The Republican primary campaign for Iowa secretary of state has lacked the drama and publicity of the governor’s race, but it is turning into a test of strength between a “fresh face” and a veteran of Iowa Republican politics.

The nominee challenging our outstanding Secretary of State Michael Mauro will be either Council Bluffs City Council member Matt Schultz or former State Representative George Eichhorn (“say I-Corn”).

A third Republican qualified for the ballot in this race, but I’m focusing on Eichhorn and Schultz because Chris Sanger is not a serious contender. He has no campaign staff and has raised only about $400, all at bake sales in Stuart, where the candidate and his wife own a bakery. The only newsworthy moment in Sanger’s campaign was his involvement in a meet and greet organized by a guy who thinks killing abortion providers is justifiable homicide. In fairness to Sanger, though, he may have a place in the record books for choosing the longest campaign committee name in Iowa history: Elect Chris Sanger, He Will Vote The Way People Want. Someone should have told him the secretary of state isn’t a legislator who votes on policies.

But I digress. Links and commentary about Schultz and Eichhorn are after the jump.  

I learned from the Iowa Voters blog that Steve King (IA-05) and Tom Latham (IA-04) were among the 85 percent of Republicans in the U.S. House who voted against New Jersey Democrat Rush Holt’s bill encouraging verifiable elections on Tuesday.

For details on the bill, click here. Here’s the gist:

H.R. 5036, as reported to the floor by the committee, would authorize funding to reimburse states with paperless jurisdictions that convert to paper-based voting systems in 2008 or provide emergency paper ballots that would be counted as regular ballots in the event of machine failure. The reimbursements would cover the cost of equipment conversion (from paperless touch screen machines to paper-based systems, such as optical scanners or computers with printers) and the cost of developing procedures for conducting hand-counted audits using independent, random selection of at least 2 percent of the precincts for audits under public observation.

Holt noted that two weeks ago, the House Administration Committee unanimously approved this bill. However, after the White House came out against the bill, 176 out of 203 Republicans fell in line.

At his blog, IowaVoter pointed out that the bill King and Latham voted against would have “re-imbursed Iowa for the expense of replacing our touchscreens.” (Two weeks ago Governor Chet Culver signed a law requiring all Iowa counties to use optical scanners and paper ballots.)

But no, King and Latham would rather rubber-stamp the Bush administration’s opposition to a bill that was voted unanimously out of committee.  

Governor Chet Culver on Tuesday signed into law Senate File 2347, which requires all Iowa counties to use optical scan voting machines and paper ballots.

The state will spend an estimated $4.6 million to replace touchscreen voting machines in 19 counties that have been using them.

It’s a relief that all 99 counties will be using similar voting equipment, which is less vulnerable to tampering than touchscreen machines and allows for hand and machine recounts in the event of a close election.

The Des Moines Register quoted Sean Flaherty of Iowans for Voting Integrity as saying voters will also save time in the counties that are replacing the paperless machines. Voting by touchscreen takes longer and leads to bigger backlogs at polling stations.

A lot of credit goes to Secretary of State Mike Mauro, who showed leadership on this issue despite the governor’s early objections to the cost of the plan and complaints by some officials in the counties that had purchased touchscreen machines.

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that

The Senate voted 47-1 on Senate File 2347, which calls for the state to pay for new machines so that every county has machines with paper ballots that could be recounted after an election.

The plan calls for the state to buy one machine for each precinct that needs an equipment update.

This bill, which would cost the state about $8.6 million, is adapted from Secretary of State Mike Mauro’s sensible plan to make sure that every Iowan casts a vote on a paper ballot.

The bad news is that county officials are objecting to the bill’s provision that

County taxpayers would pick up the tab for shipping, software, testing of the machines, and all licensing fees. And some counties would need to buy special tables for certain machines.

Dubuque County, for example, would have to spend almost $100,000 of its own money up front, plus an extra $10,000 or so per year for storage, license fees and additional staff that would be needed to deliver the equipment in time for elections, said Tom O’Neill, Dubuque County’s deputy commissioner of elections.

Dubuque County bought 43 touch-screen machines two years ago to meet federal requirements for helping voters with disabilities. It wasn’t easy or cheap to train more than 300 pollworkers, many of whom are in their 60s and 70s, O’Neill said.

I have limited sympathy for these county officials. They never should have spent money on machines that lacked paper ballots. Touchscreen machines are at the very least an accident waiting to happen–who knows when a close race will need to be recounted? And in the worst-case scenario, touchscreen machines could be tampered with, possibly leading to the wrong candidate being declared the winner of an election.

Meanwhile, the Register noted that

Lawmakers today adopted an amendment that stemmed from Gov. Chet Culver’s demand for more oversight of Secretary of State Michael Mauro’s purchase of the equipment.

The amendment would require Mauro’s office to work in consultation with the Department of Administrative Services on the purchase. The department director, Mollie Anderson, reports directly to Culver. Mauro, as an elected official, doesn’t.

I trust Mike Mauro to handle this matter, but at the same time, I have no problem with this amendment, if that’s what was necessary to get Governor Culver on board with Mauro’s plan for replacing voting machines.

With any luck, the presidential race is not going to be as close this year as in 2000 and 2004, but we are likely to have some state legislative races decided by very small margins. I feel more confident knowing that in the event of a close race, there will be paper ballots to recount.

Governor Chet Culver has agreed to back Secretary of State Mike Mauro’s plan “to use state money to help counties switch to one uniform system with paper ballots,” the Des Moines Register reported on Saturday:

Culver said he has put together a “working group” that includes Mauro, lawmakers and Culver’s staff. They will try to figure out how to get counties equipped with optical scan machines that count paper ballots – as he has long advocated for, he said.

Good for him. As I’ve written before, spending money on equipment that would print receipts for touchscreen voting machines would just throw good money after bad. Better to ensure that every Iowan votes with a paper ballot, which can be recounted if necessary.

Also on Friday, Culver endorsed incumbent Leonard Boswell in the Democratic primary for Iowa’s third Congressional district:

He called Boswell a “dear friend” whose military background is valuable on national security issues, although he said he respects Fallon and supports the idea of competitive political races.

Meanwhile, the Register tries to make news by noting that Culver has refused to rule out running for president someday.

Come on, reporters. He’s barely a year into his first term, and with any luck we’re about to elect a Democrat who will serve as president until 2012 or 2016. Let Culver get a term or two under his belt before you start asking him whether he’ll run for president.

The Sunday edition of the Des Moines Register has a front-page story on the disagreement between Governor Chet Culver and Secretary of State Mike Mauro over Iowa’s voting machines. Key passage:

Meanwhile, each man is trying to drum up support for his own proposal for ensuring a paper trail for every voting machine in Iowa.

Mauro wants to spend $9.7 million to give every voter an actual paper ballot that could be recounted later.

Culver wants to spend only $2 million to equip touch-screen voting machines, which have electronic ballots, with a special printer that shows voters their choices on a continuous roll of paper.

In Mauro’s cheering section are watchdog groups, and some key lawmakers and county election officials of both political stripes.

Sean Flaherty of Iowans for Voting Integrity, a Fairfield-based citizens group, gave Culver’s plan a thumbs down.

“Paper printouts are better than no paper trail, but spending money on paper-trail printers is chasing good money after bad,” said Flaherty, of North Liberty. “No one respects these printers, and it is likely that Congress will ban them in the near future.”

Culver blasted the more expensive plan last week.

“Money does not grow on trees around here,” he said in an interview. “The idea that we could come up with $9 million right now is a pipe dream. It’s irresponsible to suggest otherwise.”

Mauro has said he would pay for his plan for optical scan machines and ballot-marking devices with $3.7 million already earmarked, and by paying the voting equipment vendor the remaining $6 million on installment over the next three years.

As I’ve written before, I agree with Mauro on this issue. I lack confidence in the technology that would attach paper receipts to touchscreen machines, and such a fix would probably be throwing good money after bad, since the federal government may outlaw touchscreen machines in the next few years.

You can find more background on the issue, as well as persuasive arguments in favor of paper ballots, at the Iowa Voters site, which is dedicated to “open and transparent elections.”

Speaking of federal legislation, if you check out Blog for Iowa, Susannah Goodman of Common Cause and Jerry Depew of Iowa Voters have information on an important bill proposed by Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey (H.R. 5036, the Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008).

While no voting system is error-free, the recent recount of the New Hampshire primary results showed that the error rate for optical-scanner precincts was very low.

At some point we need to bite the bullet and spend the money necessary to get optical scanners in all the Iowa counties. In the event of another very close election, we need to have real paper ballots to recount.

I would also support hand recounts of a few precincts (randomly chosen) afer every state election. Apparently a bill to that effect is under consideration in the New Hampshire legislature. I don’t know if anyone has proposed a similar bill in Iowa before.

Secretary of State Mike Mauro wants every precinct in Iowa to have an optical scanner that reads paper ballots. Legislators should listen to him, even though the plan would cost $9.7 million, according to the Des Moines Register.

A new state law says there has to be a paper trail, leading some to call for retrofitting touchscreen machines with windows that would let voters view a “receipt” to confirm their votes. This “verified paper audit trail” would cost about $2 million to put in place, but I’m with Representative Pam Jochum of Dubuque, who says it would be a “total waste of money” to retrofit touchscreen voting machines.

Also,

Mauro pointed out Wednesday that any such system could be obsolete in two years because of pending federal legislation that could change requirements for voting machines.

Iowa needs to find a way to fund Mauro’s proposal, so that we have secure voting procedures and paper ballots that can be recounted if necessary.

Although no voting system is perfect, the recent recount in New Hampshire showed lower error rates in precincts using optical scanners than in precincts that counted ballots by hand on election night.

Touchscreen voting is a disaster in the making, not only because of the potential for tampering but also because it leaves nothing to be recounted in case of a disputed election.

By the way, I had previously reported that New Hampshire would recount all the ballots from the recent primary, but in fact Dennis Kucinich only put in $27,000, enough to recount about 40 percent of the ballots. The recount has now ended, having revealed no significant changes in vote totals for the candidates. Click the link for more details.

We finally got a paper ballot law for our state, but Iowans must step up ensure that the 2008 Presidential election is not decided by tens of millions of votes that cannot be verified or truly recounted.

Last Friday, Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced the Ballot Integrity Act of 2007 (no bill number yet), which will require that all voting systems used in federal elections offer a voter-verified paper record- by 2010. The bill will also require equally important routine hand audits of the paper records – by 2010. Among the bills cosponsors are Senators Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd, and Barack Obama.

The Ballot Integrity Act will likely be treated as a companion to Rep. Rush Holt’s bill HR 811, a bill which is very near to a full House vote, so the prospects of a conference committee this summer are strong. HR 811 has a 2008 deadline for paper records and audits.

There is good stuff in the Senate bill, but 2010 is too late as a deadline. Unless federal or state legislation changes things, 13 states are likely to use paperless electronic voting, either exclusively or extensively, in the 2008 election. Among those states are Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and South Carolina.

That’s tens of millions of votes, dependent entirely on the correctness of software. What a risky and foolish gamble, in the wake of a drumbeat of security reports, a comprehensive analysis by a task force of top computer scientists, and vote-altering glitches in recent elections.

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