Fail-safe ballots

Electronic voting machines must have a paper trail to ensure an accurate recount

How much worse could this November's election be than the disaster of 2000?

Much worse, unless action is taken immediately to assure Americans that their votes will be fairly counted.

The problem is this:

Up to 50 million voters nationwide will cast their ballots on new electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail and are subject to having their results altered by undetectable computer hacking.

That means the results could be brought into question, with no way to prove they're authentic in a nation that's already had its balloting confidence severely shaken.

The new electronic voting machines were pushed by Congress four years ago after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of George Bush gained him the presidency, by stopping the long recount that had been ordered by Florida's highest court.

Fortunately, Brevard County already had installed an optical-scan system, which makes recounts easy. That saved the county from the punch-card nightmares that contributed to Florida's election debacle.

But the newer electronic balloting system already installed in 15 Florida counties and in districts nationwide not only can be secretly undermined. It also offers no way to double-check results through bipartisan recounts that have traditionally settled close elections.

That means even in a very close race, the American people would simply be told who won and would have no way to question the result.

The machines already have caused problems in several states, including Florida.

For example, in January, a one- issue election in Broward and Palm Beach counties was decided by 12 votes, but the machines counted 130 ballots as blank.

And in Florida's 2002 gubernatorial primary, the errors included machines in one 1,000-voter precinct that reported no one had voted. However, no paper trial meant no recount.

There is a solution.

Sen. Bob Graham, D-Miami Lakes, and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., are co-sponsoring a bill that would require the electronic machines to produce a paper ballot.

The voter would check the ballot for correctness, then hand it in to be kept in a locked box, ready for recount if needed. But the bill must be passed now to get the work done by November.

Claims by voting-machine makers, such as Diebold, that it can't be done, are ludicrous. They already make machines such as ATMs that spit out receipts.

Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, is defending the vote from another angle.

He has filed a federal suit to require paper trails, based on the Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore that equal protection requires states to use comparable recount methods from county to county.

Recounts don't exist in counties that use the electronic machines, which we say means those voters lose their constitutional right to an equal ballot.

Fixing the machines will take months, so it's essential that Congress pass the paper-trial legislation immediately.

Otherwise, the nation could face another long national nightmare, and this time it could be worse than in 2000.