Statehouse Voting Machines Break, Too
Last year when the Iowa state senate passed SF 351 to require paper trails for voting, I was surprised that it passed unanimously. Someone explained that the Senators had seen their own electronic voting board break down in the middle of a vote and that had helped them see the need for the bill.
This spring the Iowa house followed suit and voted for paper trails. Again the vote was unanimous. Was it for the same reason?
In his last speech of the session, House speaker Chris Rants referred to the voting system when thanking the various House employees for their work:
Allysa makes sure I don’t miss all of your votes when your desk voting machines are broken – as they apparently often are.
They know the problems and they have the votes to fix them. But they can’t give up playing politics and actually pass the bill. So we, too, get to risk broken voting machines.