Rush to Pass This Bill

The Nation

Currently, six states and a number of counties in 14 other states will be conducting completely unauditable elections in 2008. Shockingly, only about a dozen states will conduct audits. Holt's bill would reimburse jurisdictions that choose to implement voter-verified paper trails; help states move to an entirely paper-based system; and/or provide funding for audits of election returns.


The alternative? How many lessons do we need? The 2000 debacle alone should be enough to show the need for these changes. Want more? How about 2006, when 18,000 votes were lost by electronic voting machines in Florida's 13th Congressional District – in a contest decided by less than 400 votes. As a New York Times editorial put it, "The flaws of electronic voting machines have been thoroughly documented by academic studies and by voters' experiences. The machines are far too vulnerable to hacking that could change the outcomes of elections. They are also so prone to mechanical error and breakdown that there is no way to be sure that the totals they report are correct. In some cases, these machines have been known to "flip" votes -- award votes cast for one candidate to an opponent. The solution is for all votes to be recorded on paper records."

Rush to Pass This Bill