The Carter-Ford Commission and Voting Technology
Four years ago, former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford co-chaired an election reform, some of whose recommendations were ultimately enacted as the Help America Vote Act. Carter has now teamed up with another prominent Republican, former Secretary of State James Baker, to chair another commission, which had its first meeting in D.C. yesterday. Bloomberg has this report, and the agenda from yesterday's meeting can be found here.

Among the subjects upon which yesterday's hearing focused is the continuing debate over the security of electronic voting technology, featuring two of the most prominent players: David Dill of Stanford and Jim Dickson of the American Association of People with Disabilities. The arguments by now are familiar. Dill contends that electronic voting is lacking in transparency, while Dickson argues that electronic voting is necessary to provide access to voters with disabilities.

It's unclear what the commission can productively say about HAVA's voting systems mandate, however, given the fast approaching deadline for improving technology. In particular, by 2006, there must be at least one disability-accessible voting machine at each polling place. Also, states that received money for the buy-out of punch card and lever voting machines must replace that equipment by 2006. The commission's website says that it plans to take at least six months to complete its work. By that time, it will be too late to make any meaningful recommendations on this point, given that states and counties should by then have made all the critical decisions about what technology to implement for 2006. In fact, if election officials really want to do this right, they should already be pretty far down the road toward conversion.

It follows that, in the area of voting technology, the commission's work should focus on the long term rather than the short term. Technology will continue to evolve over time, and it's vital that our legal regime be adaptable enough to allow for those changes. The tricky part is determining how to promote more accessible technology, while at the same time ensuring the needed security and transparency. At this point, I'm skeptical about whether new federal legislation is the best means by which to accomplish these goals.

Update: The written testimony of panelists is available here. Although I've not read all the panelists' remarks yet, the comments of Henry Brady, Jim Dickson, and Rick Hasen are especially insightful and worth a look. - posted by Dan Tokaji @ 9:02 AM