WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- President George W. Bush, elected in a chaotic tableau of ballot mishaps and court challenges, signed legislation Tuesday to help reduce ballot-counting errors and ensure greater citizen participation in the election process.
The Help America Vote Act of 2002 provides $3.9 billion to states to help phase out manual-punch and lever-pull voting machines with electronic ones that allow for a voter to double-check choices before they are recorded. The funding would also be used to better train polling personnel.
It also requires first-time voters who registered by mail to present identification at polling places, placement of at least one machine for the disabled at each polling station and provisional voting for those whose names mistakenly don't appear on voting rolls. Those provisional ballots would only be counted when the voter's eligibility was confirmed.
"When problems arise in the administration of elections, we have a responsibility to fix them," Bush said at a ceremony in an auditorium in the Eisenhower Old Executive Office Building. "Every registered voter deserves to have confidence that the system is fair and elections are honest, that every vote is recorded and that the rules are consistently applied.
"The legislation I sign today will add to the nation's confidence," he said.
Provisions of the act will not affect next week's midterm election process, but will mostly be in effect for the 2004 presidential election.
Two years later, all states must have a computerized voter database that is linked to its drivers license lists.
The bipartisan legislation was the result of findings by a commission headed by former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.
