A New Jersey congressman introduced a bill Thursday in the House that would offer $600 million to voting districts across the nation that convert to paper ballots or put in audit systems in time for the November presidential election.
The bill, dubbed the Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008, seeks to fix what many critics fear is a potential problem with paperless electronic voting machines — a lack of voter-verified paper records.
The bill, to be introduced Thursday, would provide incentives for states to provide verified, audited balloting for the general election, but would not mandate standards for all states.
Voters in all or parts of 20 states, including New Jersey, now cast ballots electronically without backup paper verification, said New Jersey Rep. Rush Holt, who has sponsored the bill in the House.
"Millions of Americans will be voting on unreliable electronic machines without paper ballots. There will be questions that cannot be resolved because there is no way of determining a voter's intention. All you have is an electronic memory," said Holt, a Democrat.
Holt said he crafted the emergency bill because the House has not approved his earlier measure that mandated the use of backup paper ballots and audits in time for the presidential election.
There are no documented cases of election tampering involving electronic voting machines across the United States. But researchers in Ohio and Colorado found in tests that the machines could be corrupted with magnets or handheld electronic devices.
The New Jersey Legislature gave its Division of Elections until Jan. 1 to retrofit 10,000 electronic voting machines in the state with paper printers. But lab tests found flaws with the retrofitted printers, so the Attorney General declined to certify the newly configured machines and missed the deadline.
The Legislature then extended the deadline until June 3, meaning New Jerseyans will cast ballots in the Feb. 5 presidential primary without paper backup, and election officials won't be able to audit disputed election results.
Other states are also grappling with electronic voting.
In Ohio, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner wants counties that use electronic touch-screen machines to switch to an optical-scan system, where machines scan ballots filled out by voters.
In Colorado, lawmakers are discussing how to conduct November's election now that most of the state's electronic voting machines have been disqualified.
Source: AP News
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment