Reply #15: Equal Vote : A Problematic Report from Carter and Baker

[Wilms]

Equal Vote

Monday, September 19

A Problematic Report from Carter and Baker

The Committee on Federal Election Reform (commonly known as the Carter-Baker Commission) this morning released its final report. Commission member Spencer Overton has posted a dissent at http://www.carterbakerdissent.com/.

The commission's report addresses a wide range of voting issues, including registration, technology, accessibility, and polling place operations. The report deserves careful scrutiny . . . and there's no better time to start than the present.* For the moment, I'll focus on the two recommendations that are likely to prove the most controversial:

1. That Congress should pass a law requiring that all voting machines produce a "voter-verifiable paper audit trail" (VVPAT). For electronic voting machines, this would require that they generate a contemporaneous paper record of the ballot, that the voter could see before casting his or her vote electronically.

2. That states require voters to show a government-issued photo identification card in order to vote. Under the proposal, voters would have to show a so-called "Real ID" in order for their votes to be counted, effective 2010.

-snip/more-

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/2005/09/problematic-report-from-carter-and.html