Paper Trails vs. Voter Verified Paper Ballots

An article in this morning's Albuquerque Journal discusses Governor Bill Richardson's election reform bill, introduced by Rep. Ed Sandoval. Click for a copy of this bill, HB1063, Omnibus Election Reform. Click to track the bill, currently in the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee.

In the article, Wayne Moses Burke of United Voters of New Mexico states that, while the Governor's bill is generally good, it should be more detailed on paper trails for voting machines. The bill currently says only that the machines "shall have a verifiable and auditable paper trail." This would not necessarily require the Voter Verifiable Paper Ballot (V.V.P.B) receipt that DFNM and many other groups are pushing for.

A V.V.P.B. would provide documentation to the voter on how his or her vote is being recorded. A machine providing a V.V.P.B. for each vote might use, for example, a paper roll alongside it to produce a receipt that can be viewed by the voter to see his or her selection before it's finalized and dropped into a secure box not accessible to the voter.

Unfortunately, it sounds like Rep. Sandoval would rather refer this matter to House Speaker Ben Lujan's interim election reform task force than take action now, in time for the purchase of new machines before the 2006 election. And, as expected, Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron is critical of the push for V.V.P.B. She reportedly is concerned that a paper trail for each vote cast could potentially violate the secrecy of an individual's ballot. Right. Better to preserve "secrecy" than ensure that people can see how their vote will register. Our Secretary of State seems to have an excuse for any and all attempts to make voting more reliable.

Vigil-Giron also falls back on one of her favorite excuses by claiming that there are no voting machines approved by the NM Voting Standards Committee that would provide V.V.P.B. I do imagine that situation could be fixed in a New York minute if the powers that be really supported voting machines that make it difficult for tampering to occur. Apparently, however, Vigil-Giron (and Gov. Richardson) aren't that interested in fixing things. At least not enough to take the steps necessary to make it possible. Do you join me in wondering why?

According to Vigil-Giron, she has until June to spend about $9 million to buy 1,450 new machines as required by the federal Help America Vote Act. There are more than 4,000 voting machines in NM. Rep. Sandoval reportedly wants to push for identical machines in all NM counties, so a switch to V.V.P.B. machines would take a healthy dose of additional funds if his position on this is adopted. It strikes me Rep. Sandoval may want to require identical machines state-wide as a way to stop V.V.P.B. machines -- by claiming we don't have the funds. But that's just me.

If you'd like to contact Secretary of State Vigil-Giron, you can call her at (505) 827-3600 or toll free at 1-(800) 477-3632, or email her at secstate@state.nm.us. Go to the NM Legislature website to contact Rep. Ed Sandoval or other legislators

We believe that NOW is the time to act on Voter Verified Paper Ballots and other election reform issues. If these issues are shunted instead to an interim study committee, we may never get any action on them. If you agree, I hope you'll travel to the Santa Fe Roundhouse tomorrow for Election Reform Day and make your views known. See the post below for details.