New Holt Bill Introduced -- Advocates Paper Ballots and Audits (including 100% hand-counted)

[demodonkey]

Bill Advocates Paper Ballots and Audits
By ANGELA DELLI SANTI

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey congressman introduced a bill Thursday in the House that would offer $600 million to voting districts across the nation that convert to paper ballots or put in audit systems in time for the November presidential election.

The bill, dubbed the Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008, seeks to fix what many critics fear is a potential problem with paperless electronic voting machines — a lack of voter-verified paper records.

The bill would provide incentives for states to provide verified, audited balloting for the general election, but would not mandate standards for all states.

Voters in all or parts of 20 states, including New Jersey, now cast ballots electronically without backup paper verification, said New Jersey Rep. Rush Holt, who has sponsored the bill in the House.

MORE HERE:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hM24D2P_dBmIDGu_u_mPKthDHpGQD8U841PG0

[demodonkey]

1. Bill prods states to drop paperless voting machines

Friday, January 18, 2008
By Karamagi Rujumba, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

{SNIPPED)

The bill, called the Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008, would reimburse state and local jurisdictions if they change their systems before the November balloting, said Rep. Rush Holt, sponsor.

Voters in all or parts of 20 states now cast ballots electronically without backup paper verification, Mr. Holt said. "Millions of Americans will be voting on unreliable electronic machines without paper ballots," he said. "There will be questions that cannot be resolved, because there is no way of determining a voter's intention. All you have is an electronic memory. This plan provides an incentive for states or localities that want to do the right thing."

(SNIPPED)

Mr. Holt's new bill does not mandate states to change their voting systems. "It simply provides an incentive for states that want to make changes," Holt spokesman Zach Goldberg said.

"This is wonderful legislation, and it's very important for Pennsylvania," said Marybeth Kuznik, executive director of VotePA, a voting rights group. "We have a number of counties that would like to update their machines but don't have the money to do it."

MORE HERE:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08018/850251-176.stm

[demodonkey]

2. New York Times: Congressmen Push for Paper Ballots

Congressmen Push for Paper Ballots

By Ariel Alexovich
January 17, 2008, 5:16 pm

Both New Hampshire primary elections are going to be recounted, since Dennis J. Kucinich has put up $27,000 to get the Democratic recount started, and Albert Howard (who was on the New Hampshire Republican ballot) has donated $56,000 to re-tally the Republican vote.

But the only reason these elections can even be recounted is because voting precincts in New Hampshire use paper ballots. And now some folks on Capitol Hill want to make it easier for other states to switch to non-electronic voting systems before the November election.

Rush Holt, a Democratic representative of New Jersey, introduced new legislation today that would reimburse all state and local jurisdictions that opted to convert to a paper ballot voting system, offer emergency paper ballots or convert audits by hand counts.

Speaking at a news conference in Washington this afternoon, Mr. Holt said there’s still time to make sure the 2008 presidential election doesn’t see the same voting controversy as happened in Florida in 2006, when some 18,000 electronically recorded ballots were marked “no vote,” and there was no accounting for what happened.

This bill, called the Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008, is a modified version of a bill Mr. Holt introduced last year that would have required a voter-verified paper ballot for every vote cast, in addition to random auditing. Since that more all-encompassing bill is still awaiting the House floor, Mr. Holt introduced this one, which moves from a paper ballot mandate to a paper ballot enticement.

“Those counties, those states that want to do the right thing for their voters will be able to do it with this incentive,” Mr. Holt said.

MORE:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/congressmen-push-for-paper-ballots/

[kster]

3. $600 million, would help out many college kids with their tuition cost..

Ohio's Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has proposed a two-week window for voting. We think three days should suffice. They should be the Friday, Saturday and Sunday nearest to November 11, Veteran's Day. The polls should be staffed by high school and college students, who will then be given that Monday off to count the paper ballots.

The current demand for electronic tabulating has no basis other than the demand by the media for quick results and the demand for great profits (at public expense) by the companies who make these easily hackable machines.

We believe the American public can wait for election results to be accurate and reliable. We also see in this a great civics lesson for our young people. And a reliable way to get a true, democratic outcome from our most critical means of keeping the government accountable and under public control.

Universal voter registration, a ban on electronic voting machines and the requirement for hand-counting of paper ballots can all be done with simple legislation. The three-day voting process is more complex. The requirement that we vote the first Tuesday after November's first Monday is embedded in the Constitution. Changing that would require a Constitutional Amendment. (Voting on Saturday through Tuesday, with vote counting on Wednesday---a five-day process---would not).

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12181

[Yellow Horse]

4. A College Education Won't be worth much in a Fascist Theocracy with endless STOLEN ELECTIONS.

If you can get some county or state to choose them, this bill will even pay for your precious 100% hand counted paper ballots that you endlessly never shut up to us about -- and still you are knocking it???

ARE YOU NUTS or do you just LIKE failed elections?

A person is either part of the solution or they are part of the problem. Please -- either help with a realistic solution like this bill, or get the hell out of the way.

[kster]

5. Welcome to the DU

:hi:

[Yellow Horse]

6. Thanks -- but I have been here since 2004

This place was really productive then.

Sorry, but it was. And it's not now -- at least not as productive as it could be.

[Bill Bored]

13. Wasn't kster sent by DU Mods to kill the ER forum?

What other explanation can there be?

[Bill Bored]

12. Blah, blah, blah. Read the fucking bill, will ya? nt

[Yellow Horse]

17. Yes Indeed. READ THE BILL or shut the hell up. nt

:puke:

[demodonkey]

7. Self-kick. HR 5036 is an IMPORTANT BILL that warrants our attention and support.

We finally have something on the that that will pay to get rid of DREs and even actually pay for HAND-COUNTED PAPER BALLOTS, and audits -- and on top of all it even has the support of NACo.

PAY ATTENTION, people, please. This is something we can and should all be rallying around.

[philly_bob]

8. Election reformers divided on last Holt bill. Is there unanimity on this one?

Or will it be another "good but not good enough" versus "best we can do" dispute?

My position, this late, is "best we can do" support for this bill.

[demodonkey]

16. If there is not, there should be. Supporting this bill is a no-brainer, pure and simple.

THIS IS OUR LAST, BEST CHANCE STILL POSSIBLE TO REALISTICALLY GET ANYTHING AT ALL DONE TO PROTECT 2008.

At this point every single county, every single vote that it protects, is one to the good. Opposing it just plain makes no sense.

I'm so tired of these worthless "disputes".

Let's get SOMETHING done to protect some votes.

[EFerrari]

9. I'm sorry I was too late to rec.

:kick:

[Fly by night]

10. This bill is a God(dess)-send for Tennessee. I hope they pass it yesterday.

We're still holding out hope for de-certifying our DREs for '08.

Long shot, but hey, aren't they all?

[Bill Bored]

11. It's ironic that Nancy Tobi and the other "wackos" got everything THEY wanted

in a Holt bill (which ain't much), while those of us who wanted a really good Holt bill were told in effect to shut the fuck up and go write our own damn bills.

That said, this bill seems to do no harm, and could move some counties or even states in the right direction, so it's supportable.

Now all they have to do is get a couple of houses of the good old US Congress to go along with it.

Meanwhile, anyone can still hack those central tabulators whether there are paper ballots or not.

But sure, this bill is OK as far as it goes. Tell your Critter to support it as part of a more comprehensive solution.

[2 Much Tribulation]

14. This bill funds "emergency" paper ballots with DREs for almost all votes, as 1 option...

There are other options, but the counties get to make the choices, and you may find many going for the very unsavory option above where activist votes from both parties who are critical of e-voting all run off the cliff like lemmings into emergency paper ballots which will then not be counted on election night, and in worse jurisdictions, they won't even start counting for days later on the emergency paper ballots. This happened in CA in 2006 where they had "emergency" paper ballots also available upon request of voters.

[demodonkey]

15. Emergency Paper Ballots are NOT "unsavory". THEY ARE ESSENTIAL!

As a Judge / Inspector of Elections in a paperless DRE county, I know how easily these machines can go down. My county already had an election where every single one of our 700-plus ES&S machines was misprogrammed as to the date of the election. And voters were disenfrachised because of it. Now we DO have emergency paper ballots, as should every county that still uses DREs.

Emergency paper ballots, on hand for use when the DREs fail is a no-brainer. The alternative is that when machines go down many voters will go away disenfrachised, unable to vote then or to come back later. Paper ballots, on hand only for use in the case of machine failure so that these voters can have their right to vote preserved, and counted THE SAME as any other ballot (all of which is IN THE BILL -- read it!) is a no-brainer.

But then, sadly, a lot of so-called election integrity activists seem to have no brains lately. And they can't -- or won't -- open their eyes and read before they open their mouth and speak.

SUPPORT HR 5036.