This morning, I stopped at the Cedar Rapids Public Library to visit with Congressman David Loebsack. Yesterday, I made everyone in the office aware that Congressman Loebsack would be holding office hours at the library. I asked if anyone had any issues they’d like me to address. First Deputy Becky Shoop asked me to ask the Congressman about the Airline Passengers Bill of Rights. Congressman Loebsack didn’t know the current status of the bill, but indicated he needed to find out because he’s spent countless hours on planes and has some concerns.
I addressed my issue, i.e., HR811 – the Holt bill – dealing with mandated changes to electronic voting systems. At the present time, HR-811 is mandating changes to voting systems before the November 2008 election. While Linn County appears to be on-track with replacing its touch screen voting machines with ballot marking devices well before the June 2008 primaries, many other counties in Iowa and across the nation may NOT have time to replace touch screen machines or reconfigure their touch screen machines with the technology mandated by the Holt bill. The biggest challenge I foresee with changing technologies is the number of precinct election officials that would need to be trained and/or retrained to use the new technology AND educating voters to use the technology on Election Day. Neither of these challenges is insurmountable … but we do need time to provide the training and the Holt bill may mandate changes that cannot be absorbed in the time now remaining before the 2008 elections. –Joel @ 5:00pm