Bill would require automatic recounts

The state wants to avoid what happened in Florida in 2000.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- The Legislature passed a bill that would require automatic recounts in close statewide elections in an effort to send the measure to Gov. Ed Rendell to be signed in time for the Nov. 2 presidential election.
The measure, passed Wednesday, would trigger recounts if the margin between the winning and losing candidates is less than 0.5 percentage point. House lawmakers voted 157-21 to attach the recount provision to a bill involving election filing fees, and then passed the amended bill 180-1. The Senate later approved it unanimously without debate.
Rendell has advocated the provision in an attempt to spare Pennsylvania some of the headaches that accompanied Florida's drawn-out ballot counting in the 2000 presidential election.
Rendell's spokeswoman, Kate Philips, said the governor would sign the measure as soon as possible after its passage.
The current system requires that recount petitions be filed in county courts and targeted at individual polling places among the more than 9,400 in the state. Each petition must be accompanied by a $50 fee for each voting machine or ballot box.
Bill's provisions
Among other things, the amendment would allow candidate-appointed poll watchers to serve in any election precinct within their counties of residence. Currently, they may be assigned to only one precinct.
It also would establish a process for ensuring that provisional ballots, which are issued to voters whose registration status cannot be immediately verified, are kept secure after the polls close.
In a separate vote, the House also passed a bill that would give the force of law to statewide standards for ballots cast on the assortment of voting devices used in Pennsylvania.
The State Department's Voting Standards Development Board adopted the standards administratively last year, but they were overturned on technical grounds by the state Supreme Court.
The bill, which now goes to Rendell, would make the standards state law in time for the Nov. 2 general election, providing guidance to election officials on whether to count questionable votes from electronic systems, punch-card machines, lever machines and even paper ballots.