Congressman Jim Moran's News Commentary

In the months following this contentious live fire exercise in American politics and Constitutional law, Congress, in its trademark reactive style, pledged to ensure that such chaos would never occur again. In October of 2002, the “Help America Vote Act” was passed by wide margins in both the House and Senate. Unfortunately, as with most legislation enacted under the current leadership, the funding authorized by the law was not matched by the amount eventually appropriated. But beyond the lack of full resources, this reform effort may have inadvertently promoted a new type of voting system with flaws equal to, if not worse, than those used in 2000.

Many states decided to replace their traditional punch card ballot machines and purchased thousands of Direct Read Equipment (DRE) voting machines that use an ATM style touch screen. While DRE voting machines are relatively simple to use and include special options allowing the blind and hearing impaired easy access, these relatively new electronic voting systems have gaping security holes that have been left virtually unaddressed.

Serious concerns have been raised in a number of studies examining the inviolability of electronic voting machines. Aside from the fact that the two major electronic voting machine companies have given substantial campaign contributions, with the CEO of Diebold, the number one electronic voting firm, stating in a letter to political contributors that he was committed “to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President (Bush),” these systems have been shown to be ripe for abuse. Technology experts have stated the source code for these machines can be easily tampered with and the potential for hacking is significant. It is with these analyses in mind that I see one clear way to correct this problem, require paper printouts for each electronic vote tallied.

This is why I am a cosponsor of legislation introduced by Representative Holt of New Jersey titled the “Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act” (H.R. 2239). The bill would require that a voter-verified paper record suitable for manual audit be produced for each and every ballot cast. Should questions arise over whether an electronic voting machine has been tampered with, election officials would simply do a manual count of the paper printouts.

Currently, printer systems that link up with the electronic voting machines are available. These systems work in the same way as receipts from an ATM, requiring no ink and producing a paper printout that is deposited directly into a locked box. Before it is deposited and the vote is officially tallied, the voter can view the printout from under a glass window. If it is not who they meant to vote for, they can void it and recast their ballot.

I am hopeful that no problems will occur on November 2nd and that every vote will count. But given polls showing a statistical dead heat in the Presidential race and the lessons both parties learned in 2000, I am afraid we are barreling towards having another contest where the courts must decide who will be our next Commander in Chief. While the leadership in Congress has not seen fit to even hold a single hearing on this legislation, I will continue to support the effort to require a paper trail for electronic voting machines so that the mistakes of 2000 are not repeated every four years indefinitely.