BY CHRIS GAETANO
Staff Writer
Rush Holt A new bill put forth by U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (12th District) would mandate that all electronic voting machines produce a voter-verified paper trail, but some critics have voiced concern over security and funding.
The bill itself, called HR811, was originally proposed and defeated by the Republican-controlled Congress last year. Holt reintroduced the bill at the beginning of this month to a government now dominated by members of his own party.
The bill, which weighs in at a hefty 47 pages, has as its centerpiece a requirement for all electronic voting machines in the country to either use or produce a paper hard copy of each vote put into the machine. How exactly this is done is left up to the individual voting district, though some examples set forth include a hand-marked optical card marked in addition to an electronic vote, a paper receipt printed by the machine itself, or a paper ballot already prepared by the voter beforehand. The paper copies would then be stored at the polling location.
Supporting this is another provision in the bill that demands there be at least one electronic voting machine that is accessible to people with handicaps at each polling station. While not explicitly stated in the text of the bill, this means that there will need to be at least one machine that can accommodate blind voters who, without such technology, are unable to vote without the assistance of at least one sighted person. Groups such as the National Federation of the Blind have taken positions against voter-verified paper trails in the past and have been fervent supporters of paperless voting, which has irked some concerned with voter security. A bill mandating both might be seen as a compromise of sorts.
Other highlights in the bill include $1 million set aside to study best practices for handicap-accessible voting, a total ban on Internet connections for all voting machines, and a requirement that all voting machine manufacturers¿ officers and directors not hold positions of authority in any political party or partisan political campaign. It is Holt’s belief that these measures will increase security in an age where more and more elections are determined with electronic voting machines.
“Until we require that voting systems produce a voter-verified paper ballot, the results of our elections will always be uncertain,” said Holt, who represents the 12th District in Central New Jersey.
“All Americans deserve to be confident that their vote will be counted, and it is my hope that the 110th Congress will act soon to pass legislation that will ensure elections are fair, accessible, and auditable.”
A costly adjustment
While some groups applaud Holt’s intentions to make electronic voting more secure, there are concerns among some about how much money such a measure will cost. While the bill will allocate about $300 million, which will be given to states so they can make the appropriate retrofits to their equipment, at least one organization thinks that sum may not be enough and that the bill risks becoming yet another unfunded federal mandate.
Bev Harris, the founder of Black Box Voting, an organization interested in voter integrity and security, estimates that such a large-scale retrofit of old equipment will require at least $1 billion. She based her calculations on a recent bid in New York City for new machines that work along the same lines that Holt’s bill would require the AutoMark, which produces both a voter-verified paper trail and is handicap-accessible. They cost about $7,000 each.
“There are 185,000 precincts in the U.S., so if you take just one machine in each precinct – some would have more – $7,000 times 185,000 is a lot. It’s more than he has offered in his bill. It’s also true that there’s some places that already have these AutoMark machines, but it’s nowhere near in the majority or even half the locations nationwide,” said Harris.
Another extra expense that Harris says could come with the legislation is the costs incurred if companies had to redesign certain elements of their machines in order to meet certification requirements. The bill says that there shall be no parts of a machine that have unknown functions, both in terms of hardware and software. They would need to be disclosed. However, some parts, such as chips, could be manufactured in places where the U.S. has no jurisdiction, and so the design would need to be redone.
“I can tell you right now, the counties do not have the money to run out and buy new voting machines, and I think that if the result of the election reform bill is replacement of voting machines that just got bought without funding it, the election officials of America will be up in arms and they simply won’t be able to afford it, and what they will have to do next is to close precincts,” said Harris.
According to Matt Dennis, Holt’s press officer, these concerns are already accounted for in the bill. For example, while every machine would need to be both handicap-accessible and have a voter-verified paper trail, it does not specifically demand that a particular machine or method be used. So if a cheaper option presents itself, like the technique of simply bringing a paper copy of one’s vote beforehand, there is no reason not to use it, he said.
“The legislation does not prescribe what technology is to be used,” said Dennis.
Meanwhile, in the event that there is some form of voter fraud, the paper copies are to take precedence over the electronic ones unless the paper can be proved in a court of law to have been tampered with.
The bill, which has 192 co-sponsors, is currently being examined in the House Committee on House Administration.