Officials Call For Electronic Voting Paper Trail: Rep. Holt

[KittyWampus]

This is a story about 3 weeks old. However, it's good to know who is doing what on the issue of Election Reform.

http://www.app.com/app/story/0,21625,1142816,00.html

Officials call for electronic voting paper trail


On a day when the Electoral College met to formally cast its votes for president, Rep. Rush D. Holt, D-Hopewell, and Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, D-Mercer, joined activists to call for more technology to make sure every ballot is counted.

"Voting is the central act of our democracy," Holt said at a Statehouse news conference Monday. "If the process itself is in question . . . our ability for moving forward is in jeopardy."

Holt has proposed federal legislation to mandate that all voting machines produce paper records of the tally to ensure a fair recount. Gusciora is sponsoring similar legislation on the state level.

Introducing such a system would cost New Jersey between $5 million and $7 million, not counting the costs directly to counties, according to the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services. OLS did not have an estimate of the local costs.

The Rev. Robert Moore, executive director of the Coalition for Peace Action, called on Attorney General Peter C. Harvey to require that all of New Jersey's electronic voting machines produce paper records.

"We are very concerned that the election system in New Jersey and America is broken," Moore said.

The coalition said there were 2,738 New Jersey voting incidents reported to an election hotline this past November. More than 3.6 million of the 5 million registered voters in New Jersey voted in the 2004 presidential election.

Markus Green, chief of staff for the Office of the Attorney General, said he recognizes that a "paper trail" could boost voter confidence but said the office is waiting for legislation to run its course.

"We have machines in New Jersey that have worked without fail," Green said. "We would hate to introduce new technology without thoroughly looking at all the options."

But Holt said Nevada successfully used machines that produced paper records the past election.

Moore said Harvey has not been receptive to the idea of paper voter verification.

"I'm afraid there's a little bit of putting your head in the sand," Moore said.

In all, 16 of New Jersey's 21 counties use electronic voting machines, including Burlington, Gloucester, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Morris, Somerset and Union counties. There are a total of 7,794 electronic machines in those counties.

It would cost $500 to fit each one with the ability to give printed records, but Gusciora said that could be covered with federal money.

[ClarkUSA]

1. Too bad Rush Holt didn't bother standing in challenge yesterday...

VERY disappointing.

[KittyWampus]

3. As Is Your Post.

[SnoopDog]

2. Paper audit trails are nice - but is still is who counts the votes...

We need a non-partisan public counting of ballots...