Will House Leaders Duck Debate on Electronic Voting Compromise?

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted September 17, 2007.

The House is expected to vote on a bill regulating electronic voting machines for the first time this week. However, it is unclear if the Democratic leadership will allow debate on a key amendment to limit the controversial touch-screen voting equipment to one machine per precinct.

"I don't have an answer for you," Nadeam Elshami, deputy communications director for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said late Friday, when asked whether Democratic leaders will allow the amendment proposed by Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif., to come before the House. "I have no way of knowing. This is a comprehensive bill. This is a process that is moving."

The bill, H.R. 811, or the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007, would regulate electronic voting systems for the first time by imposing new security, vote verification and audit requirements for their use. The bill would not ban paperless voting machines as many election integrity activists have wanted, but require a paper printout of each vote cast to be reviewed by voters before being electronically counted.

Whether the "direct recording electronic" (DRE) voting systems and that paper trail can be trusted has been a focus of debate surrounding the bill since it was introduced last winter. However as H.R. 811 has moved through committees, there have been recent developments outside Washington that bolster critics who say DRE systems are too insecure and unreliable for use in elections.

Most notably, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen commissioned a study by University of California computer security experts who found DREs had major design and security flaws that could not stop people from potentially accessing and tampering with vote counts. While many California county election directors dismiss that scenario, Bowen's comprehensive review reached the same conclusion as more limited academic and government studies elsewhere in the country. Just last week, North Carolina's News and Observer reported that hackers unsuccessfully tried to access voter registration data in Johnston County.

In August, Bowen decertified all DREs machines for use in California and then conditionally recertified differing makes and models if they implemented varying security standards. Part of that ruling was allowing only one DRE per precinct for people with disabilities, to satisfy accessibility laws and because some disability lobbyists have praised their ease of use. Bowen also allowed DREs for early voting before Election Day. She said isolating the machines would not fully preclude their use but prevent corrupting overall vote counts.

Rep. Davis' amendment would similarly restrict the use of the machines to one per precinct across the country, although DRE machines could also be used for early voting. Like Bowen's directive, the impact of the amendment, if adopted, would shift most precinct-based voting to paper ballots marked by people and counted by optical scanner computers. Some states, notably New Mexico, Florida and Connecticut have already made this transition, while others, like California, are now doing so.

However, on Friday, Rep. Davis and her co-sponsors were not confident that the House Democratic leadership -- notably Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, would allow the amendment to be debated when the bill emerges from the Rules Committee this week. In the House, the Rules Committee sets parameters for floor debate, including whether amendments can be offered.

"The Davis amendment strikes a fair balance between putting an end to widespread use of DREs in federal elections and ensuring that, if no better alternative is truly available, that such machines will only have a very limited use for people with disabilities," said Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-NY, a co-sponsor, in an email received Friday.

"The potential for manipulation of national elections with the use of touch-screen machines is much too serious for this Congress to allow their continued use -- let alone to encourage additional states to convert to DREs," he said. "Regrettably, the Democratic leadership was still unwilling to allow the Davis amendment to be considered before the full House."

"That's a shame, because this is an important issue about which many voters are justifiably concerned," he said. "I'm deeply disappointed that we won't even have the opportunity to have an open debate about the merit of these very dangerous touch-screen devices."

Critics of DREs say without the Davis amendment, H.R. 811 would allow the continued use of problematic DRE voting systems, instead of helping election officials transition to a better alternative. However, local election administrators have been the bill's most effective critics in Congress, saying they have worked for years to make DRE systems work after the Help America Vote Act of 2002, or HAVA, encouraged them to replace computer punch-card systems.

Two of their leading trade associations, the Election Center and the National Association of Counties, launched media campaigns in Beltway publications that other lobbyists say have delayed the bill's consideration in the House. Meanwhile outside Washington, there have been numerous political developments and news reports that continue to highlight problems with DRE voting systems.

In recent months, a number of states -- notably California, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania -- have been experiencing trouble certifying DRE machines for use, leaving some counties unclear on what voting systems will be used in fall elections or upcoming presidential primaries. Indiana fined one manufacturer $350,000 for installing uncertified software for an election last year. In Kentucky, the attorney general found Louisville had been using uncertified software for the past three election cycles. A Florida report confirmed many known problems, a finding that California also reached. And the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, created by HAVA to oversee elections, found software problems that lead to machines being decertified in Pennsylvania. These are just some examples cited by lobbyists who support the Davis amendment.

See more stories tagged with: congress, democrats, nancy pelosi, election reform, holt bill, h.r. 811

Steven Rosenfeld is a senior fellow at Alternet.org and co-author of What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election, with Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman (The New Press, 2006).

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »