On July 1, U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Robert Bennett (R-Utah) introduced S. 3212, to mandate an audit trail for vote-counting machines in federal elections. See this press release. Thanks to Rick Hasen.
Senator Feinstein already had a bill pending on this subject, S. 1487. But it didn’t have a Republican co-sponsor, and had not made any headway. The new bill is expected to have a hearing in August.
GOOD IDEA HOPE THIS FLIES
Paper mail ballots NOW.
Oregon continues to survive with ONLY paper mail ballots.
If necessary, then count paper mail ballots by human eyeballs ONCE (perhaps a ballot JURY) – NO appeals, NO recounts.
Too difficult for E-voting MORONS.
Wasn’t it by Federal mandate and financial incentive that we got into this e-voting mess in the first place?
This is just another step down the wrong road.
Repeal all this nonsense and let each state make its own rules, though obviously without allowing violations of the constitution and bill of rights.
#3 2000 Bush v. Gore TOTAL EVIL MESS by the ENTIRE rotted Florida regime — legislative, executive and judicial.
Result – the band-aid Fed HAVA law by the gerrymander Congress.
Get ready for a quite possible 269-269 TIE in the timebomb Electoral College — to possibly make 2000 seem like the good old days.
Given that all the electronic voting machines have been shown to be readily hackable (Check out Ed Feltons Freedom to tinker website – I forget the URL, but GIYF…)
I am of the opinion that the only appropriate way that electronics should be involved is if you have a machine that generates a HUMAN READABLE PAPER BALLOT, which is collected and used for the actual count – Possibly with an electronic counter that is then spot checked against an actual ballot box.
That way, the voter can verify that the vote cast by the machine is what was intended, and there is a definite paper backup of each vote that is cast so that recounts and checks on machine accuracy are possible.
I am fortunate that this is currently the way that elections are run in our town….
ART
Can a voter reliably check his ballot if it only lists who he voted for, and not also who he didn’t vote for. That is, aren’t more errors of the type “Oops! I meant to vote for Jones instead of Smith” more readily detected that “I didn’t mean to vote for Smith”. If so, then the machine-generated ballot would be a facsimile of a ballot, in which case aren’t you better off with a paper ballot in the first place?
What if the paper ballots don’t match the electronic results? How do you reconcile them?
How did the U.S.A. manage to survive from 1776 to the 1890s with ONLY paper ballots counted by human eyeballs ??? — along with some FELON ballot box stuffing and stolen votes.
The New Age of EVIL —
the old rigged mechanical voting machines,
the old rigged punch card ballots — think the infamous Bush v. Gore election in Florida in 2000
the latest and greatest new rigged E-voting machines.
If necessary, then assemble ALL able bodied adults to do the counting in shifts — perhaps 1 hour each — oh so difficult.
Sorry – Democracy takes *SOME* actual work — regardless of ALL of the EVIL monsters who love rigged and hacked voting machines.