Why Don't Election Officials Want You to Verify Your Vote?
By Barb Burt
Posted on Tue May 22, 2007 at 12:18:34 PM EST
http://www.GetItStraightBy2008.com
In 2000, this country experienced an election meltdown. In every federal election since, we have suffered through equipment malfunctions, administrative snafus, partisan manipulation, and more.
One of the biggest and most easily corrected threats to the integrity of our elections is the use of paperless electronic voting machines (DREs). These machines do not allow a voter to verify that her vote will be counted accurately, nor do they allow their totals to be checked through an acceptable audit procedure. Computer scientists in major universities across the country have decried the machines' lack of security. Yes, votes cast on these machines are hackable.
New Jersey Representative Rush Holt introduced a bill in May of 2003 that would have corrected these problems. From 2003 to 2006, the bill never made it out of the Republican-controlled Committee on House Administration, even though by 2006 a majority of House members had signed on, including scores of Republicans.
In May of 2007, the latest version of Holt's bill,
H.R. 811, passed out of committee. Election officials across the country instantly sprang into action -- AGAINST the bill. They claim that the deadline for changing to voter-verified paper ballots is too soon. But we ask -- can we go through another election without them?
New Mexico, North Carolina, Nevada, and West Virginia all converted their voting systems within a year. Many of their election officials claimed it couldn't be done in such a short time, yet--SURPRISE!--it was.
For heaven's sake, FLORIDA thinks it can be done -- they just passed a law to make it so.
Where there's a will, there's a way. Bureaucracy must not get in the way of democracy. Let's give Congress until July 4th to pass this legislation. That gives election officials in the fifteen states using all paperless DREs a full 16 months to prepare.
Are they telling us that they can't make such a critically important change--one that goes to the heart of their responsibility--in that length of time?
Jeez, it only took Thomas Jefferson two weeks to write the Declaration of Independence. We MUST get this straight by 2008.
Tags: voting machines, election reform (all tags)
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