It is likely that the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on HR 811 during the last three days of May. This is Congressman Rush Holt’s bill to ban vote-counting machines that produce no paper trail. Congressman Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.) recently introduced a somewhat similar bill, HR 2360, to counteract HR 811. HR 811 would take effect before the November 2008 election, but HR 2360 would put off implementation until 2010.

Also, on May 25, U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Christopher Dodd introduced S1487, which also outlaws machines with no paper trail starting in 2010. It is co-sponsored by Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Patrick Leahy, Edward Kennedy, Dan Inouye, Robert Menendez, Sherrod Brown, and Bernie Sanders.