A Flawed US Election Reform Bill

H.R.811 sounds great: It's stated purpose is "to require a voter-verified permanent paper ballot." Unfortunately, it sounds like the details have some devils, as usual. From the Bev Harris article Is a flawed bill better than no bill?: "[T]he Holt Bill provides for a paper trail (toilet paper roll-style records affixed to DRE voting machines) in 2008, requires more durable ballots in 2010, and requires a complex set of audits. It also cements and further empowers a concentration of power over elections under the White House, gives explicit federal sanction to trade secrets in vote counting, mandates an expensive 'text conversion' device that does not yet exist which is not fully funded, and removes 'safe harbor' for states in a way that opens them up to unlimited, expensive, and destabilizing litigation." Update: 07/11 16:23 GMT by KD : Derek Slater writes "EFF's e-voting expert Matt Zimmerman recently published this article separating the myths about HR 811 from the facts, and countering many of the misleading and outright false claims being made about it."

Comments

Re:Is this a surprise to anyone?

[internic]

Rush Holt, the author of H.R. 811, has a Ph.D. in Physics. Also note that a bill does not always represent what the law maker thinks is best, but rather it's the best thing they think can actually pass.

Let's Drop the Straw Man

[internic]

Some of the objections given at the beginning of the article seem to be worth considering. The straw man debate that follows is just idiotic, however. It might be useful to look at what some actual supporters have to say, supporters like the EFF, Prof. Ed Felten, Ars Technica, the Brennan Center for Justice, People of the American Way, TrueVoteMD, and Prof. Avi Rubin to name a few.