Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008

The Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008 (H.R. 5036) was a bill in the 110th Congress "to direct the Administrator of General Services to reimburse certain jurisdictions for the costs of obtaining paper ballot voting systems for the general elections for Federal office to be held in November 2008, to reimburse jurisdictions for the costs incurred in conducting audits or hand counting of the results of the general elections for Federal office to be held in November 2008, and for other purposes." (Official title.)

Current status


Bill summary

 * Requires that the Election Assistance Commission pay eligible jurisdictions to cover the costs of conversion to a paper ballot voting system or to cover the costs of retrofitting electronic voting systems to produce paper records (Sec. 2).


 * Requires that the Election Assistance Commission pay states to cover the costs of conducting any necessary manual audits of results from federal elections taking place in November 2008 and, at the option of the state, results from state and local elections taking place at the same time (Sec. 3).


 * Requires that the Election Assistance Commission pay states to cover the costs of conducting any necessary hand counts of results from federal elections taking place in November 2008 (Sec. 4).


 * Mandates that the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology shall study, test, and develop products and practices that ensure the accessibility of paper ballot verification and casting for disabled voters, for voters whose primary language is not English, and for voters with literacy difficulties (Sec. 5).

Key votes

 * Vote to pass a bill that provides federal funding for certain jurisdictions to obtain paper ballot voting systems or to conduct audits or hand counts of results for the general elections for federal office to be held in November 2008.



Supporters

 * Association for Computing Machinery
 * Brennan Center for Justice
 * Coalition for Peace Action
 * Credo Action
 * Jewish Social Policy Action Network
 * TrueVote MD
 * VerifiedVoting.org
 * Vote PA

Articles and resources

 * Slashdot's article "Secure Elections Act" Coming Up For Vote 15 Apr 2008.
 * San Francisco Chronicle's article House defeats bill funding paper ballots 15 Apr 2008.
 * Scoop's article Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act 14 Apr 2008.
 * Blue Collar Republican's article Oppose H.R. 5036, Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008! 6 Apr 2008.