The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 (VCIAA) bill was introduced to the
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
on May 22, 2003 as by
Rush D. Holt, Jr.
Rush Dew Holt Jr. (born October 15, 1948) is an American scientist and politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 1999 to 2015. He is a member of the Democratic Party and son of former West Virginia U.S. Senator Rush D. Holt Sr ...
(
D-
NJ) and
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
on December 9, 2003 as by
Bob Graham (D-
FL). It is designed to "amend the
Help America Vote Act
The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (), or HAVA, is a United States federal law which passed in the House 357-48 and 92-2 in the Senate and was signed into law by President Bush on October 29, 2002.United States Department of Justice Civil Rights ...
(HAVA) of 2002 to require a
voter-verified permanent record or hardcopy" in
electronic voting
Electronic voting (also known as e-voting) is voting that uses electronic means to either aid or take care of casting and counting ballots.
Depending on the particular implementation, e-voting may use standalone ''electronic voting machines'' ( ...
systems.
Provisions of the bill
Section 2
This section titled "Extension Of Time Provided For States To Request Payments Under Title 1" extends the time permitted to request funds, for election administration and the replacement of old punched card voting or lever voting systems. The deadline is extended from "not later than 6 months after the date of the enactment of the act" (which would be April 29, 2003) to "not later than the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November 2003" (which would be November 11, 2003).
Section 4
Section 4 is titled "Promoting Accuracy, Integrity, And Security Through Voter-Verified Permanent Record Or Hard Copy" and amends the "Voting Systems Standards" section of HAVA to allow voters to not only check their electronic vote but to also check the permanent paper record.
Where HAVA requires voting systems to include a "permanent paper record" available as "an official record" for any recount that might occur and to allow voters an "opportunity to change the ballot or correct any error before the permanent paper record is produced", VCIAA is specific that systems must include an "individual paper record" that is "the official record", "made available for inspection and verification by the voter at the time the vote is cast" and preserved for "later use in any manual recount".
This section also adds a new section to HAVA covering software and modems. This amendment requires that the software contained or used in voting systems is disclosed to the
Federal Election Commission
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency of the United States whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections. Created in 1974 through amendments to the Federal Election Cam ...
as
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...
and that the code can be made "available for inspection upon request to any citizen".
To address security concerns, Section 4 also disallows the use of any wireless communication devices at all in voting systems.
Disabled voters are also given the option of using an "interim paper system" with help from an aide as well as the "direct recording electronic voting system" outlined by HAVA. The deadline for requesting funds for such a system is moved from January 1, 2007 to January 1, 2006.
External links
Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080918114957/http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:H.R.2239: , date=2008-09-18 - at Library of Congress
Help America Vote Act of 2002- at Library of Congress
Proposed legislation of the 108th United States Congress
United States federal election legislation