SAVE Bucks Votes for Secure, Accurate, Verifiable Elections
Legislation
Federal bills: ask our elected representatives to co-sponsor
Highlights of bill:
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Require all voting systems to produce voter-verifiable paper ballots, and all need to offer voter option to mark ballots by hand.
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Require voting systems to meet minimum DHS cybersecurity standards.
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Authorize funding a grant program for states to buy paper ballot systems.
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Require and fund mandatory risk-limiting audits for all federal elections.
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Require ballot-marking device ballots to be indentical in size, ink and paper as hand-marked paper ballots
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Highlights of bill:
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Same highlights as for PAVE Act above.
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Provide grants for studies for optimal ballot design, security measures, better election administration.
There are many bills being proposed in both the House and the Senate. Here's a current list and an article with commentary about some of the bills and the difficulty in getting voting security bills passed by the Senate right now. Let's hope that changes soon!
Even so, here's an article with a reality check about Washington:
It's an uphill battle, but we must push on. Contact your officials of all parties to co-sponsor and support the bills above, and stress how urgent this is for all Americans.
Pennsylvania: 2017 - 2018 (2019 activities reported on Important Updates page).
No election integrity legislation introduced yet, but the Joint State Government Commission recently announced the release of the advisory committee report, Voting Technology in Pennsylvania, written in response to Senate Resolution 394 of 2016.
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SR394 directed the Commission to appoint an advisory committee to study the issue of voting system technology. Specifically, the resolution directed that the study include information gathered from other states regarding the administration of elections and technology, a survey of counties in the Commonwealth regarding the administration of elections, and information regarding the cost to administer elections and to improve, upgrade, modernize or replace election system technology.
Legislation Proposals in Report (one bill introduced so far), to Amend the Pennsylvania Election Code:
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Make sure election officials are properly trained.
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Revise the number of pre-printed paper ballots needed for elections to more reasonable, cost-effective amount. SB418 (2019-2020) proposes requiring 10% more ballots than highest number of votes cast in previous 3 primary or 3 general elections (rather than 10% more than number of registered voters).*
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All voting systems must produce an individual permanent paper record for each vote cast, which shall be made available for inspection and verification by the voter before the vote is cast, and retained according to the provisions contained in this act for the retention of paper ballots.
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In the event of a discrepancy between the electronic record and the voter-verifiable and human-readable paper record, the voter-verifiable and human-readable paper record shall be the official record of the vote.
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In the event of a recount or audit of the results of an election, the voter-verifiable and human-readable paper record shall be the official record of the vote.
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This paragraph applies to voting systems that are leased or purchased after the effective date of this paragraph.
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*Because every precinct will have at least one accessible ballot-marking device that uses blank paper and can produce ballots-on-demand, this requirement might be in reality be even lower.
Comment added to report (Election officials, take note!):
"The purpose of this recommended amendment is to make clear the Advisory Committee’s commitment to secure elections that inspire confidence in the voters. The national conversation surrounding elections, especially regarding the possibility of voting machine hacking, has made it clear to the Advisory Committee members that implementing technology that reduces the possibility of hacking, and that facilitates post-election audits and recounts, is the best means of maintaining voter confidence."