We had about twenty supporters come to Annapolis to testify in favor of SB393 on March 12, 2004, waiting patiently for hours as the hearing ran late and our bill was pushed to the end of the schedule. We met old friends and new - Jeanne Gibson, a Republican drove hours from Alleghany County to testify with her 4 year old son in tow. Kevin Bell a Democratic attorney and former Annapolis lobbyist joined our ranks, as did George Law, a 2002 Green candidate for Anne Arundel County Council. Likewise, June Clendening and company traveled once again from the Eastern Shore. 18-year Election Judge Joyce Thomann, an Anne Arundel County Republican, added her testimony as did Jonathan Hutson, an attorney form Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.

A few highlights: When Linda Lamone, head of the State Board of Election testified, bill sponsor Senator Andrew Harris got her to admit that the Diebold machines produce no independent paper record. Then Senator Janet Greenip, the bill's other sponsor, asked Lamone why she was claiming that the printers could not be ready in time for November, when the president of Diebold had said directly to Greenip that the printers would take three or four weeks at most. Lamone had no answer.

Lamone also testified that Jeffrey Liss's ballot was checked and that there was no problem. However, when Kevin Bell pressed her afterwards in the hallway she admitted that all that had been done was that the Board staff had checked to see that the ballot images had been sent correctly from the SBE to the polling place. The actual machine record was not checked, because it could not be checked. This also does not square with the Washington Post's report of the election machine technician who confirmed that no one who used Mr. Liss's machine got to vote in the Senate race.

There was a lot of back and forth about whether the printers could be ready for the November 2004 elections. Senator Harris asked Paul Suh how long it would take to upgrade the machines' programming to add a paper trail... would it take two weeks? "Oh no," Mr. Suh replied. "It would take two days at most."