The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 (VCIAA) bill was introduced to the United States House of Representatives

United States House of Representatives

The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

 on May 22, 2003 as by Rush D. Holt, Jr.

Rush D. Holt, Jr.

Rush Dew Holt, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for . He is a member of the Democratic Party. He is currently the only Quaker in Congress.-Early life and education :Rush D. Holt was born to Rush D...

 (D-NJ

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

) and United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 on December 9, 2003 as by Bob Graham

Bob Graham

Daniel Robert "Bob" Graham is an American politician. He was the 38th Governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987 and a United States Senator from that state from 1987 to 2005...

 (D-FL

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

). It is designed to "amend the Help America Vote Act

Help America Vote Act

The Help America Vote Act , or HAVA, is a United States federal law which passed in the House 357-48 and 92-2 in the Senate and was signed into law by President Bush on October 29, 2002. Drafted in reaction to the controversy surrounding the 2000 U.S...

 (HAVA) of 2002 to require a voter-verified permanent record or hardcopy" in electronic voting

Electronic voting

Electronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes....

 systems.

Section 2

This section titled "Extension Of Time Provided For States To Request Payments Under Title 1" extends the time permitted to request funds, for election administration and the replacement of old punched card voting or lever voting systems. The deadline is extended from "not later than 6 months after the date of the enactment of the act" (which would be April 29, 2003) to "not later than the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November 2003" (which would be November 11, 2003).

Section 4

Section 4 is titled "Promoting Accuracy, Integrity, And Security Through Voter-Verified Permanent Record Or Hard Copy" and amends the "Voting Systems Standards" section of HAVA to allow voters to not only check their electronic vote but to also check the permanent paper record.

Where HAVA requires voting systems to include a "permanent paper record" available as "an official record" for any recount that might occur and to allow voters an "opportunity to change the ballot or correct any error before the permanent paper record is produced", VCIAA is specific that systems must include an "individual paper record" that is "the official record", "made available for inspection and verification by the voter at the time the vote is cast" and preserved for "later use in any manual recount".

This section also adds a new section to HAVA covering software and modems. This amendment requires that the software contained or used in voting systems is disclosed to the Federal Election Commission

Federal Election Commission

The Federal Election Commission is an independent regulatory agency that was founded in 1975 by the United States Congress to regulate the campaign finance legislation in the United States. It was created in a provision of the 1975 amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act...

 as source code

Source code

In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...

and that the code can be made "available for inspection upon request to any citizen".

To address security concerns, Section 4 also disallows the use of any wireless communication devices at all in voting systems.

Disabled voters are also given the option of using an "interim paper system" with help from an aide as well as the "direct recording electronic voting system" outlined by HAVA. The deadline for requesting funds for such a system is moved from January 1, 2007 to January 1, 2006.

External links

• Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 - at Library of Congress
• Help America Vote Act of 2002 - at Library of Congress