Senators Boxer and Dodd, along with Congressman Rush Holt, have offered a bill today titled the "Confidence in Voting Act of 2006," which would urge election jurisdictions to print sufficient paper ballots to cover machine malfunctions on Election Day, November 7th. As an incentive, the feds will pay the printing costs, up to 75 cents per ballot. In order to receive the reimbursement, the ballots would also be required to be available to any voter who wished to vote on paper rather than by machine.

Check this New York Times article, Senators Propose Funds for Paper Ballots to Back Up Electric Ones, for more info on the subject.

For this bill to go anywhere, it will take an immediate and immense groundswell of support from the public. Email this NY Times article to your friends and then call your senators and representative and tell them that this emergency bill is necessary! No more Marylands!

Note (Wednesday morning): I've just learned that Senator Feingold has signed on as a co-sponsor.