Originally published October 9 2005
New safeguards proposed to prevent voter fraud
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Ex-President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker are heading up a commission to create a voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT), decreasing the chance of voter fraud and accounting for electronic malfunction on election day.
But even while the Commission on Federal Election Reform expressed support for paper trails, it acknowledged that they might not be the best solution to address security concerns with e-voting machines.
The commission urged researchers to develop new technologies that could resolve the issues more effectively.
The voter-verifiable paper audit trail, or VVPAT, is a printout of the machine's electronic ballot that voters can examine after they make their selections on the machine.
Election officials would use the paper to audit machines and conduct recounts.
Few states are waiting for Congress to act on the paper-trail issue.
Twenty-six states have already passed paper-trail legislation of their own, and another 14 are considering it, according to VerifiedVoting.org, which has led the movement for paper-trail laws.
For example, someone determined to tamper with an election could program e-voting machines to record one vote on paper and a different vote inside the machine.
The commission, organized by American University's Center for Democracy and Election Management, recognized this problem and recommended that states perform audits.
Opponents of paper trails, many election officials among them, raise other questions that the commission did not address.
They're adamant that few voters will actually look at the paper record, negating its usefulness.
During a test of paper trails last year in Nevada's primary and presidential elections, election observers estimated that fewer than 30 percent of voters bothered to examine the hard copy.
Critics also say the printers will jam, break down or run out of paper, creating more labor for poll workers.
And they argue that an election involving numerous races and candidates would produce an unwieldy paper trail that would be time-consuming for voters to review and difficult for election officials to recount -- especially if the thermal paper used in the printers is tightly curled.
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