1. United States
2. Md.
3. Letter

Require hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots for all elections in our jurisdiction. The integrity of our elections is too important to leave to systems that can be manipulated, and the current moment demands action. When political pressure is being applied to reshape congressional maps and restrict mail voting, the only trustworthy safeguard is a ballot that human eyes can verify. Paper records only matter if someone actually looks at them. A paper trail that exists but goes unexamined is not a check on anything. Hand counting eliminates the black box entirely and puts verification in the hands of the public. The USPS recently rejected a Florida county's mail ballot envelope over a spacing issue, a preview of how many pressure points exist in our current system. We cannot afford to keep those vulnerabilities open. Please introduce or co-sponsor legislation requiring hand-marked paper ballots and mandatory hand-count audits. This is the floor, not the ceiling, of what election security requires right now.