The Washington Monthly

November 16, 2003

VOTING MACHINE UPDATE....As I've mentioned before, I'm not much of a believer in conspiracy theories when it comes to electronic voting machines, but stuff like this could change my mind:

Legislation that could add voter-verified paper ballots to controversial touch-screen electronic voting machines remains stalled in a House committee, despite 61 cosponsors.

....The legislation, called the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003, introduced by Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) in May, would require that the machines, generically called direct recording electronic (DRE) machines, print out a paper record of each vote so the voter can make sure it is correct. The printed ballot would be stored at the polling place and used if a manual recount or an audit of the results is needed.

Although the bill has attracted 61 cosponsors — all Democrats — it is still in the House Administration Committee. The bill has yet to attract any Republican support, according to Holt's staff.

Conspiracy theories or not, no piece of technology is perfect and a paper trail is a good idea in case of software failure or a simple need to do a recount.

So why won't Republicans support this measure? This is the farthest thing from a partisan issue that I can imagine.

—Kevin Drum 6:14 PM Permalink | Trackbacks

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