HB 641: Adding A Paper Trail To Electronic Voting Machines
Fox 5 had an interview with Representative Scot Turner (R-Holly Springs), who dropped HB 641 towards the end of this year’s session of the Georgia General Assembly, discussing the bill’s requirement to equip our direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines with a permanent record of an individual that can be audited, used for a recount, and verified by an voter of his or her ballot.
The bill has garnered bi-partisan support. Representative Scott Holcomb (D-Atlanta) has spoken favorably towards the bill. Updating our aging voting system isn’t going to be a cheap fix. It will likely cost millions of dollars, but it will be an investment in the peace of mind of voters as well as opens up a dialog on what that upgrade will look like.
About Author
nsmith
Father. IT Geek. Former 14th District GOP Chairman (2015-2017). Former Walker GOP Chairman (2009-2013). Resident of Chamblee. American. Georgian. Conservative.
Add a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Well somebody needs to comment on this so here goes:
Adding a paper trail- good in principal.
Current wording:
“…which record shall:
15 (1) Be available as an official record of the ballot cast and constitute a paper ballot for
16 purposes of any recount conducted under Code Section 21-2-495 or any election
17 challenge under Article 13 of this chapter involving any primary or election in which
18 such system is used;
19 (2) Provide the elector with an opportunity to review the permanent paper record after
20 casting his or her vote on the system and to change his or her ballot or correct any error
21 in such vote; and
22 (3) After verification by the elector, be placed securely in an approved ballot box or
23 other secured container.”
This language is pretty good. The current machines already have a paper audit record, the voter just doesn’t get to see it. This bill specifies a printed ballot that the voter can submit as their official vote. So far so good. But they are only specifying that the paper ballots be counted in the event of a recount or challenge. I would suggest (and I will send this to Holcombe) that they also provide for a certain amount of random manual audits and automatic audits if the contest is within a certain margin.
There is a paper trail in that each DRE machine creates a paper ticket of the accumulated votes. Those tapes are usually printed off and posted at the front of the precinct once the election has ended. This bill would print out a paper tape when the ballot is cast and recorded on the machine. I would think that the poll managers would count the number of paper tapes deposited into the lockbox balances with the number of votes that were recorded on all of the machines for that precinct. Of course, having a random audit of the paper tapes and the number of votes recorded on the machine would be a good idea.