September 07, 2007
Election Reform Goes Back To The Drawing Board
Seven years after the contentious 2000 presidential election prompted federal and state officials to enact sweeping reforms, lawmakers are now considering a return to the traditional paper ballots that yielded all those pesky hanging and pregnant chads in Florida.
Why the backtrack? Most of the reforms that came out of the 2000 fiasco centered on new electronic voting systems that were supposed to solve the problems caused by antiquated paper ballots. But it didn't take long before e-voting began to pose just as many problems -- if not more -- than its pulpy predecessor.
Federal reforms did not require electronic voting systems to have a paper trail or be monitored by audits, a shortcoming that was criticized by many experts. Technical difficulties, concerns about fraud and questions surrounding the maker of most e-voting systems have some officials worried that the public no longer has faith in the voting process.
"I shudder to think what would happen with another election where millions of Americans don't believe the results," Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., told AP. Holt is sponsoring a new bill that would require voter-verified paper ballots and random audits for all national elections beginning next year, when Americans go to the polls to select their next president. The legislation would appropriate $5 billion to help make the transition.
The proposal has already garnered fierce criticism from state and local election officials and e-voting manufacturers. And while most lawmakers agree that further reform is needed, not everyone is convinced a return to paper is the way to go -- at least not by next year.
Some Democrats raised objections to the bill earlier this week, stalling an expected vote on it in the House Rules Committee. But after some negotiations, Democratic leaders on the panel say they now expect to pass the measure early next week; most Republicans are opposed to it, as is the National Association of Counties, CongressDaily (subscription) reports.
If the measure does push through the full House, it still has an uphill battle in the Senate.
