Editorial
Back up e-ballots with a paper trail

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Washington's chief elections officer is on the right side as he joins a growing movement of elections officials to require electronic-voting-machine manufacturers to meet important standards for accuracy and security.

Federal election-reform legislation, a response to the Florida debacle in the 2000 presidential election, requires every polling place to have at least one electronic voting machine, specifically to assist people with disabilities.

But the federal legislation failed to enact reasonable regulation of the machines, essentially putting the manufacturers in charge of the technology.

Secretary of State Sam Reed is asking the Legislature to require electronic voting machines to have paper records as backup to ensure the machines' accuracy — something many of the major machine manufacturers have been fighting.

Reed wants citizens who vote electronically to be able to view a paper record to make sure their preferences were recorded correctly, a reasonable requirement that will help boost voter confidence in the system. Retained by election officials, the paper record could be used randomly to double-check machine accuracy.

Reed's proposed legislation also would require each machine be self-contained and not hooked up to any network that could make them vulnerable to hackers. It also would create a task force combining elections officials and technology experts to evaluate the machines for vulnerability to election fraud.

Reed is not alone. California's secretary of state announced last month the same intention to require paper backup. And U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., has pledged to introduce federal legislation that would require it in every state.

Ensuring ballot accuracy is a paramount function of elections officials. It makes sense that Reed and others are pressing to set the standards, not let them be set by manufacturers.

The Washington Legislature should support this effort.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company