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Monday, February 19, 2007

Voting Paper Trail

It appears that Congress is finally seriously considering a paper trail for electronic voting.

This is something many voting rights groups have strongly felt has been needed since to proliferation of electronic voting machines. I had to vote provisionally in the last election so I have not had the opportunity to use our new electonic machines. I was somewhat glad for that because the lack of a paper trail concerns me.

I miss the times I was voting in the Boston area (not just because my polling location was literally 200ft from my front door). My town used the optical scanning machines. I would fill out my ballot with a pen, check it over to make sure it was correct and then slide it into an optical scanning machine that would count the votes and drop the paper ballot into a lock box. It was relatively simple, but I felt confident my vote was being counted.

Hopefully there is enough support to get some sort of paper trail requirement for Federal Elections.