Good News: Pam Smith new President of Verified Voting

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

This is long overdue, and very very good news:

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SOURCE: VERIFIED VOTING

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: David Dill, 650-725-3642 work, [e-mail]

For Immediate Release:

March 8, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO - Verified Voting today announced the appointment of Pamela Smith as our new President. Smith has been with Verified Voting as Nationwide Coordinator for nearly three years. Ms. Smith's appointment takes effect immediately.

"For many of our supporters, Pam needs no introduction," said Verified Voting Founder David L. Dill, Stanford University Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering and principal investigator with ACCURATE (A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable and Transparent Elections). "Not only has she been a key part of our team for the past several years, she has supported our agenda with a broad range of stakeholders, from voters to election officials and more. I have no doubt that Verified Voting will continue to make a vital contribution to achieving reliable and publicly verifiable elections with Pam's leadership."


"When I first joined Verified Voting, it was as a grassroots advocate for verifiable voting systems," said Smith. "Since then I've had the good fortune to work with countless other advocates, with state and federal lawmakers, with legal and technical experts, all in the interest of improving the systems by which we cast our votes. The best part: collaborating with so many committed and talented individuals -- both inside the organization and out -- working hard every day to ensure we can have confidence in our elections. It is an honor to work with so many experts, who collectively have achieved so much. And there is much still to do to ensure that every voter knows his or her vote counts as cast."


Verified Voting board member Barbara Simons said, "I am delighted that Pam is taking over the helm at Verified Voting. We are all looking forward to working with her in this new capacity to make our voting system the most accurate, reliable, accessible, usable, and secure voting system possible."

Smith has been a small business and marketing consultant and nonprofit executive for an Hispanic educational organization working on first-language literacy and adult learning. Ms. Smith resides in Carlsbad, CA.


Verified Voting consists of VerifiedVoting.org, a non-profit advocacy organization, and the Verified Voting Foundation, a non-profit charitable organization for public education. Together, the two organizations work to achieve reliable, publicly verifiable elections by securing our voting systems to prevent electronic failures and fraud, and by identifying and advocating for best practices in election administration. Verified Voting also calls for all aspects of the voting process to be open to and observable by the public, from the testing and certification of machines through the final tabulation and canvass of the ballots.

Among its objectives, Verified Voting advocates that all voting systems provide accessible voter-verified paper records (VVPR) to enable voters to verify individual permanent records of their ballots and to provide the essential ingredient required for meaningful recounts and routine election audits. At present, Verified Voting encourages the use of precinct-count optical scan voting systems and accessible ballot-marking devices as the most practical, cost-effective and accessible means of providing those capabilities.

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For more about Verified Voting Foundation, please visit http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org

For this media release, please visit http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6437

Your contributions to our efforts championing secure and reliable voting systems are much needed and much appreciated. Please give generously at:
http://verifiedvoting.org/donate

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We need to get that "paper records" thing changed, that was NOT Pam Smith's doing.

Hopefully with Pam in charge, things will shape up.

[troubleinwinter]

1. Congratulations and my best to V.V. and Ms. Smith.

[sonias]

2. Verified Voting Foundation does great work

I actually had the privilege of meeting Pam Smith in D.C. in 2005. Wow I know the President of VV!

Congratulations to her and to VV!

Sonia

[Stevepol]

3. K&R!! n/t

[Land Shark]

4. Pam could indeed make a big name for herself by abandoning Holt

positions that don't make sense for transparent democracy. (How much of Holt is left, we'll leave that issue to the side for now) It's certainly fitting to wish Good luck to her and her tenure, and thanks for posting this news.

There is, I think, some roughly parallel news that David Dill is getting into a new academic area that is taking up more of his time.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

5. make a big name for herself?

I really can't picture Pam Smith ever being motivated the wish to
"make a big name for herself."

Pam has never been one to seek the limelight or ask for public attention.

She seems motivated by her desire to assist activists in their work to
promote more transparent elections.

Her appointment is not due to change in David Dill's focus.

The previous President of VV.org has stepped down.

Pam is stepping up, and exemplifies the best of Verified Voting.org

Many of us congratulate her as well as thank her for accepting this leadership position.

[BeFree]

6. Pam could make a big name for...

...Verified Voting if she could get the organization to bail on the bad parts of the Holt bill.

Not just make sure that Paper Ballots are the main idea, but that real citizen audits become the norm. We shall see.