$300 million bond issue would pay for new voting equipment

Associated Press
June 7, 2001

SACRAMENTO -- Voters next year would be asked to approve $300 million in bonds to buy modern new election equipment under a bill passed Wednesday by the state Assembly.

The author, Speaker Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, said the upgrades are needed "so we don't have in California what happened in Florida."

He referred, of course, to the presidential race uncertainty centered primarily on old punch-card voting machines in some Florida counties.

"The punch-card ballot, while still functional, is rapidly becoming extinct," Hertzberg added.

Counties are allowed to choose their own voting systems. About nine counties, including Los Angeles, use punch-card voting machines. One county, Riverside, uses a touch-screen computer system.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other activist organizations sued Secretary of State Bill Jones in federal court in April, saying antiquated punch-card voting machines are responsible for undervotes and overvotes in numerous counties around the state.

Jones supports the bill, which would place a $300 million bond issue on the March ballot. If it is approved, counties could apply to the state for money to buy updated voting systems approved by the secretary of state. Counties would have to provide one-fourth of the total cost of the new system.

One opponent, Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy, R-Monrovia, said he was concerned about election fraud with computerized voting systems and said "a paper trail is something we should have."

The bill was approved 65-3.

A related bill, approved by a 47-20 vote, would create a seven-member Voting Modernization Commission to evaluate the counties' requests for modernization funds. It would also order the secretary of state to explore and eventually certify online voting in the future.

The Assembly, by a 47-28 vote, also approved a bill that would allow voters to apply to permanently vote by absentee ballot. Currently, only disabled people can get such a permanent designation. Other people who want to use absentee ballots must apply for each election.

All bills go to the Senate.