VA Senate P & E committee passed S.B. 840.The House P&E committee votes on this bill at 8:30 am,Friday, January 26.
Contact the committee delegates before 5 pm, Thursday, January 25, and urge them to vote YES for SB 840. (See below the fold)
Summary of SB 840 as introduced:
Election procedures; voting equipment requirements; random postelection audits of equipment; and recounts. Requires localities to use optical scan tabulator systems. The bill requires the State Board of Elections to develop accommodations for disabled voters and limits the use of direct recording electronic (DRE) devices to marking ballots that can be optically scanned. The bill prohibits any form of wireless electronic communication capability on any voting or counting device. The bill requires State Board of Elections to develop procedures to enable local electoral boards to conduct postelection audits of at least two percent of machines in jurisdictions with 50,000 or more registered voters and at least five percent of machines in jurisdictions with fewer than 50,000 registered voters. The bill requires the random selection for auditing of a representative sample of vote counting machines within 48 hours of public announcement of initial vote counts and prohibits certifying results until audits are completed. The bill provides that paper records control in the event of a significant discrepancy, defined as a difference of more than one-tenth of one percent between the hand counted total and the initial machine tally. The bill requires local electoral boards to publicly announce comparative results. The bill requires recount officials as part of the recount proceedings to randomly audit three percent of voting devices using State Board of Elections standards for hand recounts. A discrepancy exceeding one-tenth of one percent requires extending the audit to all precincts. The bill deletes obsolete references to mechanical voting equipment and punchcard devices and takes effect January 1, 2009.
For link: http://leg1.state.va...
Delegate info is below the fold:
PRIVILEGES AND ELECTIONS Committee
Chair: Putney, Lacey E.
Vice Chair: Jones, S. Chris (Suffolk)
Members:
Ingram, Riley E.
Marshall, Robert G. (Pr. William County)
Hargrove, Frank D., Sr.
Albo, David B.
Rapp, Melanie L.
Cole, Mark L.
Cosgrove, John A.
Frederick, Jeffrey M.
Fralin, William H., Jr.
O'Bannon, John M., III
Bell, Robert B.
Miller, Jackson H. (Manassas)
Phillips, Clarence E.
Scott, James M. (Scott County)
Brink, Robert H.
Alexander, Kenneth C.
Joannou, Johnny S.
Sickles, Mark D.
Dance, Rosalyn R.
Englin, David L.
For telephone contacts:http://dela.state.va...
For email addresses: http://dela.state.va...
Note: This bill and other similar ones were passed around the House and Senate in 2006. All were shelved that year. Now this bill has a chance of bringing some needed reform in a timely manner. If this does not pass it will likely be at least 1 year before another bill is even considered. In the meantime, we will continue using digital-electronic machines which lack any method to verify that the votes cast were record accurately.