Updated: Dems demand paper trail for all e-voting machines!

Posted by Joshua Holland at 5:54 AM on February 7, 2007.

This is from the Courier-Post (NJ) [via MYDD]:

With Democrats controlling Congress, Rep. Rush Holt says he's optimistic about achieving his longstanding legislative priority this year -- requiring electronic voting machines to have paper backups so election results can be verified.

The Hopewell Township Democrat plans to reintroduce his paper-backup bill on Monday with 150 Democratic and Republican co-sponsors. Garden State lawmakers -- all Democrats -- who've signed on to the bill are Reps. Frank Pallone, Donald Payne, Bill Pascrell, Rob Andrews and Steve Rothman.

A total of 222 House Democrats and Republicans co-sponsored a similar bill Holt introduced in the previous Congress, when Republicans were in the majority, but it went nowhere. The legislation is widely expected to become law, with Democratic leaders tending to favor requiring a paper trail, analysts say.

Chris Bowers adds:

Holt already had a majority in favor of this bill in the previous Congress, even though Republicans were in power. The problem was he could not get the bill to reach the floor for a full-vote. Given that Democrats took 30 seats in the last election, and that Republican House unity is failing badly, this time it will pass the House without any problems. A veto proof majority is quite possible.

The grass-roots' work will be done in the Senate, where Republican obstructionism may prove to be a hurtle. In the last Congress, a companion bill (PDF) was offered by Chris Dodd, and co-sponsored by Barbara Mikulski, Debbie Stabenow, Jay Rockefeller and Chuck Schumer.

Update: I'm not sure I agree with this, but I offer it as another perspective.

Tagged as: election08, voting machines

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.