The mission of the Oregon Voter Rights Coalition is to restore public ownership and oversight of elections, and to ensure the fundamental right of every American citizen to vote and to have each vote counted as intended in a secure, transparent, impartial, and independently verified election process.
Paper-records debate hits Hill
Submitted by Deb on Sat, 03/24/2007 - 9:58am.
Fri, Mar. 23, 2007
Florida governor among those testifying before House panel on voting measure
By DUANE MARSTELLER
dmarsteller@bradenton.com
Bradenton Herald
Gov. Charlie Crist, election-reform advocates and a voting-machine specialist are among the witnesses set to testify today before a congressional committee considering a bill to require paper records for electronic voting machines.
Missing from the witness list: Representatives of the companies that make the machines, like the ones at the heart of the disputed 13th Congressional District race.
The House Administration Committee hearing is on a bill by Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., that would require all electronic voting machines to use paper ballots or record each vote on paper. It also would require each polling place to have at least one voting machine accessible to those with disabilities.
Holt first proposed the bill last year but it was defeated in the Republican-controlled Congress. He reintroduced it earlier this year, after about 18,000 ballots cast on Sarasota County's touch-screen voting machines had votes in other races but not the congressional contest between Vern Buchanan and Christine Jennings.
State officials certified Buchanan the winner by a scant 369 votes, a margin so slim it triggered two recounts.
Jennings maintains the machines lost those votes and is suing for a new election. She also has filed a contest with the committee that is conducting today's hearing.
While the 13th District dispute is expected to come up at the hearing, neither Buchanan nor Jennings plans to be there, their offices said Thursday.
Buchanan isn't going because the bill isn't specific to his district or Florida, spokeswoman Sally Tibbetts said. She also noted the Holt bill is among several election-reform proposals floating around Congress, and that Buchanan hasn't taken a public stance on any of them because it's still early in the legislative process.
Jennings has made numerous trips to Washington to advocate her cause but will be in the district today, spokesman David Kochman said.
"It's certainly an issue that is very important, not only to us but the entire country," he said. "We're hopeful that this hearing brings the entire country one step closer to more fair and accurate elections."
Crist is expected to talk about his $32.5 million proposal to replace touch-screen voting machines or upgrade them to produce a paper trail statewide beginning in 2008.
Other witnesses scheduled to testify include the secretaries of state in California and South Dakota; elections officials from Guilford County, N.C., and Los Angeles County, Calif.; a voting machine expert from Princeton University; and several election-reform advocates.
But no one from the three companies that make the machines - Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software and Sequoia Voting Systems - is scheduled to testify. Officials of those companies did not return telephone calls Thursday.
Under House procedure, committee chairs decide who testifies before their committees. A spokeswoman for Administration Committee chair Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, D-Calif., responded to an e-mail inquiry by resending the witness list.
- Herald Washington correspondent Lesley Clark contributed to this story.
Duane Marsteller, transportation and growth/development reporter, can be reached at 745-7080, ext. 2630.
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