Paper ballots making a comeback...

THE NATION’S SECRETARIES OF state gathered for a multi-day National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) conference in Washington, D.C., this weekend, with cybersecurity on the mind.

Panels and lectures centered around the integrity of America’s election process, with the federal probe into alleged Russian government attempts to penetrate voting systems a frequent topic of discussion.

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One way to allay concerns about the integrity of electronic voting machine infrastructure, however, is to simply not use it. Over the past year, a number of states are moving back towards the use of paper ballots or at least requiring a paper trail of votes cast.

Did you know that Tennessee passed bipartisan legislation ten years ago requiring voter verifiable optical scan ballots for all elections in the state? There was federal funding available through the Help America Vote Act to pay for it, too.

Then Republicans took control of the legislature and governor's office and repealed the law.

Note that the company that makes the eSlate voting machines used in 30 counties, including Knox and Blount, makes optical scanning machines that are compatible with the back end tabulating systems already in place. The existing eSlate electronic voting machines can also be retrofitted with printers to provide a voter verifiable printed audit trail.

The DRE (direct recording electronic) system currently in use provides no possible way to perform a manual recount. All you can do is run the same report again and get the same result again. Optical paper ballots would provide a human readable way to perform a recount independent of the electronic system.

Why don't Tennessee Republicans want assurances that all votes are being counted and counted accurately? They sure went to a lot of trouble to "protect the integrity" of the vote with photo ID.

Previously:

Tennessee Republicans do not want voter verifiable voting in 2010

TN House votes to continue unverifiable black box voting