www.wheresthepaper.org/HR811shouldBanDREs.htm
9/3/07
We
urge the House of Representatives to ban DREs NOW!
(after
contacting Congress, please scroll down to contact MoveOn)
HR811 will be voted in the House this week. This bill uses the term “paper ballot” to refer to a voter-verified paper trail. This is intended to confuse you and gain your support.
HR811 does not ban DREs -- BUT it should!
HR811 does not require a “voter-marked paper ballot” --
BUT it should!
Paper trails are no substitute for ballots that voters
can mark directly!
Paper trails are not counted on election night!
If 10% of paper trails are “re-counted” weeks after the
election, 90% of tallies will be based solely on “trust” that the computers
worked right and all invisible counting was honest!
Sample letters -- just pick one and (1) cut and paste,
(2) fill in your name and address, (3) fill in your Representative’s name and fax
number (see below), (4) print, sign, and fax!
Sample Letters (your choice of four! Number 4 is getting
good response!):
Flyer to fax with your letter:
Who is my Representative? www.vote-smart.org/ (look in left column)
Out of NYC -- Lookup their fax number: www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml
Gary Ackerman, Phone 202-225-2601, Fax 202-225-1589, gary_ackerman@mail.house.gov
Gregory Meeks, Phone 202-225-3461, Fax 202-226-4169, to email please cut-and-paste your message into his website email form at www.house.gov/meeks/en.us.contact.shtml
Joseph Crowley, Phone 202-225-3965, Fax 202-225-1909, write2joecrowley@mail.house.gov
Jerrold Nadler, Phone 202-225-5635, Fax 202-225-6923, to email please cut-and-paste your message into his website email form at www.house.gov/nadler/contact.shtml
Anthony Weiner, Phone 202-225-6616, Fax 202-226-7253, Weiner@mail.house.gov
Edolphus Towns, Phone 202-225-5936, Fax 202-225-1018, towns.ed@mail.house.gov
Yvette Clarke, Phone 202-225-6231, Fax 202-226-0112, no email
Nydia Velazquez, Phone 202-225-2361, Fax 202-226-0327, nydia.velazquez@mail.house.gov
Vito Fossella, Phone 202-225-3371, Fax 202-226-1272, to email please cut-and-paste your message into his website email form at www.house.gov/fossella/Constituent/email/
Carolyn Maloney, Phone 202-225-7944, Fax 202-225-4709, to email please cut-and-paste your message into her website email form at http://maloney.house.gov/index.php?option=com_email_form&Itemid=73
Charles Rangel, Phone 202-225-4365, Fax 202-225-0816, prefers fax
Jose Serrano, 202-225-4361, Fax 202-225-6001, jserrano@mail.house.gov
Eliot Engel, Phone 202-225-2464, Fax 202-225-5513, prefers fax
September
scandal:
MoveOn has sent out an email full of lies, to gauge the
support of their members for HR811.
Please click on the link for “No, we should not support the bill.”
|
Dear MoveOn member, With time running out to secure our voting machines
before the 2008 election, Democratic leaders have negotiated a compromise
version of Rep. Rush Holt's paper ballots bill, H.R. 811. LIE—HR811 is not a “paper ballots” bill, it merely uses the term “paper ballot” as the new name for “ paper trail.” What’s the difference? A tiny percentage of paper trails will be “re-counted” many days after the election and the announcement of the winner. It's not ideal, but we need to decide if we'll support
it anyway. On the one hand, the compromise is imperfect. On the other, it's
our only chance to make significant national progress before the 2008
election. LIE—The real question is: Is it “progress” to continue to use electronic voting machines after all the scandals and all we know about them? Or is it business and profits as usual? *Read more about the compromise below, then let us know
if you think MoveOn should support the current version of the Holt bill: LIE—Who compromised? The lobbyists who determined the current content of this bill were primarily Microsoft and the voting machine vendors. Grassroots citizens were shut out of the process of revision this year after we worked in 2003-2006 to gather sponsors for the bill’s previous versions. Yes,
we should support the bill. http://pol.moveon.org/thanks.html?id=11157-2937768-H0K_jM&t=1
No,
we should not support the bill. http://pol.moveon.org/thanks.html?id=11157-2937768-H0K_jM&t=2
Not
sure if we should support the bill. http://pol.moveon.org/thanks.html?id=11157-2937768-H0K_jM&t=3
The Holt paper ballots bill has met with strong concern
from many disability rights groups because electronic voting machines offered
many people with disabilities their first opportunity ever to vote
independently. Some technology does exist to make paper ballots accessible,
but not all disability groups feel it's adequate. LIE—Grassroots disability rights activists who are not funded who have tried the accessible paper ballot marking devices typically prefer them. The California Top-to-Bottom Review found that no DREs in their state were accessible. Please follow the money when you look at who is supporting DREs, regardless whether their arguments concern accessibility or any other reason. The compromise Holt bill requires all electronic voting
machines to include paper trails by 2008, but it allows the use of cash
register-style printers that are not great for reliable voter-verification.
Some counties will also be allowed to buy new electronic voting machines. TRUTH—Paper trails are not as reliable as voter-marked paper ballots to record the voters true intent, and are worthless to determine election outcomes, since it is very rare for election outcomes to be changed regardless of what happens after election night. By 2012, the bill would ban these more error-prone
paper trails and require durable paper ballots instead. The bill would not
ban electronic voting machines altogether, but it would make the durable
paper ballots the vote of record and would require manual audits to ensure
accurate counts. LIE—The “durable paper ballots” referred to here are paper trails printed on better paper. They still won’t be counted for 90-97% of election tallies. The bill would not ban electronic voting machines at all. The “vote of record” is only for 3-10% RECOUNTS. The compromise bill is supported by Common Cause, the
Brennan Center for Justice, and People for the American Way---some of the
leading groups we've worked with for years to secure voting machines. There
are other groups who have long opposed the Holt bill because it doesn't ban
electronic voting machines. LIE—Common Cause, the Brennan Center for Justice, and PFAW worked AGAINST paper trails and then paper ballots for years on the basis that paper could not be made accessible to the disabled. These organizations have apparently never questioned why vendors refused to make paper accessible. Meanwhile thousands of grassroots activists pointed out to these organizations that a voting machine with invisible electronic ballots and no way to be audited was an obvious scam. Teresa Hommel of WheresThePaper.org taught computer programming to blind students 1979-1982, and these students handled paper as well as any other students. In the early 1990s Ms. Hommel taught computer programming to professional programmers and engineers, including some who were blind, deaf, or wheelchair-users. These professionals were competitive in their work and had no difficulty in handling paper. MoveOn is a member-directed organization, so we have to
make this tough call together. *Should MoveOn support the latest
version of the Holt bill?* |
August
scandal:
On Aug. 14, 2007, "Dan Rather Reports" revealed
new evidence:
·
Sequoia used paper known to be defective to print
punchcard ballots for Palm Beach county in November, 2000, and instructed their
employees to prepare the ballots in a defective manner. This caused
"hanging chads" and prevented thousands of votes from being counted,
and was used to persuade Congress to replace paper-based ballots with invisible
electronic ballots, courtesy of the Help America Vote Act in passed in 2002.
·
ES&S delivered thousands of touchscreen voting
machines (“DREs”) knowing that 30-40%
had defective touchscreens. Their machines were used in the Christine Jennings
race in Florida, November, 2006, where 18,000 votes were lost.
Archived program: www.hd.net/drr227.html
All links: www.wheresthepaper.org/news.html#DanRather
Action: DanRatherActions.htm
Dan Rather challenged our government to take action:
"unlike Congress or prosecutors, we aren't armed with subpoena power. We
can't force companies to prove that they take concerns about their machines and
their ballots seriously. [Their] message is ‘Trust us’."
WheresThePaper urges all Americans to watch the program, and demand that Congress act by investigating the new evidence! Demand that Congress ban electronic voting machines (touchscreens, aka "DREs" or "Direct Recording Electronic" voting machines), because invisible, secret procedures can never be trusted!
"Voter confidence" has to be based on observed handling of votes and vote-counting. Voter-marked paper ballots enable voters to directly observe their own votes, and enable ballot-handling and counting to be observed as well as filmed with feeds to the internet.
Paper-based election technology is understandable to all, easily observed by citizens, and easily manageable to our local election administrators.
Invisible electronic ballots are an invitation to fraud! The computer screen and paper trail are placebos because neither is counted to determine election tallies. Most voters can't verify the paper trail http://chil.rice.edu/research/pdf/EverettDissertation.pdf, and vendors have delivered such shoddy printers that many paper trails are unreadable.
Most American election administrators are neither interested in, nor capable of, managing computer security. The recent scandals in California show that private vendors are not the proper guardians of democracy -- they have delivered defective, illegal equipment, and local election administrators were none the wiser. Still local election directors across America say they don't need more security procedures because they "trust" computers!
Stay
informed:
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