Would you "trust" a voting machine

that doesn't allow recounts?

The new electronic voting systems that 30% of American voters will use this year 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 electronic voting systems that many states have purchased 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.

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 your Senator. Say "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)." We oppose the RECORD Act, S 2313, because of its loophole – states can ignore requirements for a voter-verified paper audit trail if they say they can't comply!

2. 147 members of the House of Representatives are co-sponsors of the companion bill in the House (7/21/04). Is your Representative one of them? If not, call Congress, 1-800-839-5276, ask for his or her office and say "Please co-sponsor "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act" HR 2239, introduced by Rep. Rush Holt.

3. The fight for verifiable elections is taking place at the state level NOW in most states! Go to www.VerifiedVoting.org for help in finding the folks working on it in your state!

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