Texas Safe Voting

Once again we have an opportunity to pass a Voter Verified Paper Ballot bill in Texas. Representative Lois Kolkhort’s HB384 is being heard before the Elections Committee in the Texas House. There are already to two co-authors to this VVPB bill. Representative Patick Rose and Representative Dwayne Bohac, who is the Elections Committee Vice-Chair.

The committee hearing is this Wednesday 2/21/07 at 2:00 p.m. The full details are listed below.
COMMITTEE: Elections
TIME & DATE:
2:00 PM or upon final adjourn./recess
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
PLACE: E2.028
CHAIR: Rep. Leo Berman
The public is invited to speak.

ACLU is supporting this bill as well as Representative Scott Hochberg’s HB186 at the hearing.

HB 186 mandates that election officers complete and sign a form, explaining the reason they turned away a voter. The voter and the Secretary of State receive a copy of this completed form. This documentation can then be used not only for verification of the refusal, but also to determine, after an election, why voters were turned away and whether those actions were appropriate. We think it’s an excellent bill that will help both the voters and the poll workers. Voters will have clear and concise reasons if they are denied the right to vote, and poll workers can consistently follow rules that help them document the reasons they rejected a voter.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram 1/13/2007

The Texas Democratic Party sued the state’s top election official Tuesday alleging that widely used eSlate electronic voting equipment doesn’t properly record straight-party balloting.

The federal lawsuit over the voting machines made by Hart InterCivic claims straight-party votes cast with the equipment aren’t fully tabulated if the voter goes through the ballot and selects certain candidates down the list as if to “emphasize” a decision.

In those cases, the vote for an emphasized candidate is lost, even though that might be the candidate the voter most wanted to support, said Buck Wood, an attorney for the party and for a Democrat in Madison County who is challenging an election he lost in which eSlate voting equipment was used.

The Texas Secretary of State’s Office and Hart InterCivic knew of the problem before the eSlate equipment was used in the November general election, Wood said. Of Texas’ 254 counties, 102 use eSlate voting equipment, including Harris, Travis and Tarrant counties.

Interesting move by the Texas Democratic Party. It looks like we’re getting more and more evidence that Texas should act to take some action on these electronic machines. These are the kind of software programming errors that the Secretary of State should be aware of. TX Safe Voting was the first to sue the Secretary of State with respect to the behind closed doors type of vendor certification that the SOS conducts. Although we won a temporary restraining order to make those meetings public, the Texas Legislature chose to close the door to the public during these certification hearings in the 79th session. Now you get more proof that the examiners and the office of the Secretary of State are doing a woefully inadequate job of protecting the voting systems in Texas.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL ) filed the first Senate bill that would ban paperless voting nationwide. The bill was filed yesterday Feb.13th.

Bill Nelson’s press release
“If Congress doesn’t get this done, I’m afraid our democracy could die from lack of legitimacy,” said Nelson, who serves on the Senate’s Armed Services, Foreign Relations, Intelligence, Commerce, Budget and Aging committees.

Nelson’s bill is pretty much a companion to legislation filed in the House last week by U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, except it bans conflict of interest on the part of elections officials. Both bills also require random audits of paper records against electronic tabulations in every congressional district.

Rep. Rush Holt introduced H.R. 811, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007 today. This new bill is a new and improved version of his H.R. 550 from last session.

The new bill includes these standards:

• prohibits the use of wireless communication devices in voting systems
• prohibits transmission of system information over the internet
• durability and readability requirements for ballots (yeah, I think that means thermal paper is out)
• stricter standards for software and hardware testing
• mandatory manual audits by election audit boards comprised of individuals appointed by the major parties and minor parties who receive at least 5% of the aggregate vote.

The mandatory manual hand counts will take some analysis and they only come into play if the margin of victory of one candidate over another is under 2%. The bill is basically a floor for minimum audit standards and does not preclude states or voting jurisdictions from using stronger standards.

This piece of legislation which is expected to pass will certainly impact our legislation here in Texas this session.

H.R. 811 is not available on the Thomas Library of Congress site yet but the placeholder is there now.

Representative Rush Holt’s website will also have more news on the act.

The Good:

Voter Verified Paper Ballot bills

• HB 65 Leibowitz Relating to the use of direct recording electronic voting machines.
• HB 123 Pena Relating to the use of direct recording electronic voting machines. Bill History
• HB 384 Kolkhorst Relating to the use of direct recording electronic voting machines.
• HB 527 Menendez Relating to requiring that a computerized voting system produce a paper record for recount or audit purposes.

Voter Rights Extended bills

• HB 186 Hochberg Relating to the regular procedure for not accepting voters
• HB 243 Alonzo Relating to allowing certain early polling places to serve as election day polling places.
• HB 244 Alonzo Relating to the protection of the rights of Texas voters without regard to race, color, ethnicity, or membership in a language minority group.
• HB 245 Alonzo Relating to the registration of voters at a polling place and related procedures. EDR
• HB 265 Anchia Relating to the registration of voters at a polling place and related procedures. EDR
• HB 266 Anchia Relating to the designation of certain election days as state holidays.
• HB 869 Rodriguez Relating to the permanent authority of certain voters to vote early by mail.
• HB 770 Dutton Relating to requiring the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to provide notice to certain persons of the right to vote.
• HB 942 Allen Extending the right to vote by mail to any registered voter
• HB 961 Allen Extending the polling close time to 9 p.m. on election day
• HB 928 Davis, John Relating to the deadline for submitting a federal postcard application to the early voting clerk. (Companion SB361)
• SB 361 Janek Relating to the deadline for submitting a federal postcard application to the early voting clerk. (Companion HB928)
• HJR 39 Allen, Alma Relating to post-ratifying Amendment XXIV to the Constitution of the United States prohibiting the denial or abridgment of the right to vote for failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
• SB 269 Shapiro Relating to a program allowing for countywide voting locations in certain elections.
• SJR 19 Ellis, Ratifing the 24th amendment to the US Constitution. It’s not listed as a companion to Allen’s HJR39, but it looks the same to me.

The Bad:

Voter Rights Restriction bills

• HB 600 Smith, Wayne Relating to the use of certain voting equipment in an election that does not involve a federal office. HAVA related.
• HB690 - Brown eliminate HAVA accessibility requirement for cities with populations less than 7,500. HAVA related.
• HB 731 Kolkhorst Relating to the use of certain voting equipment in an election that does not involve a federal office. HAVA related.
• HB1031 Chisum eliminate HAVA accessibility requirement for cities with populations less than 25,000. HAVA related.
• HB 938 Talton Relating to the eligibility for appointment as a volunteer deputy voter registrar. Registrar has to be a registered voter.
• SB 134 Wentworth Relating to the elimination of straight-party voting

The Ugly:

Voter ID bills

• HB 101 Riddle Relating to the procedures for registering to vote and accepting a voter at a polling place.
• HB 626 King, Phil Relating to the procedures for registering to vote and accepting a voter at a polling place.
• HB 690 Brown, Betty Relating to the use of certain voting equipment in certain elections that do not involve a federal office.
• HB 979 Berman Relating to requiring a voter to present proof of identification.

TX Safe Voting, is a project of ACLU-TX and EFF-Austin.

We’re here to make sure that electronic voting in Texas is made more secure. We lobby for legislation that will make sure that our votes are counted accurately, and that they can also be recounted.

We support voter verified paper ballots.