Bill advocates paper ballots and audits

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Bill advocates paper ballots and audits

By ANGELA DELLI SANTI, Associated Press Writer
37 minutes ago

TRENTON, N.J. - A New Jersey congressman hopes to introduce a bill 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 Confidence in Voting 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.
(snip)

"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.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080117/ap_on_re_us/voting_machines

[DRoseDARs]

1. Dead-on-arrival, I'm sure...

The Republicans will throw a fit and the black-box lobby won't have any of it either. This will be a non-starter until we have a Dem president and a safe majority in both chambers of Congress. Maybe by the '10 election cycle we'll have some real progress on the matter.

[happygoluckytoyou]

2. BIG DICK FIRES BACK

counting votes? goddamn it... isn't it enough that we let the poor bastards think they are voting in the first place and now the goddamn legislators want to allow them to count the votes? well mister sit-on-your-ass middle america... the votes were 5 to 4... how many goddamn fingers do you need to audit the supreme court? and you still got a f*&^( finger to pick your nose with, f*&^( liberal sons-o-bitches.

[Matilda]

3. I can't recommend the system of hand-counted paper ballots highly enough.

Whatever flaws the Australian system has, the counting of ballot papers
isn't among them. Machines are used in some places only for the visually
impaired, and they are secure and have verifiable records. For the rest
of us, it's paper ballots and pencils (because ballpoints or pens can
run out of ink, or leak and ruin the ballot-paper).

The results are hand-counted by officers of the Australian Electoral
Commission, a statutory Government body that operates independently of
all politcal parties, and is responsible for the organisation of all
elections, Federal and State; for the registration of voters; and for
the counting of ballots. Counting is overseen by scrutineers, appointed
by each political party in every electorate in which it is fielding a
candidate, to check the tally and verify that the counting has been fair.

Whatever dirty tricks politicians get up to prior to the elections, and
there's never a shortage of those, we can generally feel very confident
that our votes are recorded and counted accurately. After reading about
the horrors of Diebold, this is something I've come to value very deeply,
and I hope our system stays the way it is.

[boricua79]

5. how I wish

you're system was in place in the United States.

Leader of the free world, indeed. The U.S.' democracy once stood for being at the vanguard of liberty and democratic thought. We lost that along the way.

[bemildred]

4. We need a paper trail and automatic random audits.

"Just like a business".

[L. Coyote]

6. Precinct hand count and report, county machine count to verify, two full counts

Restore FULL confidence NOW!

[fascisthunter]

7. Thank You!!! Big KICK! (nt)

[unapatriciated]

8. Here's my plea for paper ballots

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MxF4y9tSG08

[AllyCat]

9. Do not "hope". Do n/t

[ladjf]

10. That I agree with.

[Zorra]

11. Got to make it bulletproof, or republican corporate lawyers will

will render it ineffective.

[Heywood J]

12. That's a start.

Get the machinery in place on a voluntary basis, and then make it mandatory. Smart states will take the federal money and do it before they have to on their own tab.

Amendment XXVIII

Section 1. All elections for federal office conducted within the boundaries of the United States or its territories and dependencies shall be completed on simple paper ballots, able to be understood by a person of average intelligence. This shall also apply to the Electoral College.

Section 2. These ballots shall be counted by hand, each being examined simultaneously by volunteers from the public and representatives of all candidates concerned. A minimum of two counts shall be taken of all cast ballots, the second occurring no later than three weeks after the first and no earlier than one week. All counts shall be open to observation by anyone interested, including members of the public and journalists.

Section 3. No part of the election process shall at any time be concealed from the public. All ballots shall be securely retained after the election for a period of no less than ten years.

Section 4. No electronic devices of any kind shall come in contact with ballots, nor be used to tabulate or count results of any federal election. Electronic or computerized voting machines are forbidden in any form. The only exceptions to this section shall be for devices to assist disabled voters in completing ballots, or devices required to make ballots viewable to all for purposes of section two of this amendment.

Section 5. Election fraud, theft, tampering, disenfranchisement of legal voters, intentional manipulation of results, and conspiracy to commit the same, are hereby deemed high crimes and punishable by a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. No President or Governor shall have the power to pardon, grant clemency, or grant reprieve to anyone convicted of, or under investigation for these offenses. Allegations of crimes referenced in this article shall be investigated by a politically-independent prosecutor.

[maddogesq]

13. They have paper in Canada, right?

That country is only 25 miles away from where I sit. Sometimes I think about....oh never mind.