N.J. bill would require voting machines to leave paper trail

Four Democrats in the New Jersey Assembly have introduced a bill that would require voting machines to leave a paper trail of each vote cast.

Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker says previous equipment failures and programming errors have resulted in costly disputes that cast doubt on election results. Zwicker says paper records would assure voters that their ballots are counted properly

Currently, the requirement for the purchase of new voting machines or retrofitting of existing machines to produce a paper record has been suspended until funding is made available.

The bill requires that each voting machine that is purchased or leased following the bill’s effective date would be required to produce a permanent paper record.