September 09, 2005

California Secretary of State: Election paper-trail bill should be vetoed

"As California's secretary of state, I see my top priority as ensuring voter confidence and the integrity of each vote. State law requires that after an election, officials randomly select and manually recount 1 percent of the ballots cast, as a check against voting machine malfunction and fraud. At issue is how to gather the voting records used for verification.

A Mercury News editorial Aug. 31 endorsed a bill, SB 370, that would require the sample recounts to use the paper printouts generated by electronic voting machines.

This bill is flawed and should be vetoed by the governor. It creates major technical and legal flaws that must be resolved before becoming law.

My biggest objection in using the paper trail to check voting machine performance is that it denies many in the disabled community the ability to have the same level of confidence in the process that all other voters enjoy."

You can read the complete op-ed piece here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at September 9, 2005 10:43 AM