On Thursday, hundreds of activists from around the country will gather in Washington, D.C., to lobby their congressional representatives in support of Rep. Rush Holt's H.R. 550, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005.

But in recent days, there has been some talk on the Internet that H.R. 550 is a flawed bill that will make the problems of elections worse, instead of improving them.

Pam Smith of VerifiedVoting.org has written a very complete and articulate rebuttal to this information. Here are two excerpts.

"Does HR550 Allow for Paper Ballots? The article implies that the Holt bill calls for a "direct recording electronic (DRE) machine + voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) printer" solution, which it does not. Nothing in HR550 precludes any town, county or state from using a paper ballot system, as such a system is inherently voter-verifiable. "

"In Holt's HR550, there is a specified percentage for the mandatory manual accuracy check... it is not intended to be a "limited recount" a la Gore v. Bush. HR550 mandates random audits in at least 2% of the precincts in each State, including at least one per county. The EAC may not pick and choose where it will conduct audits, nor of how great or small a portion of the state. What's more, the States may not select where those audits can be, and will not know where they will take place until after the initial vote tallies are done and reported. The bill insists that all precincts in a State "have an equal chance of being selected."

To read the entire rebuttal, go to http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.ph p?id=6348.

Common Cause is among the organizations sponsoring the lobbying efforts this Thursday and Friday. We believe that the Holt bill will help solve many of the problems causing voters to worry that their votes will not be counted as cast.