"Emergency" Bill Tries to Make Electronic Voting More Accurate, But Will It?

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted April 3, 2008.

Efforts to improve the machinery that will count the 2008 presidential vote fell prey to a classic Washington compromise on Wednesday, when a House committee approved a bill giving money to both opponents and supporters of controversial paperless electronic voting systems.

The "Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008," or H.R. 5036, now goes to the House floor, where its goal is helping cities and counties create a "verifiable" paper trail and audits for individual votes cast for president and Congress.

But just how that paper trail is achieved is broadly defined in the bill. Opponents of paperless electronic voting can seek federal funds to buy paper ballot-based systems, where voters mark ballots by hand and computer scanners tally the result. Several states, notably California, Ohio and Florida, already are making this transition. Meanwhile, proponents of all-electronic voting can keep their machines but seek funds to add printers that theoretically will allow voters to see if their choices have been properly recorded.

Under the bill, jurisdictions can also federal money to buy back-up paper ballots for precincts outfitted with computer touch-screen voting machines. They also can seek funds for audits if they have a paper trail for every ballot castl. In that case, they would have to meet a minimum standard of hand counting at least 2 percent of the ballots cast. The audit's goal is to ensure the vote count is accurate.

"It will reduce the uncertainly, questions and disputes about the election in many places in our country," said Rep. Rush Holt, D-NJ and the bill's chief sponsor. "It is intended for counties to provide voter verified paper ballots and or audits. And although it does not establish a national standard [for a paper trail], it encourages counties and states to do the right thing. And that means offer voter verified paper ballots and audits."

Election integrity activists, who documented many problems with paperless, electronic voting systems and played a big part in convincing top officials in several states to return to paper ballot-based voting, were generally disappointed in the bill.

"I do not support any version of the HOLT bill or any other proposed bill that solidifies the continued use of DREs with printer," said Nevada's Patricia Axelrod, who has an extensive technical background, in an e-mail Wednesday. DRE, or direct recording equipment, is industry slang for the paperless voting systems.

"I am well-seasoned in the use of such machines as I battling against the Sequoia AVC Edge with Verivote printer now in use throughout the entire State of Nevada since 2004," Axelrod said. "I hasten to assure you that the attachment of a Mickey Mouse printer to a poorly designed, engineered and manufactured computer - one built to the same specifications as your average lap or desk top computer; only with less oversight - is not going to assure accurate and reliable elections."

"I do not support any legislation that perpetuates the myth of verified voting," said New Hampshire's Nancy Tobi, Election Defense Alliance legislative director. "The problem is the current bill is fundamentally wrong in its originating premise. Holt and his supporters believe the key is the audit, but the key is the first count. And the audits they recommend are not even audits. They are spot checks. So you have a fake audit for a fake election."

Holt acknowledged H.R. 5036 was a compromise bill. Activists following its progress in Washington said lobbyists for the disabled community, election officials and the voting machine industry pushed to preserve the use of DREs. The House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-MD, siding with those constituencies, apparently would not allow a bill on the House floor that said paper ballots were superior to paperless voting, they said. However, Holt said most election supervisors at the local level recognized that the paper-based optical-scan systems were more reliable and accurate than DREs with printers.

See more stories tagged with: rush holt, election 2008, electronic voting, h.r. 5036, emergency assistance for

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 »