"Paper trail" bill facing significant local opposition
by kos
Tue Sep 18, 2007 at 10:01:06 AM PDT
It ultimately comes down to "who will pay for the new voting machines"?
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team is being put to the test over a major election bill that has significant opposition within the Democratic Party.
The bill (HR 811), due on the House floor this week, would require a paper record of every vote cast nationwide beginning in 2008.
Passing it would allow the leadership to tick a big item off the party’s to-do list: Correcting ballot-counting issues that may have contributed to their presidential losses in 2000 and 2004.
“The perception of our elections is at stake,” said Tanya Clay House of People for the American Way, which has been pressing for a law that makes sure every vote cast leaves a paper trail for recounts.
The bill’s backers say a new federal law should be expedited so that the 2008 elections do not produce results like the disputed 2006 congressional race in Florida’s 13th District, where Democrat Christine Jennings says malfunctioning electronic voting machines might have contributed to her loss.
But local and state governments are not eager to be forced to make expensive purchases, with little money expected from Washington. Currently, 27 states have paper-trail requirements.
The CBO has been unable to calculate just how much this would cost local governments -- a legitimate concern, but it's likely to be less than a few days of the Iraq War. Funny how we can't afford to secure our democracy at home because we're trying to impose it by the barrel of a gun elsewhere.
It really is a no brainer. Lets spend the money necessary now to get the voting part of electioneering right. We've been doing this stuff nor a long time and still can't seem to get it right. Me thinks the two major parties don't want to get it right. A doofus award to each of them.
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