Voting activists from 16 states urged Congress on Wednesday to require electronic voting terminals to print out ballots as a way to avoid the recount battles that marred the last presidential election.
Electronic voting terminals, though easy to use, are vulnerable to glitches or manipulation and need a paper trail to ensure they are working properly, activists with the group Verified Voting said.
"Electronic voting systems produce a vote which can't be verified and can't be meaningfully recounted," said Pam Smith, nationwide campaign coordinator for the nonprofit group.
Action on Capitol Hill seems unlikely as key lawmakers have said they do not support such a measure, but an elections commission is scheduled to look into the issue.
Many states upgraded to computerized voting terminals after the 2000 presidential election recount battle in Florida highlighted shortcomings in aging punch-card systems.
Election officials say the machines are easy to use and allow fewer voting errors, but computer experts say they contain many of the same security holes and programming glitches that plague personal computers.
California’s top election official will decide this week whether to mothball its e-voting machines after a state panel found irregularities with systems made by Diebold Inc.
In Maryland, activists have filed a lawsuit to force the state to install printers on its e-voting machines.
New Jersey Democratic Rep. Rush Holt said he recently used e-voting terminals in a local school board election. “They were clear, simple, easy to use and totally unverifiable,” said the lawmaker, who sponsored a bill a year ago that would require a paper trail for e-voting systems.
The House Administration Committee has no plans to take up the bill, a spokesman said. Rep. Bob Ney, the committee’s chairman, said in a March letter that paper ballots could disenfranchise blind voters or those who do not speak English.
In the Senate, a similar bill has not advanced since it was introduced last December.