← Back to Archives

AB 369 in California

elections

There's a bill that implicates electronic voting in the California Assembly that I haven't heard anyone mention.

The bill is AB 369 and it's title is cryptic and undescriptive: "An act to amend Section 19250 of the Elections Code, relating to voting systems." This is what it would do, if passed:

  • It would allow any city or county to use an "independent electronic verification system" in place of an accessible voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT).
  • It would push the date by which cities and counties are required to have VVPAT-enabled and federally qualified electronic voting systems from January 2006 to January 2008.

I think this bill is a bad idea. Why? I don't see a real need for the extension of the date that this requirement would go into effect. The vendors all seem to be on the same page with respect to providing systems that have VVPAT-capability (although only Diebold and perhaps Sequoia seem close to state certification of their systems (AccuVote-TSx and AVC Edge respectively)). Most of the complaints from jurisdictions about VVPAT-enabled systems have been surrounding the recently-passed SB 370 which requires (among other things) that the VVPAT to be used in recounts and the 1% post-election manual audit.

More serious, however, is the notion of an "independent verification system." What is this? There's no definition of what this thing is (there is a definition in the law for VVPAT; see §19251(c) of the California Elections Code). Further, is this thing tested by the federal testing laboratories? Is it tested with the equipment that it's supposed to be used with? Does this thing have to go through state certification? The only thing I can think of that might be close to an "independent verification system" is VoteHere's Sentinel hardware.

UPDATE [2005-11-18T10:20:45]: Kim of CVF actually talked about this bill a while back: "Riverside legislator introduces bill to watch". She also pointed out to me that this is what is known as a two-year bill in that it was introduced in the first year of the current legislative session and will be scheduled for a hearing, etc., if at all, in early 2006.