John Ensign: “In the November 2004 elections, Nevadans entered a new frontier for casting their votes. We became the first state in…”

“In the November 2004 elections, Nevadans entered a new frontier for casting their votes. We became the first state in the nation to require that voter-verified paper audit trail printers be used with touch-screen voting machines. Not only did our election go off without a hitch, but voters across Nevada left the polls with the knowledge that their vote would be counted and that their vote would be counted accurately. I understand better than most the importance of the integrity of the ballot box. I was at the mercy of a paperless-machine election in my 1998 race for the U.S. Senate. When the votes were tallied with a difference of only a few hundred, I asked for a recount in Clark County, the only county at the time using electronic voting machines. The result of the recount was identical to the first count. That is because there was nothing to recount. After rerunning a computer program, the computer predictably produced the same exact tally. I conceded that race and was elected to Nevada's other Senate seat in 2000. But that experience made me realize the importance of ensuring Americans that their votes will count--it is absolutely fundamental to our democracy. That is why I led the fight for voter verification paper trails in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that President Bush signed into law in 2002. A voter-verified paper trail would allow voters to review a physical printout of their ballot and correct any errors before leaving the voting booth.”