The
Buckner Plan for Verified Voting
1.
Introduction
As Secretary of State, Gail Buckner's top priority will be to
administer our elections with common sense, justice and fairness
for all. Gail believes that protecting every person's constitutional
right to vote includes making sure that every person's vote gets
counted - fairly and accurately. To help accomplish this goal,
Gail will continue her leadership to add a verifiable paper ballot
to Georgia's electronic voting machines.
In
the last legislative session, Gail played a leading role in getting
the process of verified voting started in Georgia. As our next
Secretary of State, she will continue that effort until the job
is done.
2.
The Issue
Surfacing in the wake of Florida's "hanging chad" fiasco of 2000,
election officials across the country took technology to task
to prevent future voting debacles. Georgia led the way in enhancing
and modernizing the voting process by securing federal funding
to replace archaic balloting equipment with cutting edge, touch-screen
tabulating machines.
However,
these machines did not produce a paper receipt that could ease
anxieties over potential glitches. To address those concerns,
the General Assembly in 2006 overwhelmingly passed a measure that
seeks to produce a paper record of cast ballots - not only to
reassure voters but to serve as a hedge against fraud or high-tech
manipulation of the voting machines.
In
addition, Senate Bill 500 established a pilot project in which
machines outfitted with a voter-verified paper trail will be used
in three Georgia precincts for the November 2006 elections .
3.
The Buckner Solution
As SB 500 made its way to the House, Rep. Gail Buckner inserted
several common-sense amendments to improve the legislation. First,
she inserted a provisions that provided that the state would be
the funding source for the pilot project. Had such a stipulation
not been attached to the bill, Bibb, Camden, and Cobb counties
would have been left paying the tab for the project. Another amendment
provided for open public hearings to debate the bill's merits
before legislative oversight committees.
Then
Gail helped move the bill out of committee and onward for a vote
in the House. This laid the groundwork to make the voting process
even more convenient, all the while affording Georgia's voters
with the piece of mind that each vote cast is accurately recorded.
As Secretary
of State, Gail will continue to protect the voting rights of Georgia's
voters. She will fight to protect the interests of all Georgians
by adding a verifiable paper ballot to the electronic voting machines.
It will work as such: A printer scrolls a voter's ballot choices
under a piece of clear glass or plastic. The voter confirms that
the choices made on the touch screen matches the choices on the
paper. If the voter agrees, the ballot is cast and the paper scrolls
out of sight into a sealed box. If not, the voter can cancel the
ballot and vote again until the two match. In states that already
use paper trails, random audits are done to make sure the vote
totals between the machine and the paper are consistent.
Details
of how the system will be implemented will be formulated following
the public hearings, investigation and findings of the legislative
oversight panel and a commission that Gail plans to appoint. She
will also hold roundtable discussions and public hearings in each
of Georgia's congressional districts before the 2007 session of
the General Assembly and will study the benefits of adding three
members to the State Elections Board.
Further
study will address concerns about Georgia's voting process, including:
Is it safe? Is verification totally accurate? Are these machines
on a path to decertification? Can everyone use them? All of these
issues and their possible answers will be on the table for consideration.
