Make paper trails a nationwide reality

[Progressive4Life]

Email from Common Cause (18 May 2006):

Last week The New York Times and others reported on new concerns about Diebold touch screen voting machines. According to The Times:

Computer scientists who have studied the vulnerability say the flaw might allow someone with brief access to a voting machine and with knowledge of computer code to tamper with the machine's software, and even, potentially, to spread malicious code to other parts of the voting system.

How many times do elections officials need to be warned about the serious problems with these machines? This is unacceptable. It is clear that all voting systems must produce a voter verifiable paper record. It is vital that audits which compare the paper records to the computer tallies be mandatory. If the machine malfunctions or there is tampering, we need to know.

What is Congress doing? Nothing. Right now HR 550, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act the bill, which would take care of these problems, is languishing in committee. The bill has 186 cosponsors, more support than most bills voted on in the House.

Please call today, and urge them to let the House vote on HR 550.

Thank you for all you do for Common Cause.

Chellie Pingree
President
Common Cause

Go to Congress.org if you don't know your rep's contact info.

[w4rma]

1. paper ballots, not trails, not record. Ballots with the force of law

backing them up.

[Progressive4Life]

5. Baby steps

Ultimately, I, too, would love to see a return to paper ballots. However, with November less than six months away, it's too much to hope for. I'll be happy with paper trails for the time being. At least it's an auditable record.

[Stevepol]

2. K&R!!

[Peace Patriot]

3. By all means, DO your civic duty and try to pressure this, the most

corrupt and illegitimate Congress in our history--or maybe in anybody's history--BUT, while you're working to get Bush's "pod people" in Congress to give you back your right to vote, after they quite deliberately took it away, ALSO spend some time on LOCAL/STATE election officials, whose corrupt or ignorant decisions to purchase these insecure, unreliable, hackable and very expensive election theft machines CAN BE rescinded, and on whom ordinary people may still have some influence.

What machinery did YOUR county election official purchase for you to "vote" on? How is that official appointed or elected? Did that official attend any of Diebold/ES&S/Sequoia's corrupt lavish lobbying junkets? What are the means of getting rid of corrupt local/state officials? Etc.

Bear in mind that Tom Delay's and Bob Ney's "Help America Vote for Bush Act" DID NOT require electronic voting. It merely bribed and bullied state/local election officials with its $4 billion boondoggle, and draconian time-lines for "certification" of machine systems. PAPER BALLOTS is STILL an option. Why not chuck these insecure, hackable machines--and this whole corrupt system--and go back to paper ballots, while we figure out how to have an electronic system that is NOT controlled by Bushite corporations using 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls?

Yes, struggling against local/state officials is a nightmare hodgepodge of jurisdictions/rules all over the country, requiring stamina, smarts and long term thinking. But it's still more feasible than trying to get THIS Congress to enact transparent elections, when they so clearly don't ever want to see transparent elections in this country again.

There is a good side effect to signing the HR 550 petition, and jawboning the issue with Congress, and it is this: local/state officials try to ANTICIPATE what Congress or courts may do, and PLAN for future laws; so, if local/state officials think Congress may one day actually require transparent elections, they may start heading in that direction now.

So, I'm not saying DON'T sign the petition, don't put pressure on Congress. I'm just giving you the best advice I can--based on deep knowledge of this issue--about HOW/WHERE election reform is most feasible, and it's at the state/local level.

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SOME RESOURCES FOR AMERICAN REVOLUTION II:

Hopeful signs - latest news:

California voters sue the state over Diebold:
www.VoterAction.org is suing the state of California and 18 Calif county registrars on behalf of 25 California voter/plaintiffs, on the illegal Diebold "certification" by Schwarzenegger appointee Bruce McPherson.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2180496
Seven of these counties just promised the judge they would use PAPER BALLOTS, and were dismissed from this lawsuit (4/27/06).
http://kcbs.com/pages/29285.php
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2249205

Maryland rejects Diebold:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x418263

Florida - anti-trust accusations against Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, re: heroic Florida election official Ion Sancho:
(FLA AG subpoenas the companies)
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/legalissues/story/0,10801,110192,00.html
http://www.tbo.com/news/politics/MGBKSY8W8LE.html
(info & discussion)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2183630

Utah county clerk fights back!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x419226

(Tide turning?) New York Times: "New Fears of Security Risks in Electronic Voting Systems" (5/12/06)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2278829

-----

More resources for American Revolution II:

www.votersunite.org (MythBreakers - easy primer on electronic voting--one of the myths is that HAVA requires electronic voting; it does not.)
www.UScountvotes.org (statistical monitoring of '06 and '08 elections--they need donations)


(Activist sites with links to state activist groups or info)
www.votetrustusa.org (news of this great movement from around the country)
www.votersunited.org (good general info, and state links)
www.verifiedvoting.org (great activist site)
www.solarbus.org/election/index.shtml (fab compendium of all election info)

www.freepress.org (devoted to election reform)
www.bradblog.com (also great, and devoted to election reform)
www.TruthIsAll.net (analysis of the 2004 election)* :patriot: :applause: :patriot:
www.votepa.us (well-organized local group of citizen activists in Pennsylvania, where important legal issues are at stake, including state's rights over election systems)
Provisions of the PA lawsuit:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x423739

The Voter Confidence Resolution
http://tinyurl.com/rlnr2 (“We Do Not Consent”)
http://guvwurld.blogspot.com (GuvWurld blog main page)
http://tinyurl.com/amryg (Voter Confidence Resolution

www.debrabowen.com (Calif Senator running for Sec of State to reform election system)
www.johnbonifaz.com (running for Massachusetts Sec of State on strong election reform and antiwar platform)

*Some tributes to TruthIsAll, who is very ill:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x417007
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x417231
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x675477

Congressional bills:

Russ Holt's HR 550 requires a real paper ballot, bans secret software in "voting machines", and has more than 170 co-sponsors, but the audit required is too weak, it promotes electronic voting and centralized power, and the secret software might be permitted to continue in the central tabulators (the bill is not clear). To sign the HR 550 petition: http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html
At lot of discussion at DU of the loopholes/pitfalls in HR 550:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x422926
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x421136
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=422967&mesg_id=422967
(Note: Senate Bill-SB 330 and House-HR704 simply require a "voter verified paper audit trail" (VVPAT), which may be best for the moment.)


Also of interest:

Michael Collins (Autorank)'s searing election reform article for New Zealand's Scoop.com
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x971363

Bob Koehler (-- four recent election reform initiatives in Ohio, predicted to win by 60/40 votes, flipped over, on election day, into 60/40 LOSSES!--the biggest flipover we've seen yet; the election theft machines and their masters are now dictating election policy! Title: "Poll Shock" 11/24/05)
http://commonwonders.com/archives/col321.htm

Bob Koehler's latest: "Trust us: Take this box and stuff it" (3/16/06)
http://commonwonders.com/archives/col337.htm
More Koehler:
www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?file=20051124ctnbk-a.txt&catid=1824&code=ctnbk

Amaryllis (Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia lavish lobbying of election officials - Beverly Hilton, Aug. '05)
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

HOWARD DEAN remarks on electronic voting machines 04/06
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x994507

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Throw Diebold, ES&S and ALL election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

:think: :patriot: :woohoo: :patriot: :think:

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"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." --Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence

[Donkeykick]

4. Just...

had this in my May primary in my county of Ohio, Thanks!;-)