As mentioned in yesterday's post, the House of Representatives is due to consider this week H.R. 811. 'mark mywords' has added his comments to this blog, and they are worth reading.
The text of the bill can be found at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:h811rh.txt.pdf
The Bill was introduced on 5th February this year, and considered by the Committee on House Administration (Elections Subcommittee). Three hearings were held during which 29 witnesses gave evidence and were questioned. There was also a voting machine forum on March 15, 2007, which gave Members of Congress and their staff an opportunity to learn more about voting systems first-hand.
The Congressional Research Service summary of the Bill says it "Amends the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) to revise requirements for the audit capacity of voting systems, particularly those for a permanent paper record.
Requires the voting system to require the use of or produce an individual, durable, voter-verified paper ballot of the voter's vote, created by or made available for inspection and verification by the voter before the voter's vote is cast and counted. Requires the voting system to provide the voter with an opportunity to correct any system-made error in the voter-verified paper ballot before it is permanently preserved."
The full summary can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00811:@@@D&summ2=m&
The Bill has its critics - Some argue that it remains a flawed bill -
Progressive Democrats of America: http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=9406781&type=CO
A supportive and detailed analysis can be found at the website of Electronic Frontier Foundation: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005308.php
Your comments are welcome here.
