Verified Voting: Your Last Chance for A Fair Election -Take it or Leave it

[the ether]

FAIR ELECTIONS MIGHT BE POSSIBLE IN 2004, AFTER ALL

Our best, and possibly only, opportunity to require a voter-verifiable paper trail for electronic voting everywhere in the U.S. for the November 2004 election is "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003." The House version (H.R. 2239) was introduced in May by Rep. Rush Holt. The Senate version (S. 1980) was introduced in December by Senator Bob Graham.

VerifiedVoting.org is in the midst of a campaign to contact every Senator as many times as possible to let them know how much we care about passing this bill. We have heard that the House bill may not move until the Senators are clear on which of the three voting bills (Clinton's S.1986, Boxer's S.2045, or Graham's S.1980) is gaining the most support.

It is important that GRAHAM's bill emerge as the obvious choice, or it is unlikely that we will have a paper trail by this election.

PLEASE take a moment to use the 1-800-839-5276 number and:

1) Call your Senator and ask their position on S. 1980. Tell them you support it, and ask them to co-sponsor.

2) Report the results of your calls to [e-mail] so they can update the data about the legislators.

Also: post this notice on any other blogs you go to.

If you need information on the voting issue or the bills go to http://www.verifiedvoting.org.

[mac2]

1. I called my representatives here in IL...I wrote letters to the press..

etc. It is all ignored. The Ethics Committee needs to explain why representatives are ignoring over whelming petitions and letter about important issues.

[LisaM]

2. I emailed my Senator (Cantwell)

and asked her to co-sponsor it. I wonder if I'll get the same lame response I get every other time I try to contact her office (though, if her staff is to be believed, they don't agree with her on a lot of things and often don't know how she's voted until people start calling.)

[iamjoy]

3. I'm In Florida

S1980 is Graham's bill, and Senator Nelson (junior senator) is co-sponsoring.

There are also verified voting bills sponsored by Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer.

Since both my senators are already supporting the bill, I sent an e-mail to Senator John Edwards, asking him to support it.

Maybe we should also contact Senators Clinton and Boxer and urge them to work with Graham so they can bring one bill to the floor and get it passed in time for the general election.

[the ether]

4. the bills merging

For the last 3 or 4 weeks I've been hearing that Clinton, Boxer, and Graham were working together, thying to merge all three bills into one, but I think that didn't work out.

I'd contact Clinton and tell her that her bill is lame, because it doesn't specifically state in the language of the bill, that a paper audit trail is necessary.

Its pretty useless in my opinion.

And if the 3 Senators still tried to go into commitee together, I'd probably take too much time.



Btw, I've heard that S1980, Graham's bill is the most identical to HR2239 in the House, thus having the best chance at passing with HR2239, without and changes in committee, that might have to take place, with Boxer's bill for example.

If you or anyone else wants to join a yahoogroup of different E-voting activist organizations, feel free to join at

[e-mail]