House fails to pass voting safety measures

Once again, in a vote that emphasizes the partisan nature of the Republicans in their reluctance to do anything that President Bush disagrees with, HR 4036 was defeated. While the law didn't mandate paper ballots for states, it did encourage them to switch to them and maintain provisional paper ballots in case the electronic machines malfunctioned.

Chris Shays (CT-04) did split from the Republican minority in the House, joining 15 other Republicans who voted in favor of the bill, but it still came up short of the 2/3 necessary for it to pass.

Not that it matters much, anyway. Had the bill gone on to pass in the Senate, Bush almost definitely would have used his veto pen to kill it.

Which further reinforces the necessity of electing ANY Democrat this November.

(are you detecting a theme in some of my posts yet?)

From Newsday.com:

TRENTON, N.J. - Legislation sponsored by a New Jersey congressman that would have reimbursed states wanting to adopt voting safeguards before the November presidential election failed to win approval Tuesday in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill, dubbed the Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008, fell short of the two-thirds majority it needed to pass, even after clearing a House committee unanimously. The vote was 239-178 in favor, with all but two Democrats supporting it and all but 16 Republicans opposed.

The bill would have allowed states and jurisdictions to be reimbursed by the federal government for converting to a paper ballot system, offering emergency paper ballots or conducting audits by hand counts.

The measure was designed to ensure that every vote is properly counted. Voters in all or parts of 20 states including New Jersey now cast ballots electronically without backup paper verification, according to the bill's sponsor, Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J.

The bill would have provided reimbursements for states to provide voter-verified, audited balloting for the general election, but it would not have mandated standards for the states.

Republicans opposed the bill because of the cost.

The White House on Tuesday noted that a 2002 election reform act had authorized $3 billion to help states upgrade their voting systems, and that about one-third of that money was still available.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost of the legislation at $685 million, but supporters said that applied only to a worst-case scenario where many states opted to change their systems.

Holt said he was disappointed and somewhat surprised at the result.

"This increases the likelihood around the country that there will be unaudited elections and lingering questions in many jurisdictions about the validity of the vote, and no way to answer the questions," Holt said. "There is no reason this shouldn't have passed."

Elections officials in many states are grappling with their voting systems. Concerns have been raised over the security and reliability of electronic voting machines, and voting rights advocates in New Jersey and elsewhere have pushed for a return to paper balloting.

Some states have scrapped electronic voting machines. Among them are Florida and New Mexico, which switched to paper ballots that are counted by optical scanners.

Holt's bill would have reimbursed states for making a similar switch by November.

New Jersey recently acknowledged it would not meet a June deadline for retrofitting 10,000 touch-screen voting machines with paper printers. That means millions of New Jerseyans will cast ballots in November without paper receipts.

Six counties reported problems with electronic voting machines after the presidential primary in February. The number of votes tallied in dozens of machines did not match the number counted by the machine's internal control.

The manufacturer, Sequoia Voting Systems, has resisted efforts by voting rights advocates to have the machines tested independently.