Electronic voting machines are under fire in some quarters, with state officials and lawmakers trying to force vendors and election officials to take additional security measures.
Electronic voting machines are under fire in some quarters, with state officials and lawmakers trying to force vendors and election officials to take additional security measures.
Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) is still trying to pass legislation that would require touch-screen voting machines to print a paper receipt of each vote cast, and that would require random audits of some machines. Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) has introduced a companion bill in the Senate. Holt introduced his bill last year, and it has attracted 140 co-sponsors but remains mired in committee.
Kevin Shelley, California's secretary of state, recently decertified Diebold Inc.'s TSX machine and provisionally banned all touch-screen voting in the state. Local election officials who want to use e-voting will have to either add a paper record system or implement specific security measures before Shelley will recertify their machines.
Meanwhile, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) has filed a federal lawsuit intended to force all Florida counties to provide a mechanism for manually recounting votes. Two Palm Beach County commissioners and the president of the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans are co-plaintiffs.
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