Success!!! Florida to have Paper Ballots in Time for 2008!!!

Written by: David Reiter on May 3, 2007 11:10 PM EDT

Thanks to all of you that made efforts to write and call your legislators to make paper ballots a reality.  Many election reform groups around the state, including volunteers from Florida DFA and DFA Miami, have been working tirelessly to make paper ballots a reality.  Many of us have been meeting with our legislators (over 40 meetings, myself :-)) to urge support of paper ballot legislation, some have written position papers to identify key provisions of the bill, and many more have written and called their Senators and Representatives on a daily basis to make fair elections a reality.

To sum up the key provisions of the bill that Governor Crist proffered, and is now on its way to his desk to be signed into law, below is a summary from the Florida Voters Coalition recent press release:

TALLAHASSEE: In a historic vote, the Florida House today unanimously passed CS/HB 537, already passed in the Senate, that provides almost all voters paper ballots in time for the 2008 Presidential election, and bans paperless DREs outright by 2012. The bill now goes to the Governor where he’s sure to sign it since it’s his initiative.

Counties will have the option to pitch DREs immediately and provide ballot marking devices for voters with disabilities. “FVC urges all 67 counties to convert to uniform paper ballot systems without delay and leave no voter behind voting on failed electronic voting machines,” said FVC Co-Founder, Dan McCrea.

The bill is funded with $27.9 million in HAVA funds and there’s plenty more money in that account should more be needed next year. Counties will get help from the state to purchase optical scan equipment to count the paper ballots; ballot-on-demand equipment to ease paper congestion problems in Early Voting; and ballot marking devices to serve the disabled.

While there was talk earlier in the legislative session about retrofitting printers to failed touchscreen DREs, that talk faded as legislators saw it would be throwing good money after bad. Additionally, they are sure to have understood that currently available “VVPAT” printers would not comply with proposed federal legislation which, if passed, will supersede Florida law. (Federal bill HR 811, sponsored by Rep. Rush Holt, currently has 212 bi-partisan co-sponsors in Congress.)

The Florida bill also contains new audit provisions essential to the security of paper ballot voting systems. There was agreement among legislators that the new audit provisions will need further tweaking next year before becoming effective in July 2008. For now, the language requires that after every election, at least 1% and not more than 2% of randomly selected precincts be audited by hand-counting the paper ballots in one randomly selected race. The audit will take place after certification and be reported 3 days before the contest period ends.

Congratulations to all of you and all of the organizations around the state that have dedicated  your time and energy to bringing fair elections back to Florida!

-David Reiter

President, Florida DFA 

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