EDITORIAL
Paper trail will boost voters' confidence

Hawai'i has a long record of fair, accurate and accountable elections with a strong level of voter trust.

But this stampede toward computer-based systems, or electronic voting, has not been without its problems.

Electronic voting is fast and easy. But it also has, at least in some locations, including Hawai'i, a serious flaw: It leaves no paper trail.

Most voters in Hawai'i during the past election used a hybrid system in which they marked a ballot and then inserted it into a machine for electronic counting.

That's a giant step ahead of the old system of running punch cards through card readers, or even the older system of hand tabulating.

But another option available this past election and sure to become more widely used is electronic voting: You cast your choices on a computer screen, and the machine tabulates the results.

There is no way to compare what the machine says are the results with what the voters actually intended once voters leave the booth.

A coalition of data processing experts and political activists is pushing this year's state Legislature to adopt a bill that would mandate a paper trail for every electronic voting machine.

The technology for a paper trail is readily available and, indeed, numerous jurisdictions have already adopted it.

Adding a paper audit trail will cost some money and perhaps add to the logistical burden of elections officials.

But Hawai'i has essentially gone with a limited program of one electronic voting machine in every precinct for the convenience of the disabled and others, so the paper audit would be an additional cost only for a relatively small number of machines.

America's voting process works because it is transparent, accountable and trustworthy. Maintaining that standard through a paper audit trail added to electronic voting machines is a small cost, indeed, to pay.

Lawmakers should waste no time in seeing this idea into law.