In a major victory for voting rights advocates, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley announced today that all electronic voting machines in California must provide paper receipts by 2006.

Shelley also introduced stricter requirements for testing and auditing of the software used to record and tabulate votes in the nation's most populous state. The move may prompt changes in the type of voting equipment used throughout the country as precincts rush to modernize terminals.

California's reforms address concerns of Silicon Valley computer scientists and voting rights advocates who have been warning that paperless voting systems expose the vote to hackers, software bugs and mechanical breakdowns. The announcement comes less than three weeks after a state agency began an investigation of uncertified software allegedly used in California's Oct. 7 gubernatorial recall election.

According to Shelley's nine-page list of increased requirements for voting equipment companies, all counties that purchase new touch-screen terminals -- also known as ``direct recording electronic'' equipment, or DREs -- must provide a ``voter verified paper audit trail,'' starting in July, 2005.

In addition, voting equipment companies must retrofit touch-screen systems already being used in at least four California counties to include printers and paper receipts by July, 2006. The requirement makes California the first state in the nation to force equipment vendors to retrofit machines already installed in voting precincts.

Shelley was making the move not because ``voting systems are inherently insecure -- they are not,'' he wrote in the document. ``But rather because people understandably feel more confident when they can verify that their votes are being recorded as intended. ``

....brad, 11/23/03

See also:  Voting Machines