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Home > Arizona Legislation |
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Arizona
Legislation
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6.2.06
SB1557 was introduced by Senator Karen Johnson and promoted in the House by Rep. Ted Downing. This bill passed both houses in June. This bill provides Arizona with the following election safeguards:
A voter-verified paper audit trail - A
permanent record, verified by the voter, of each
vote cast. This requirement is absolutely essential
for recounts and audits to be able to ensure the
integrity of our elections. The bill also requires that the paper records be used in recounts and audits.
Random audits of paper records
- No business, government or financial organization
would just assume critical records are correct
without auditing. The whole purpose of paper trails
(whether from optical machines or DREs) is to allow
routine manual audits to check
machine accuracy. The audits are our safeguard to
detect and remedy errors and election fraud. SB1557 would require 2% of precincts to be hand counted. Large discrepancies between hand and machine counts will require expansion of the hand count. Early (mailed) ballots will also be audited by checking the tabulation of the central count optical scanners.
Prevent long precinct lines - In the 2004
elections some voters experienced long lines because
the election board could not keep up with the flow
of voters. This legislation would require election officials to predict the number of voters in each precinct and plan ahead to avoid long waits. Election officials will also monitor polling place wait times.
Source code - Vendors can protect
their intellectual property with patents and
copyrights, but not by keeping source code secret
from election officials and their technical
representatives. SB1557 will require vendors to place source code in escrow with the Secretary of State. This code will be analyzed if audits show significant errors in the electronic tabulation.
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