sen.nelson bill bans DREs

["Margit Johansson" <margitjo@xxxxxxxxx>]

From: McLaughlin, Dan (Bill Nelson)
Sent: Thu Nov 01 09:45:47 2007
Subject: sen. nelson meets with fla elections czar over proposed
nationwide ban on touch-screen machines

UNITED STATES SENATE

WASHINGTON, 
D.C. 20510

BILL NELSON

 FLORIDA



MEDIA RELEASE

Nov. 1, 2007



Contact:

Dan McLaughlin; or,

Bryan Gulley

202-224-1679







Photo by Michael Hardaway

Nelson, right, discusses banning touch-screen voting

machines with Browning, center.





CONGRESS GETS NEW ELECTION BILL TO BAN CONTROVERSIAL MACHINES



WASHINGTON, D.C. - Electronic touch voting machines won't be a component
of future presidential and congressional elections, if Congress passes a
new bill that bans most touch-screen devices and requires all voting
machines to produce a paper receipt.



The legislation being filed today by 
U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson and Sheldon
Whitehouse, comes after a meeting Nelson had early this morning with
Florida's chief elections overseer Kurt Browning.  Florida's secretary
of state, Browning, met with Nelson in the nation's capital.



It was Florida that recently imposed a state ban on touch-screen voting
machines, following tests that showed such machines were unreliable and
vulnerable to error.



Nelson's bill [ attached ] would require all voting machines to produce
a voter-verified paper trail by next year's presidential election and
provides up to $1 billion for states to use for new voting equipment.
The bill would phase out the use of touch-screen voting machines in
federal elections by 2012.



"The bottom line is we have to ensure every vote is counted - and,
counted properly," Nelson said.  "Citizens must have confidence in the
integrity of their elections."



The bill by Nelson, a Florida Democrat, and Whitehouse, a Democrat from
Rhode Island, was modeled in part after Florida's recently enacted
initiative aimed at fixing glitches and technical errors that have
marred elections there and led to disputes.



Nelson's bill would be the first to seek a ban on electronic
touch-screen voting machines in federal elections nationwide, a
provision Browning said he supports.  More specifically, the bill says:



*                     A voter-verified paper ballot must be produced for
every vote cast, beginning with the November 2008 elections.

*                     Direct recording electronic voting machines may
not be used in federal elections, beginning in 2012.

*                     Routine random audits must be conducted by hand
count in 3 percent of the precincts in all federal elections.

*                     An arms-length relationship is established between
test labs and voting-machine vendors.



A companion version in the House, filed by U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, a
Democrat from New Jersey, has been passed by a key committee and is
awaiting a vote by the full chamber.