Support grows for federal paper ballot mandate
Thirteen members of the U.S. House of Representatives - including minority whip and coauthor of the Help America Vote Act, Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) - joined 207 of their colleagues during the month of September in cosponsoring H.R. 550, the "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act." With these new cosponsors, the legislation authored by Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) now claims of more than half of the House.
 H.R. 550 would require that any voting system used in an election for federal office generate a voter-verifiable, permanent paper record, which must be preserved and used as the official ballot of record in any recount or audit. Twenty-five states currently require some form of voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT). Sixteen states require that the paper record be used as the official ballot in any recount.
At a hearing on Sept. 28, Chairman Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.) of the House Administration Committee - quoting H.L. Mencken’s famous caution that "for every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong" - decried the rush to equate paper with integrity and security, pointing to the risks of low-tech fraud through ballot box stuffing, the challenges of accurately counting large numbers of paper ballots and the spectacle of hanging chads during the Florida paper ballot recount in 2000.
However, the standing-room-only audience of people mobilized by MoveOn.Org to attend the hearing wearing Got Paper? T-shirts served as a constant reminder of many voters’ lingering disbelief that even the most diligent security practices would be sufficient to repel a hacker intent on changing the outcome of an election.
Edward Felten, a professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs at Princeton University, demonstrated a method of introducing a computer virus into one of the more widely used electronic voting machines, the Diebold Accu-Vote TS. In response, Gary Smith, director of elections for Forsyth County, Ga., demonstrated the chain of custody documentation and other management practices that his county uses to prevent such introduction of malicious code into voting software.
Keith Cunningham, election director in Allen County, Ohio, testified that he is comfortable providing a paper printout "as a courtesy to the voter" but does not believe paper printouts should be the official record. He cited a recent recount in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where as many as 10 percent of the paper ballot printouts were compromised in some fashion even though votes could be retrieved from the electronic record. Many of the printouts appeared to have jammed in the printer; others were torn, taped together or otherwise appeared to have been damaged prior to the recount.
Regardless of their support or opposition to H.R. 550, every participant in the hearing urged the need for an ongoing federal commitment to improving technology standards and management practices to ensure the integrity of voting systems. Federal standards are still in their infancy, as an initial set of Federal Voting Systems Guidelines was not released until December 2005 and will not take effect until 2007.
In the meantime, counties have had no choice but to purchase new equipment to comply with the statutory standards of the Help America Vote Act; those that did not move forward are facing enforcement action by the Justice Department. According to Election Data Services, more than a third of voters are using new election equipment this year and less than a third are voting on the same equipment that they used prior to November 2000.
NACo continues to express concern that H.R. 550 and other bills under consideration - including one that recently passed the House and would require voters to demonstrate proof of identity and citizenship (H.R. 4844) - would have the effect of imposing one-size-fits-all unfunded mandates in an area of traditional county responsibility without commensurate federal funding or accountability.
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