Electronic Voting, Spring 2020

The Help America Vote Act of 2002

This is the central legislative response to the election of 2000. HAVA, as it is usually abbreviated, was first introduced in early 2001. The house and senate passed different versions, and the bill spent over a year "in conference" before it was dusted off and passed in both houses without any debate, shortly after the flubbed 2002 on Miami's new iVotronic-based voting system.

Reading legislation is frustrating. The text is ugly. Things woth looking at are: How does the act propose to regulate voting systems? Or does it? What timeline does the act envision for regulation and for spending on new voting systems? What voting technologies does the act encourage and what technologies does it discourage?

The Congressional Research Service

This report is an attempt at assessing HAVA 14 years after it was passed. It's worth noting that Eric Fischer has been working for the CRS for decades and this is one of a series of reports he's written on voting technology.