Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, the elections subcommittee chairwoman.
Why are state officials so concerned? Apparently for a couple of reasons. The first one is that most states paid a lot of money to get the electronic voting machines required under the last federal law. Most of those machines don't have the capacity for the paper trail being sought. The proposed bill would require yet another round of new machines and state officials fear that Congress is going to make this another unfunded mandate. They may be right: so far, Congress is only talking about budgeting $300 million for the states.
Another reason is the closeness of the election. Surveying and selecting the best system for each state takes time. Plenty of mistakes were made the last time around, mistakes that showed up in the last two elections. California Secretary of State Debra Bowen (who hasn't taken an official position on the proposed bill) is concerned that we'll just have a repeat in 2008 and the next Congress will be debating the same issue with new parameters in 2009.
While both concerns have some merit, having a decent and reliable election system is perhaps the most important function of a democracy and should take some kind of priority over other spending and administrative duties. Governor Charlie Crist of Florida, the state which started the whole voting system overhaul because of the 2000 debacle (repeated in some form every election thereafter), is committed to this ideal and is pushing his state legislature for a reliable paper system comparable to the federal proposal. Gov. Crist, a Republican, feels an optical scanner system with the paper ballot being the official ballot, will restore some integrity to the voting system.
If Congress doesn't fully fund the mandate (and they undoubtedly won't), the states will have to. They know this already and should be adjusting their budgets accoringly. State officials know which machines work and which don't, at least they should at this point if they've bothered to read their own newspapers. The research for the new machines should have already started.
State officials need to stop whining and start working on getting a new system in place. That's their job, and it looks like they're actually going to have to do it.
Seeking to address concerns over the integrity of elections, a House panel is weighing controversial legislation requiring states to bring back the paper ballot as the official record.
Many, if not most, states are expressing concerns that Congress is moving too fast with pending legislation that would take effect in time for the 2008 national presidential elections, with primary balloting beginning in January.
Only 17 states have voter systems that would be in compliance with the proposed law.
...Only four state secretaries of state are backing the legislation to date, according to an aide to Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, the elections subcommittee chairwoman.
Why are state officials so concerned? Apparently for a couple of reasons. The first one is that most states paid a lot of money to get the electronic voting machines required under the last federal law. Most of those machines don't have the capacity for the paper trail being sought. The proposed bill would require yet another round of new machines and state officials fear that Congress is going to make this another unfunded mandate. They may be right: so far, Congress is only talking about budgeting $300 million for the states.
Another reason is the closeness of the election. Surveying and selecting the best system for each state takes time. Plenty of mistakes were made the last time around, mistakes that showed up in the last two elections. California Secretary of State Debra Bowen (who hasn't taken an official position on the proposed bill) is concerned that we'll just have a repeat in 2008 and the next Congress will be debating the same issue with new parameters in 2009.
While both concerns have some merit, having a decent and reliable election system is perhaps the most important function of a democracy and should take some kind of priority over other spending and administrative duties. Governor Charlie Crist of Florida, the state which started the whole voting system overhaul because of the 2000 debacle (repeated in some form every election thereafter), is committed to this ideal and is pushing his state legislature for a reliable paper system comparable to the federal proposal. Gov. Crist, a Republican, feels an optical scanner system with the paper ballot being the official ballot, will restore some integrity to the voting system.
If Congress doesn't fully fund the mandate (and they undoubtedly won't), the states will have to. They know this already and should be adjusting their budgets accoringly. State officials know which machines work and which don't, at least they should at this point if they've bothered to read their own newspapers. The research for the new machines should have already started.
State officials need to stop whining and start working on getting a new system in place. That's their job, and it looks like they're actually going to have to do it.
Labels: 110th Congress, Election 2008
posted by Diane at 4:03 AM
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