Here's an update from Susannah Goodman, who spent the afternoon in the committee room:
Hooray! I just came back from the House Longworth building where the House Administration Committee passed an amended version of HR 811, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007 out of the Committee by vote of 6 to 3.
A HUGE THANK YOU to all of you who have supported this effort with your calls, letters, articles, editorials, thoughts and words and financial support. THIS IS YOUR VICTORY. There is no way we could have gotten this far without you!
Although we still have a long way to go - the bill still needs to pass the House Floor and then needs to go through the whole process in the Senate - this is a great start. This is a great day for verifiable elections.
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Voting for final passage of the bill were Representatives Brady (D-PA), Lofgren (D-CA), Capuano (D-MA), Gonzales (D-TX), Davis, Susan (D-CA) and Davis, Artur (D-AL). The three votes against final passage were Representatives McCarthy (R-CA), Ehlers (R-MI) and Lungren (R-CA).
As amended the bill would:
-Require all voting systems to produce a voter verifiable paper record by November 2008. (Voting systems with thermal reel to reel paper would have to replace that paper by 2010 with durable paper.)
-Require states to conduct mandatory, random, automatic audits in 3% of precincts comparing electronic tallies to paper records
- Authorize $1 billion to replace or retrofit equipment so that it complies with the mandates of the legislation. -Mandate that voting system software be available for inspection. (Once we get the actual text of the bill we will be sure to post it.)
The Committee met and considered the bill for a long but dramatic 4 hours and 45 minutes. These were some of the highlights:
- Props to Activists! In her opening remarks supporting the bill, Representative Zoe Lofgren directed her staff to move the 5 boxes full of activist petition signatures in favor of HR 811 to a table in the middle of the room. She then noted that those signatures represented at least one for every single precinct in the country. Thanks to all who signed petitions! Your signatures were a dramatic centerpiece!
- A number of amendments were offered by the three Republicans on the committee which would have relaxed the deadlines in the bill, gutted the software disclosure provisions, or otherwise weakened the bill. These were all voted down along party lines.
- Representative McCarthy (R-CA) offered an amendment to require a photo ID provision, and this elicited vocal opposition for Representative Artur Davis from Alabama and a very emotional soliloquy from Representative Capuano who said he had not seen this type of attempt to curtail civil liberties since the pogroms of Nazi Germany. If there were any doubts that Representative Capuano was not a passionate true believer all those fears were laid to rest today.
All in all, we have come such a long way. Rep. Lofgren proved to be a knowledgeable, competent leader. (As chair of the Election Subcommittee - she was the chief shepherd of the bill and she did a commendable job.) Onto the full House now!
