April 7, 2006

WASHINGTON - Rep. Tom Petri joined with 150 voters Friday who were in Washington to express concern about the accuracy of electronic voting machines and to carry out a two-day lobbying blitz in support of legislation to provide for meaningful vote recounts in disputed elections.

The legislation, H.R. 550, the "Voter Confidence and Increased Accountability Act," would require that voting systems used in federal elections generate voter-verified paper records that could be inspected by voters prior to their votes being cast, and require unannounced audits in two percent of the precincts in each state.

Introduced by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), the bill received enthusiastic backing at a Capitol Hill rally by Representatives Petri (R-WI), Frank Wolf (R-VA) and Greg Walden (R-OR).

"This is really all about confidence in the process," Petri told the gathering. "I think that one should err on the side of having a process that is as foolproof as humanly possible, knowing that errors do happen, mistakes are made, and you need to try to have a situation where you can be as accountable and correct as possible. We have a lot of close elections in each of our states."

"Most of the country will have new voting machines this year," said Barbara Burt, a vice president at Common Cause, one of seven groups making up the "I Count Coalition" which organized the citizen lobbying blitz of Capitol Hill. "We know problems occur in every type of machine. The only way to recover from those problems is to have voter-verified paper records to fall back on. It's basic common sense."

Petri noted that 26 states have adopted similar laws or voting regulations. He praised Wisconsin's bipartisan support for the idea. "We have a Republican legislature and a Democratic governor. Back in January they passed legislation like this requiring an auditable paper trail. And I think we should do this at the national level as well," he said.