Republican trio signs on to voter verification bill

[Timefortruth]

Three House Republicans signed on to co-sponsor a bill that would require a voter-verified paper trail for electronic voting machines. Rep. Thomas Davis (R-Va.), chair of the Government Reform Committee, joined Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Rep. Charles Bass (R-N.H.) as co-sponsors of legislation first proposed by Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.)
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Davis, Shays and Bass are the first Republicans to sign on to the bill, bringing the total number of co-sponsors to 74. Holt's office announced their participation late last week.

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"I am very pleased that my Republican colleagues have joined my effort to protect the future integrity of our elections," Holt said in a statement. "There's clearly momentum building in Congress and across the country to see this legislation pass."
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The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 would require:

* All voting systems to produce a voter-verified paper record for use in manual audits and recounts.

* All voting systems to meet these requirements in time for the general election in November 2004. Officials from jurisdictions that feel their new computer systems may not be able to meet this deadline may use an existing paper system as an interim measure -- at federal expense -- in the November2004 election.

* Electronic voting to be provided for persons with disabilities by January 1, 2006. Machines used by disabled voters must also provide a mechanism for voter-verification, though not necessarily a paper trail.

* Mandatory surprise recounts in a small number of jurisdictions.

The bill also calls for banning the use of undisclosed software and wireless communications devices in voting systems.

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http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/1124/web-evote-11-25-03.asp


This is a good sign, I hope it isn't a dupe.

Why aren't opitcal scan machines the standard? They seem to meet all the needs but no one talks about them.

[creativelcro]

1. they signed up weeks ago...

have not seen much movement since though...

[Skwmom]

2. What good is a paper trail

if the vote counting is done by the machines? If there was reliable exit polling done that would at least help to identify when a recount should take place (since we don't have that I don't understand how a paper ballot will help).