Your Vote Isn't Worth $4.80

A barely mentioned news item on NPR this morning indicated that verifiable voting may be dead for the 2008 election. At issue is a bill (H.R 5036) sponsored by Rep. Rush Holt which would provide incentives for states to move to voting systems that created verifiable paper trails in time for the November election. Here's a summary of what the bill does.

Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008 - Directs the Administrator of General Services to reimburse certain jurisdictions for the costs of: (1) converting from electronic or other voting systems to paper ballot voting systems for the general elections for federal office to be held in November 2008; and (2) providing emergency paper ballots if the jurisdiction uses a direct recording electronic voting system which happens to fail.

Directs the Administrator to reimburse any state, county, or equivalent location for the documented reasonable costs it incurs in conducting manual audits or hand recounts of the results of any of the regularly scheduled elections for federal office in November 2008 (including, at state or local option, manual audits of state and local elections, ballot initiatives, and referenda).

Requires the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to study, test, and develop products and practices that ensure the accessibility of paper ballot verification and casting for individuals with disabilities, for voters whose primary language is not English, and for voters with difficulties in literacy. - GovTrack

There's a good diary up on DailyKos this morning summarizing what's going on. Yesterday, the bill failed to get a 2/3 majority in the House, and as a result was effectively killed for this year. The reason it required a 2/3 majority is because in order to force consideration yesterday, the House would have to suspend the rules, and such motion requires a 2/3 majority to pass. Hence, the Bill failed on procedural vote for consideration which was effectively bundled with the motion to pass the bill under the House rules.

According to the radio this morning, a main reason Rep. Holt's bill failed was that the Bush Administration thinks it is too expensive, and urged all Republicans to oppose its passage. The number that was considered too expensive? $600 million. That translates into about $4.80 per voter, assuming the same turnout as 2004 (it will be less per voter if turnout is higher in 2008, as it is likely to be). The war in Iraq will have cost us about $600 billion (perhaps a bit more) by November. That is $4,800 per voter.

The Bush Administration and their House Republican allies are saying that the security of Iraq is worth one thousand times more than the security of our vote.

Unsurprisingly, our Congressman, Frank Wolf, also voted to prevent verified voting in 2008. His neighbor and fellow Virginia House Republican, Rep. Tom Davis, who is not running for reelection and therefore can discount the opinions of his President, voted in favor of the bill's passage. In fact, 27 Republicans broke with the President to vote for the bill's passage.

Voter verification is a critical issue going forward, as so many elections have been close fought, and trust in the accuracy of the vote directly translates into trust in the integrity of our very system. That is why bills have been proposed by Democrats from the General Assembly to Congress to create voter verified paper trails after elections. It is unbelievable that 2/3 of Congress does not believe that the integrity of our vote is worth less than $5/voter.

Congressman Rush Holt gets the last word.

“I’d like to ask the opponents how much spending is too much to have verifiable elections in the United States. I note that many people who opposed this legislation supported spending almost $330 million in recent years to provide election assistance in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. I would have hoped those who supported efforts to export democracy abroad would be equally committed to strengthening democracy here at home,” Holt said.