It’s Time For Iowa To Verify The Vote
by Sean Flaherty, Iowans for Voting Integrity
Twenty-seven states have passed legislation that, at least, requires that voting machines allow the voter to see her choices on paper. Iowa remains among a minority of states that still allows paperless voting. It’s time to change that.
Iowans for Voting Integrity has developed a petition to the 82nd General Assembly calling for verified voting. Our list of essentials includes: going beyond a “paper trail” for voting machines and back to paper ballots, hand audits of ballots in randomly selected precincts, stronger chain of custody procedures for ballots and election records, and disclosure of voting system software.
Click here to read and sign the petition.
Our recommendations draw on the 2006 Brennan Center report. Doug Jones was among the Brennan Center task force members, as were the former chief security officer of Microsoft, Howard Schmidt, and Dr. David Jefferson of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Why go beyond the paper trail? One of the most salient reasons is that hand audits with the current generation of continuous paper rolls are arduous. With paper ballots the process is much easier. And hand audits are an indispensable companion to a paper record. As the Brennan Center report states, a paper record without systematic hand audits is “of questionable security value.” Other reasons for adopting paper ballots over a paper trail are in our position paper on voting system reform.
Adopting paper ballots might seem a tougher sell than adding printers on to the touch-screens, but we’ve already got David Yepsen on our side.
We need reform by the next statewide and federal elections. Sign the petition for verified elections in Iowa.