State’s voting machines being pushed nationwide

Thursday, Feb. 10, 2005 | 11:11 a.m.

SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON -- Seeking to showcase the state's success with electronic voting machines, Nevada lawmakers introduced legislation aimed at requiring the machines nationwide.

Nevada's touch-screen machines, which create a paper ballot that can be viewed by the voter but remains at the polling station for possible recounts, are a model, the lawmakers said.

"We need to help the rest of the country catch up to us," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said.

The legislation aims to clarify a 2002 federal voting law. Some states have interpreted the law, the Help America Vote Act, which was intended to help states pay to upgrade their voting machines to mean that they were required only to have machines that create computer-generated paper vote records -- but not necessarily generated in the presence of the voter.

Ensign said the November elections in Nevada proved that voters could leave the polls knowing their votes were counted accurately.

"Every American should have that same confidence," he said.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., unveiled similar legislation in the House.

The legislation has early opposition from at least one trade group. A spokesman for the Information Technology Association of America, which represents companies that make voting machines of all kinds, said the machines used in Nevada are "not necessarily the best solution."

"Paper is not the only technology available to verify a vote," ITAA spokesman Charles Greenwald said.