EDITORIAL: An Appeal for Paper Trail Verifiable Voting

This appeal arrived on June 24 from the Coalition for Voting Integrity with a deadline for tomorrow, Wednesday June 25. The bill provides the option for counties to convert to paper ballot system and be reimbursed for it. Text of bill can be found here.

Emergency action item for funding of paper ballots: Join the Effort to Get Co-Sponsors for the PAPER BALLOT BASED VOTING SYSTEM REIMBURSEMENT ACT - Make Your Call Today! Forward This to a Friend, Who Will Do the Same

Pennsylvania State Senator Charles McIlhinney, 10th District, is presently circulating a PAPER BALLOT BASED VOTING SYSTEM REIMBURSEMENT BILL among his Senate colleagues for CO-SPONSORS.

This bill directs the State of Pennsylvania to reimburse counties for all the costs involved in obtaining a paper-ballot based voting system.

More than 8,000 precincts in Pennsylvania now use externally paperless Direct Recording Electronic voting systems (DREs).

Because there is no independent paper proof of voters' intended votes, there is no way to know if those electronic votes have been recorded correctly and counted accurately by the software programming inside the electronic machines. The current Pennsylvania certified optical scan voting system is the only paper-ballot based system, where the voter can mark his or her votes on a paper ballot either by hand or with a ballot marking device.

That paper ballot is saved to be used to check the electronic count for meaningful recounts and audits. We need this kind of paper ballot based system in Pennsylvania. State reimbursement of the costs involved will provide counties with the means needed to replace their DREs.

PLEASE CALL YOUR PENNSYLVANIA STATE SENATOR AS SOON AS POSSIBLE and ask him or her to sign on as a co-sponsor of the PAPER BALLOT BASED VOTING SYSTEM REIMBURSEMENT bill.

You can find contact information for your State Senator and your State Representative here.

This bill needs to be introduced by tomorrow, Wednesday, the 25th of June after which it will be given a House Bill number and probably be sent to the State Government Committee. Their approval to pass it out of their committee is also essential before it is voted on so contact your Senator also if he or she is on the State Government Committee.

Your phone calls in support of this bill may yield many co-sponsors. With such an outpouring of support, we can show that this is a bill supported by the citizens of Pennsylvania.

Representative Marguerite Quinn, 143rd District plans to circulate the same bill to Assembly members. PLEASE CALL her in support of her efforts and your own STATE REPRESENTATIVE and ask him or her to sign on as a co-sponsor as well.

PLEASE CALL YOUR STATE SENATOR NOW. Accurate vote counting is the cornerstone of a democracy. Our democracy depends on you!