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Are you one of the 35 million?

By Barb Burt
Posted on Fri May 25, 2007 at 05:30:42 PM EST

This afternoon, Senator Feinstein introduced legislation to address the risk posed by paperless electronic voting machines, which are still deployed in 18 states. Feinstein's bill, The Ballot Integrity Act of 2007, will require voting systems to produce voter verified paper records. In the event of a machine breakdown, votes will not be lost and voters are not disenfranchised.

Common Cause applauds Senator Feinstein for her effort to correct these grave problems. Unfortunately, her legislation does not require states to change their voting systems in time for the 2008 presidential election. More than 35 million voters will vote on unverifiable, unauditable, paperless voting machines in 2008 if this is not corrected.

Pennsylvania, which has a mixture of voting equipment, much of it paperless, is expected to be a hotly contested "swing" state in 2008, and will have unverifiable elections if not forced to change to equipment in time for the election. Common Cause deplores the possibility that the country may have to suffer once again through a controversial presidential election.

We urge Senator Feinstein to amend her bill to reflect the necessities of the coming 2008 elections and require that corrections be in place by then.

Many other fine election reforms in the bill are slated to be in place by 2008. Common Cause believes that the standard should be set higher; all of the reforms--including that of voter verified paper records and audited elections--should be ready to go by November, 2008.

U.S. voters deserve to experience an election in this decade in which they feel confident that each individual vote was counted and reported accurately. Voter patience and trust are quickly waning. It's time to get it straight by 2008.


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Are you one of the 35 million? :: 1 Comment

Paper Ballots

I am suprised and disappointed that Comon Cause continues to support legislation that calls for paper trails with electronic voting machines. It shows a profound naivete of computer programming.

I would strongly suggest that anyone reading this post and this comment review a brief video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjFHNfKWkCs

I would also advise Common Cause staff to take a look.

Our elections will not be secure until we return to paper ballots and hand counting at the precinct level. Just because a technology exists does not mean that we have to use it—or that it constitutes an improvement over more traditional methods.

by nellie on Sun May 27, 2007 at 02:19:28 PM EST


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