Democrats on a House Appropriations Committee panel included $500 million to boost election security as part of their version of an annual funding bill introduced Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The version of the fiscal 2021 Financial Services and General Government spending bill rolled out by the House Appropriations subcommittee on financial services and general government would appropriate half a billion dollars to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to \u201cenhance election technology and make election security improvements.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill<\/a>, which will be debated by the subcommittee Wednesday, specifies that states may only use the election security funds to replace \u201cdirect-recording electronic\u201d voting equipment with voting systems that use some form of paper ballots. States would only be allowed to use any remaining funds once they have certified to the EAC that all direct-recording election equipment has been replaced.<\/p>\n Experts have strongly advised against the use of direct-recording electronic voting equipment, which has no backup paper record of how an individual voted.<\/p>\n The majority of states have phased out these types of equipment, though New York University\u2019s Brennan Center for Justice\u00a0estimated last year<\/a>\u00a0that around 16 million Americans were still likely to vote on paperless equipment during the 2020 election.<\/p>\n