WP: Officials Warm To Paper Trail To Verify Votes In Maryland [View All]

Officials Warm To Paper Trail To Verify Votes In Maryland
By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 13, 2007; Page B01

Legislation mandating a paper record to verify voting in Maryland is gaining momentum in the General Assembly, which might join a national movement to make touch-screen voting more reliable and tamper-proof.

A top House Democrat from Montgomery County introduced a bill yesterday that would require paper records to back up every vote cast in the state. Maryland, one of the first states to buy touch-screen machines after the disputed presidential election in 2000, would have to retrofit them to produce a paper trail or return to optical-scan ballots where voters mark the choices on paper.

"A majority of people in Maryland support this," said Del. Sheila E. Hixson, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, referring to a public opinion poll conducted by the University of Maryland last year. "We want this to be the first bill of the session to say, 'We hear you.' "

Hixson sponsored an identical bill last year that unanimously cleared the House but stalled in the Senate over concerns that the changes could not be in place in time for the November election.

With two years before another statewide election, a federal panel urging national standards on verifying votes, and voters in Montgomery and Prince George's counties roiled by problems with the electronic machines last fall, Hixson and Senate sources said the proposal is quickly gaining support in both chambers of the General Assembly....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/12/AR2007011202147.html