RP Count on Election Integrity

Editorial: The Tucson Citizen  June 23, 2008

Count on Election Integrity

Billie Stanton

Former state Sen. Ted Downing deserves a nice rest this summer.

Although he’s been out of the Legislature since 2006, the indomitable Tucson Democrat still has been pushing for election reforms.

Thursday, when the governor signed SB 1053, Downing made his trifecta.

The new bill requires access for outside observers at all ballot counts. Instead of having observers only for partisan elections, they’ll now be on hand for nonpartisan elections, too.

While still in the Senate, Downing pushed a bill that requires verification by hand-counts of a specified number of ballots in designated races that were counted by optical scanners.

He also pushed to require any voting machine used in Arizona to produce a voter-verified paper ballot.

He wasn’t alone, of course. State Rep. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, was one of his allies in the effort, as were Rep. Chuck Gray and Sen. Karen Johnson, both Mesa Republicans.

Good work by all involved. The integrity of our votes must be preserved.

From Tucson Citizen