To get the American election system back off the ground after the 2000 presidential election debacle, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002. HAVA, as it is called, turned out to be a Hindenburg of a statute -- impractical, expensive ($3 billion in federal money to help states buy new voting machines) and plagued by problems across the country.

Far from alleviating the concerns they were meant to address, the computerized touchscreen voting machines that became widespread thanks to HAVA -- often replacing old but generally reliable mechanical machines in places such as Allegheny County -- do not inspire confidence.

The most disquieting incident occurred last November in Florida's 13th Congressional District, where Republican Vern Buchanan beat Democrat Christine Jennings by 369 votes. But Sarasota County had 18,000 "undervotes" -- that is, voters supposedly made no choice, although the figure was so high that it strongly suggests thousands of votes made on touchscreen machines simply disappeared.

Although Pennsylvania's problems have been relatively minor by comparison, Florida's troubles with paperless, touchscreen voting do resonate locally. That's because Sarasota has been using the ES&S iVotronic machines, also chosen by a number of Western Pennsylvania counties, including Allegheny, Beaver, Butler and Westmoreland.

Fortunately, politicians from both major parties are deciding that enough is enough. In Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican, announced last week that the state will replace touchscreen machines with units that use paper ballots. In Washington, D.C., Rep. Rush Holt, a Democrat from New Jersey, introduced a bill that would amend HAVA to require machines to produce an individual paper ballot that would allow voters to verify their choices.

The bill, HR 811, has 183 co-sponsors, including from this region Democrats Mike Doyle and Jason Altmire and Republicans Tim Murphy and Phil English. Such bipartisan support is vital because this isn't a liberal or conservative issue; it's a good government initiative that is in the interests of everybody who cares about the health of American democracy.

The distrust of paperless touchscreen voting systems is such that the tide seems to be running in the direction urged by many voting activists locally -- optical scanners, the choice now made by Florida. The Post-Gazette doesn't necessarily favor such machines because they seem to us not far removed from the system that made hanging chads part of the language back in 2000.

But we do agree that voter-verified paper ballots are essential. HR 811 does, in fact, allow touchscreen machines if they generate such ballots -- and that would be the Post-Gazette's preference, especially as Allegheny County negotiated an option with the vendor to add a paper-trail system if needed. But it remains to be seen whether current models can be updated to do this and still meet the requirements of the proposed law.

Our greater concern is that, whatever machines prove most practicable under the proposed law, local and state governments that made a good faith effort to comply with HAVA shouldn't be left with huge costs when Congress tries to fix the law that was supposed to fix the system.