Lawmakers proposing paper trails for Georgia voting machines

[Judi Lynn]

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Lawmakers proposing paper trails for Georgia voting machines

The Associated Press - ATLANTA

Georgia's electronic voting machines would have to generate a voter-verifiable paper trail under legislation proposed Tuesday by Sen. Bill Stephens, R-Canton, who hopes to become Georgia's top election official next year.

Stephens, the former Senate Republican leader and an announced candidate for Secretary of State in 2006, said he will pre-file legislation in November requiring the state to conduct a pilot test of producing printouts for voters in three counties in next year's election.

A statewide rollout would be expected in 2008.

The three counties to be outfitted with printers would be Cobb and Columbia, both rich in Republican votes, and Decatur, home of the current Secretary of State, Cathy Cox. Cox is a Democratic candidate opposing Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue next year.
(snip/...)

http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=65330

[one_true_leroy]

1. the wheels turn slowly....

as a Georgia voter, I couldn't be happier! great news!!

[rateyes]

3. Me too.

But, hasn't Cathy Cox come out against paper trails because of the cost? She needs to get on board with this and not let a Republican take over her seat because she wouldn't move on this proposal before he did.

[meow2u3]

2. First things first: Strike down the backdoor poll tax

What's the use of paper trails when GA passed a law requiring people to pay for state-issued photo ID just to vote? Get rid of this backdoor poll tax, as well!

[bluestateguy]

4. Notice that a Republican proposed the bill

and that is good, but see how they change their tune on the voting machines when the Secretary of State is a Democrat.

[wallwriter]

5. Maybe Diebold can sell them disappearing ink...

[ozymandius]

6. This has been proposed before by Georgian Republicans.

Two years ago, this change to electronic voting was intoduced in the Republican-controlled Senate. The House Republicans, then in the minority, also took up the bill. This bill was defeated in the House by the Democrats. The defeat of this bill was a circle-the-wagons effort to protect Cathy Cox. Secretary Cox has remained adamantly opposed to any alteration of the electronic voting machines and election accounting laws despite strenuous efforts to expose the machines' fallibility and corruptability.

[Boredtodeath]

7. It was, but introduced by the Voter Choice Coalition

which is made up of Greens, Independents and all of the minor parties.

In fact, SB500 was supported by everyone BUT the DEMS in Georgia. It was the DEMS (at Cathy Cox's insistence) who voted to table the legislation 3 times and only voted for the bill when a DEM added a poison pill amendment to the bill to kill it. The amendment called for voter verified paper ballots only if the Feds paid for it and not effective until 2006 (this was the 2003 legislative session).

Cathy Cox ACTIVELY lobbied against passage of SB500 in the state senate AND house and killed it in the Democratically controlled house after it passed the republican controlled senate.

You can see it all in it's ugliest here:
http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2003_04/sum/sb500.htm

[ozymandius]

8. Thanks for this.

I had not idea that it was so damned ugly. She needed to get in front of this. Now she looks to get punked by her opposition and give Perdue something to use against her.

[Boredtodeath]

9. Oh yeah, she's about to get punked

In a very big way. Some very basic truths about Georgia voting system are about to go public.

Cathy Cox is going to have some very uncomfortable questions to answer.