1. From our non-partisan alliance group "Missourians for Honest Elections":
Most major voting integrity groups are now saying just having a paper trail on touchscreens is not enough! They recommed dumping touchscreens altogether. We must still work toward keeping actual paper ballots at every polling place. While many congresspersons have signed onto the Holt Bill (HR 811), including some from the Progressive Caucus, with good intentions, we are now asking them to reconsider because it DOES NOT BAN TOUSHSCREENS! Please send, e-mail, or read parts of the letter below (in your own words) to your congressperson. If you want to do more, click on the link below the letter, which will take you to the current Holt Bill co-sponsors, and you can call as many as you can, including Holt himself!
For more information about the problems inherent in electronic voting, and what citizens are doing to safeguard the vote, please visit the following websites:
Dear Congressman/woman ____________:
About a year ago our organization, Missourians for Honest Elections, supported HR 550 which had been introduced by Congressman Russ Holt. Since then primary and general elections have proven again that the electronic voting machines are flawed, especially the touchscreen machines, with or without their "paper trails".
The most alarming results are produced by the touchscreens, direct recording electronic (DRE) machines, as opposed to optical scanners, which at least have a voter marked paper ballot. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the totals kept on the "actual" paper trail, the paper trail summary, the memory card and the election archive (four separate sites for one computer) turned out in an investigation to be separate and unequal. That is to say, all of them supposedly represented the totals of voter's intentions, but no two of those four sums was equal.(1) Is it not interesting that none of the voting reform issues on the primary ballot in Ohio passed?
In New Mexico the 2004 elections had showed alarming rates of "undervoting" on the DRE machines that had been used in predominately Native American or Hispanic precincts. Therefore Governor Bill Richardson had mandated that all elections would thereafter would use paper ballots, as distinguished from "paper trails." Now a study done by VotersUnite has shown that the incident of undervoting in those same districts has decreased dramatically, by 85 per cent in Native American and 69 per cent in Hispanic precincts(2). This study alone proves that the use of DREs has been violating the right to vote of specific populations. And some people had believed that those same machines would actually be more "user friendly" to people with some language differences!! One might wonder where these arguments originated.
Then, too, as nearly every American has heard by now, the 2006 general election in Sarasota County, Florida resulted in 18,000 votes being "lost." The new Republican Governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, has now recommended paper banning the DREs in his state (3).
As a result of these now historic events we are urging you and all other co-sponsors of the new election bill written by Congressman Holt, HR 811, to either follow Congresswoman Maxine Water's lead in revoking sponsorship, or support an amendment to it that will ban all future use of DREs. Ballot marking technology is much closer to acceptable as a means of meeting the needs of the disabled. Every vote must be cast on a paper ballot which the voter marks. No electronic ballot is trustworthy, as it may be altered anywhere along the line. Paper ballots are safer and quicker, as well as more user friendly.
Thank you for you time and consideration of this vital issue of ensuring individual rights to vote.
Respectfully,
Missourians for Honest Elections
www.mohonestelections.org
2. ***LINK TO ALL CO-SPONSORS: Holt Bill Sponsors
Reference links
1. http://www.votersunite.org/info/ADeeperLook-ESI.pdf
2. http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4193
http://www.votersunite.org/info/NM_UVbyBallotTypeandEthnicity.pdf
3. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-0130cristvoting,0,6954161.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
Thank you for helping to keep our democracy alive.
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