Last week's elections had many examples of voting problems -- none more glaring than the serious issues in Florida's 13th Congressional District with 18,000+ not showing up. There is legislation to address the problem and it already has enough support to pass in the House. The Democrats should include this bill (HR 550) in the first 100 hours plan, or at least the 2nd 100 hours. Let the GOP be on the wrong side of clean elections if they don't like it:
Wexler and Holt hope the new leadership in Congress and the latest Florida example will prompt passage of their legislation, which has 218 co-sponsors.I've only voted on a touch screen once. I found it really disconcerting. No record. Nothing. I just pushed the button and had to believe that my vote would be counted.
The legislation would require states, cities and counties to provide a verifiable paper audit system. The new system would require random audits of voting machines, with software available for inspection to prevent tampering.
"Because we don't have it, Florida once again finds itself electorally up in the air," Holt said.
"There's no way to capture what the voters' intentions were in race after race," he said, citing evidence of at least one machine in New Jersey that counted votes twice and of machines in Pennsylvania that reportedly changed the candidates that were selected by voters.
Today's NY Times has an editorial, "Counting the Votes, Badly" on the subject of election reform.
