Create elections fund.

Byline: The Register-Guard

For reasons still not clear, one of the 2003 Legislature's most important - and easiest - chores has been sidetracked. Lawmakers need to pass a bill so that Oregon can take advantage of the federal government's willingness to pay for the modernization of Oregon's election system.

The bill is an outgrowth of the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, better known as the election reform bill. House Bill 2145 responds to a provision in the legislation mandating that each state create an "elections fund" into which federal money to finance election reforms will be deposited. The fund in Oregon would be housed in the secretary of state's office, which oversees elections in the state.

Oregon is expected to receive about $7.3 million in federal election-reform money, $2.3 million of which is intended to underwrite the replacement of punch-card ballots in seven counties - including Lane - that still use them. Punch-card ballots, as the nation learned in Florida's 2000 election fiasco, have an unacceptably high rate of error. Congress intends for states to replace the punch-cards with more reliable voting devices, such as ballots that are marked by pencil and read by optical scanners.

HB 2145 would create the required state election fund. But the bill, introduced on the opening day of the Legislature, has been needlessly shuffled around. It was first referred to the House Rules and Public Affairs Committee, which approved it with a "do pass" recommendation, but then, inexplicably, was sent to the budget-writing Joint Ways & Means Committee. The federal money contained in the bill can't be used for any purpose other than election-related matters.

To give county clerks and state elections officials time to implement the new federal requirements - especially switching from punch-card ballots in time for the 2004 elections - HB 2145 should be passed by both chambers of the Legislature and sent to the governor for signature.

The federal government is willing to pay to update unreliable elections equipment in Oregon. The Legislature should move quickly to take advantage of the offer - otherwise, the state will have to find the money to do the job itself. That prospect ought to spur lawmakers to act soon.