Dear PFAW,

You use falsehoods in your replies to emails that criticize your support for HR811 and DREs.

1. PFAW has "substantive policy differences" with groups opposed to HR811 and groups who want HR811 to be revised.

Election integrity activists who oppose HR811, or many parts of it, have the same policy objective as PFAW--election integrity in the USA.

2. PFAW and those other groups have "differing interpretations of the legislation."

If the legislation is so unclear, it should be revised prior to being submitted.

3. PFAW supports H.R. 811 "because our voting rights and legislative policy experts have determined that it is likely to diminish voting machine problems."

PFAW is a late-comer to the voting-machine issue and lacks first-hand knowledge of the equipment. If your "voting rights and legislative policy experts" had bothered to show up at various demonstrations of ballot-marking devices and optical scanners, you would have first-hand knowledge that they are more accessible than DREs. If your staff had bothered to read the Daily Voting News for the last few years, or examine the documented failures of equipment listed at VotersUnite.org, you would know that DREs have a much higher rate of failure and disenfranchising voters that ballot-markers and optical scanners. If you had read the evaluations of undervote rates by ethnicity, you would know that minorities have already been subject to higher undervote rates with DREs.

4. Banning DREs "is opposed by groups representing voters with disabilities and minority language voters due to concerns that it would diminish accessibility."

No group that has been involved with the machine issue over a period of time believes that DREs are more accessible to voters with disabilities or minority languages, except AAPD under the leadership of Jim Dickson, and all who follow or are influenced by him. Please look at where his funding comes from, and then consider how independent his judgment is. I don't care if he is honestly misled, or corrupt. He is wrong on the facts, and PFAW can't evaluate his opinions because you have not invested the time to acquire first-hand knowledge of the equipment and the history of failures of computerized voting equipment.

5. PFAW has a "desire to defend democracy and protect the right to vote" and wants "to protect voters and pass H.R. 811."

It takes more than desire. You need to know the players and the equipment. And you don't.

A paper trail that can't be accurately verified by many voters, and might be 3% to 10% recounted, can't substitute for a ballot that voters can mark directly and which will be used for the initial election tallies.