End of the Trail?
Though the paper trail bill appears to be dead for this session, one can never be sure. “The dead can rise again,” according to Representative Delores Mertz. “Especially around Easter time,” she added. Dead bills come back as amendments to live bills. Or–get this–if they are reincarnated and sponsored by party leaders, they are exempt from so-called funnel rules.
All the leaders voted for the paper trail at one time or another. So they surely could revive SF 351 as a leadership bill and call it up for a vote. I’m not holding my breath. With the House’s Operation CYA an apparent success, I expect we will have to wait until next session to revive our effort.
Barring an election embarrassment, I am happy to wait. This paper trail debate has been over for two years already (we won), according to Electionline.org. And the debate must be over in Iowa, too, as no one criticized the idea in either house.
Next year we can ask for even more. We will seek a bill that has voter-verified paper ballots, plus open source (or publicly accessible) software for electronic vote counting, plus random audits after statewide elections, and also stricter rules for testing of equipment both before and after the votes are counted.
Pull out the law books and sharpen your pencils. We have legislation to draft. The next session begins in nine months.