Fiasco In FL -- 18,000 Missing Votes -- May Lead To Legislation Requiring Verifiable Paper Trails

[JABBS]

Click here to read more.

<snip>

Beyond the question of who won Florida's 13th Congressional District -- ironically, the seat vacated by Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) -- the buzz on Capitol Hill is that the missing votes give new meaning to what had been a theoretical debate about the reliability of touchscreen voting machines.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who is expected to become chairwoman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, plans to re-inroduce legislation requiring all voting systems to have verifiable paper trails.

With Democrats now in control of the Senate, there's a good chance the legislation should pass.

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Just get rid of the damn vapor vote machines

and if they must use optical scanners. A verified paper trail, verifies nothing. Everyone must get a paper ballot that can be recounted if necessary.

[mainegreen]

2. Can we override the veto I'm sure this faces?

[JABBS]

5. let bush veto it

he'll look like a fool, out of touch with mainstream America, and only help fuel the belief that republicans are in bed with diebold.

[question everything]

3. However, this may not have helped with the 18,000 missing votes

from http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2995230 (but was snipped)

A paper-trail law probably wouldn't have prevented the Sarasota mishap, where about 18,000 voters apparently didn't notice that they hadn't voted in the House race, even though a summary page at the end of the ballot flagged their oversight. A paper record would have carried the same information and could also have been ignored.

[Ravy]

4. If there is a verifiable paper trail, then perhaps the summary screen

should show when a race was missed or deleted.