Election Reform

I know, I post about this all the time, but I've heard news today that has me spinning on my head.

A republican candidate for Secretary of State is promsing an executive order (???) which would require each Iowa county to provide verifiable paper trails. Without getting into the whole idea of anyone other than a state's Governor issuing an executive order, there is simply no way (at least in Iowa) that the SoS has this authority.

Here in Iowa, any individual or corporation can produce a voting machine and present it to the Secretary of State's Office. Upon receipt, the SoS must contact the Iowa Board of Examiners. This Board is the actual group which approves or disapproves voting systems based on laws set forth by our legislature and the Federal government (i.e., Help America Vote Act).

What SF 351 did was to set requirements for a verifiable paper trail. Under Iowa law, those requirements - if SF 351 was passed in the House - would then be passed to the Iowa Board of Examiners, who would be mandated to follow the new specifications.

In short, don't buy the bull being shoveled. No Iowa Secretary of State has the authority to dictate which machines, or even machine specifications, can be approved for use by Iowa counties. To do so would be a direct assault on the Code of Iowa (Chapter 52, Section 5 -- 52.5).

It should also go without saying that we have a Governor who has publically stated he would veto any Election Reform bill which did not include verifiable paper trails and a Secretary of State who has also publically called for the legislators to pass SF 351.

:P

Things like laws really get in the way of them governing.