Reply #29: His comments on voting reform...

[AmericanDream]

Comments by Senator Edwards on the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines:

As we all know, the 2004 election was marred by widespread voting problems - long lines, miscast ballots, votes that people weren't sure were cast properly by new machines they'd never used before.

Many of the worst problems happened in Ohio. After the election, 28 percent of voters there reported problems with their voting experience. These problems were ones that shouldn't exist in America, like intimidation and not being able to find your polling site. The racial disparities within these problems are especially alarming: in Ohio, African American voters were twice as likely as white voters to experience problems.

The result of these problems is a dramatic blow to our faith in our democratic system: in Ohio in 2004, only 19 percent of African Americans were confident that their vote was counted correctly. That's not the way it should be in America.

So, while I commend the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) for taking another look at problems in our voting system, I'm concerned that these guidelines - just like those issued in 1990 and 2002 - do not go far enough.

The main problem with these guidelines is that they don't require voting machines to produce a voter-verified paper trail. That means that voters still would be unable to verify something as simple as the fact that their vote was properly cast. To improve on the problems of 2004, voting machines simply must be required to produce a paper trail.

The EAC recommendations fall short in other ways too. For instance, experts agree that using commercial off-the-shelf software in voting machines makes them less reliable. Companies such as Diebold that make machines with this software are not required to pass the software through testing and certification procedures. This certification could prevent the kind of malfunctions that take machines off-line and contribute to the kind of back-ups and extremely long lines we saw all too often in 2004. Those lines deterred thousands of people from voting, especially people who couldn't afford to take hours and hours away from their work and families to wait in line.

The EAC guidelines should require companies to test and certify off-the-shelf software that's used in voting machines. They should, but they don't.

Finally, the recommendations of the EAC are suggested guidelines for states to comply with. If we were serious about this we'd make them mandatory. And I certainly don't think people should be required to show photo IDs at the polls.

These are just a few of the problems and shortcomings in the EAC's current set of guidelines. The bottom line is, it's a national embarrassment when people can't vote or don't know if their vote was counted. That's not the way it should be in America. We need to get serious about election reform in this country, and we need to do it now.

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He submitted this to the EAC.