Who one votes for is sometimes just as important as what one uses to cast the vote.

Here is one remedy for Idaho.

Viva paper ballots and good candidates!

The Rush Holt bill, H.R. 811, will be on the House floor next week. Almost certainly Thursday.

Steve #2

Have you heard how HR 811's compliment, S 559, is fairing in the Senate?

The Congress is bi-cameral and both the House and the Senate versions must be dealt with before there can be a conference committee. Such a committee fuses House and Senate variations of bills into one body of text.

Then, that morphed version must be passed by both the House and the Senate, resulting in bi-cameral legislation which is then sent to the president to sign or veto.

The Senate filibuster prevents any bill from going to the floor for an "up or down vote". That applies to the final morphed version as well.

Thus, the fate of any congressional legislation (whether House or Senate) ultimately faces the power of the Senate filibuster at least once.

It takes 60 votes to grant a cloture motion, which is the motion that brings debate to an end (stops any filibuster), and which allows an up or down floor vote in the Senate on the bill.

The dems in the 110th Senate, which started in January, have had only 48 voting members, the repubs have had 49, and the indies have had 2 voting members. In any tie vote, Dick Cheney casts the tie breaker.

Thus the republicans have been able to obstruct, thru the filibuster (about 50 times so far this year), any legislation their leaders have opposed.

My research tells me the republicans will filibuster this legislation because they do not like the House language that allows "qualified persons" to peruse the source code of electronic voting machines, nor do they like the Senate language that allows "any citizen" to peruse that source code.

Remember that Debra Bowen in California was given much power to evaluate the EVM vendors by examining the source code of those EVM's.

Are these people so isolated that they've either not heard of the CA results, or so proud they refuse to acknowledge the work of another SoS? I wonder. You?

Dredd, you asked:

Have you heard how HR 811's compliment, S 559, is fairing in the Senate?

I have been told by several staffers that the Senate is extremely unlikely to consider S.559 because they will give first consideration to their own bill, S.1487 (Feinstein's mega-EAC mandate).

My perception is that the House is racing about, desperately reaching for anything, no matter the cost or actual effectiveness, that would succeed in restoring some measure of public confidence in our elections. It's possible that the Senate is due to take a more cautious approach, but it remains difficult to fully understand Feinstein's intentions here.

Bob #5

I asked about S 559 because it is paired to the fate of HR 811. It was introduced about the time HR 811 was this year by Senator Nelson (D-FL). On the congress website both bills refer to each other as being related.

It claims as its purpose "to require a voter-verified permanent paper ballot under title III of such Act, and for other purposes" (id., emphasis mine).

The additional and formally unrelated, yet subject matter related S 1487, may be more likely to get consideration because it is more in tune with what republicans will let get past filibuster.

I am less favorably inclined toward S 1487 than I am toward S 559, because S 559 has the open source code provisions, the outlawing of the Ken Blackwell and Karen Harris syndrome, outlawing of internet and wifi communications in EVM's, requires archival quality paper ballots, and mandates some auditing.

I know of no House compliment to S 1487, do you?