If we can take unverfied voting off the table for an issues, that will literally energize the base and get everybody on board for the same thing.

PFAW has an action item on this too Chris, maybe you can update the article with a link?

-C.

It's a great step in the right direction, which makes me suspect that Bush would veto this bill. Let's hope the votes are there for an override.

However, we also need to ensure that optical scanners count votes accurately (and don't deliberately miscount to make the margin look too big for a manual recount). If you make every 50 votes for candidate A count as 51 and every 50 votes for candidate B count as 49 you can swing a close election without raising red flags or triggering a recount that would reveal the discrepancy.

why aren't we threatening the nuclear option?

I posted about this at dailykos

and frontpaged it at calitics.

This is a huge concern in California, especially in my district Alameda County, which has had all kinds of problems.

THANKS CHRIS!

-C.

Backups do no good if they're never used, which they won't be unless the result is close enough to triger a recount. Better would be to require that the paper be the actual ballot. Whatever is recorded in the computers can be used for quick unofficial tallies, but then the paper ballots should always be counted (probably using optical scan).

Effectively, the electronic machines would be ballot printers that help people through the process of completing a ballot, not voting machines that actually register the official vote. Even better, the huge lines that result from shortages or malfunctions of machines (which amazingly tend to concentrate in urban areas) could be avoided by allowing people to fill in ballots manually if there's a problem. Setting up extra voting stations is cheap and easy if all they require is a pencil and a privacy shield of some sort.

I think Holt's bill is now dated.  

1.  DRE's still have all sorts of problems. you only go to the paper trail if there is a close enough vote.  Therefore just steal big enough not to trigger a recount and going to the paper trail.

2.  DRE's are expensive.

3.  DRE's take too much time to vote on and therefore cause very long lines which can deprive people of the right to vote.  It took me 3-4 times longer to vote and then check that my votes actually showed up on the itty bitty, teeny weeny, slapdash, no bigger than a cash register receipt piece of paper in the DRE.

4. The paper receipts have highly vulnerable storage areas on most of the machines I have seen5

5. They need electricity and lots of it.  School cafeterias don't have enough power. They not only could stop working if there's a power problem, but they could lose the votes that are cast.

6.  They are too complicated for most poll workers, esp the large group pf elederly who frequently man the polls.

7. The software is still proprietary.  And can be hacked  into.  

So we here in NY are trying to go for Paper ballot optical scan in terms of the HAVA bill. But frankly the old lever machines we have had are basically fabulous, except for parts and wear and tear.  They are easy to use.  They are hackproof.  They are fast.  They don't take up too much space.  They are quick to count.  And the reason I have been told that we have to switch is that HAVA mandates ELECTRIC machines.  

Even the Verified Voting activists here in NY would be real happy to just keep and fix our old lever machines.

So I think Holt's bill should do everything to get rid of DRE's, promote Paper Ballots Optical Scan and let us go back to out oldfashioned but best lever machines.