Stateline.org: Integrity of electronic voting questioned

By Kavan Peterson, Stateline.org, May 3, 2004



This article from a state policy oriented web site provides a good overview of how California's recent move to pull back on touchscreen voting may impact other states.



Excerpt:



Legislation requiring voter-verified paper ballots has been introduced in 15 states (Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) that currently use electronic voting machines, and four states (Arizona, Maine, Minnesota and Vermont) that have yet to upgrade their voting equipment. Sixteen states with electronic voting machines have not discussed paper ballots: Arkansas, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Wyoming.



Election officials in Illinois, Oregon, Nevada and New Hampshire already have banned paperless, electronic voting systems.



Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller recently made Nevada the only state to mandate that printers be installed on all electronic voting machines by November, despite the fact that Nevada had experienced no problems with the machines used by 70 percent of the state’s voters in 2002.