Would you "trust" a voting machine

that doesn't allow recounts?

The new electronic voting systems that New York may purchase soon are dangerous to democracy. They

--hide vote counting from public oversight,

--prevent recounts,

--never have been proved to give accurate final tallies

--may contain communications devices that enable people to alter election

results without leaving evidence of tampering.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (”HAVA”) allocated 3.86 billion dollars for the states to replace their old voting machines with new ones. What could be wrong with that?

The new electronic voting systems that 30% of American voters will use this year do not allow independent audits. That means No Recounts! That means No Way To Count Votes That Are Lost when the computers malfunction! Election fraud will be undetectable, and whatever the computers say will be the law. We must keep New York from buying this kind of equipment!

What We Can Do: America must require electronic voting machines to produce a permanent, unalterable, paper record of each ballot that can be verified by the voter before casting it and leaving the booth. The voting machine and the verification mechanism must be accessible to the disabled. The paper ballot is called an accessible voter-verifiable paper audit trail (AVVPAT), and it must be the official record of the ballot for independent counts, recounts, and audits of the voting system. If machines can’t be fitted with AVVPAT, voters must use hand-marked paper ballots which can be counted by hand or optical scanner.

1. Call Congress 1-800-839-5276 and ask for Senator Clinton. Tell her "Please co-sponsor the 'Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act' introduced by Sen. Bob Graham (S 1980). The bill requires an accessible voter-verifiable paper audit trail (and deals with other problems in the Help America Vote Act)." (Senator Charles Schumer is already a co-sponsor of S1980.) We oppose the RECORD Act, S2313, that Clinton co-sponsors because of its loophole – states can evade requirements for a voter-verified paper audit trail by saying they can't comply!

2. 19 of NY's 29 Representatives are co-sponsors of the companion bill in the House. Upstate we still need: Sue Kelly, John Sweeney, John McHugh, Sherwood Boehlert, James Walsh, Thomas Reynolds, Jack Quinn, and Amo Houghton. Do you live in their districts? Call Congress, 1-800-839-5276, ask for their office and say "Please co-sponsor "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act" introduced by Rep. Rush Holt (HR 2239). The bill has 147 co-sponsors (7/21/04).

Want to know/do more? www.VerifiedVoting.org www.BlackBoxVoting.org

www.VotersUnite.org/takeaction.asp www.WheresThePaper.org

Look up your elected officials? www.WheresThePaper.org/findreps.html .

contact: Teresa Hommel, www.wheresthepaper.org admin@wheresthepaper.org