By ELIZABETH PIERSON The Valley Morning Star November, 25 2004 AUSTIN — A Rio Grande Valley representative filed a bill Tuesday that would require electronic voting machines to give voters a paper receipt. House Bill 166, filed by state Rep. Aaron Peña, D-Edinburg, would require that electronic voting machines produce a paper ballot that allows voters to confirm on paper the choices they made on the machine.

It would go into effect Jan. 1, 2006.
Peña wants to make sure election officials don’t waste money on expensive electronic voting machines only to find out later that they need paper trails, he said.

In the Valley and around the country, many middle-aged and elderly voters have a distrust of computers or are not comfortable using them, he said. A paper trail would help make for fairer elections, both in perception and in reality, he said.

The Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, signed by President Bush in 2002 provides $4 billion for states to upgrade voting equipment and requires all states have an electronic voting system by January 2006, Peña said.

"Amongst people who really care about fair elections and most political activists, the major concern confronting us is that HAVA forces us to go to electronic machines," Peña said. "For our community, it’s a scary thing because it involves technology."

The money from HAVA would be better spent if it went to machines that leave a paper trail, Peña said.

"The federal dollars recently allocated to Texas should not be spent on already outdated systems that fail to have a paper trail that allows voters to review and correct their votes," he said.

Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, filed a companion bill in the Senate.