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National legislation to protect the accuracy of our elections is a step closer to becoming law. HR 811, a bill requiring voter-verified paper records, random hand count audits to check electronic tallies, and independent testing of voting systems will soon get a vote in the House of Representatives.
We need your help to keep the momentum going. Contact your Congressman and call on him to support HR 811, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act.
Call the House switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your Representative's office. Or click any of the Representative's names below for other contact information.
Congressmen Bruce Braley, Leonard Boswell, and Dave Loebsack are cosponsors. Thank them for their support and tell them to keep the pressure on. If you live in Tom Latham's or Steve King's districts, tell them to join Republicans Frank Wolf of Virginia, Darrell Issa of California, and Greg Walden of Oregon and get on board!
BACKGROUND
On Tuesday May 8, HR 811 was reported out of committee. Here are some of the things HR 811 will do to protect federal elections:
- Require a durable, voter-verified paper ballot for all voting machines.
- Require hand audits of federal elections in randomly chosen precincts.
- Allocate $10 million for Iowa to purchase paper ballot voting systems! The bill allocates $1 billion for new equipment, and each state gets at least 1% of that amount. Last month the Iowa General Assembly passed Senate File 369, which requires counties to gradually replace all direct-recording touch screens with paper ballots and optical scanners, as the touch screens wear out. The total cost of all counties switching to optical scan systems now? At least $9 million. $10 million in federal money would allow Iowa's counties to convert to paper ballots and optical scan by 2008!
- Ban connection of any election system to the Internet.
There will be more work to do before 811 becomes law. The fight in the Senate has not begun yet. But with your help, election integrity will soon win a major victory. Thank you for your support in this fight, and for everything you do for our democracy.
- Eliminate the terrible testing system in which voting machine companies choose and pay the testing laboratories that sign off on the security of their products. The present system has failed to detect a litany of security flaws in voting equipment. For people who follow this issue closely, the testing process has been one of the most disturbing aspects of the story of American elections in the electronic age.
Best regards,
Sean Flaherty
Co-Chair, Iowans for Voting Integrity
www.IowansForVotingIntegrity.org
3 comments:
I cannot believe that anyone would support paperless ballots.
This bill is, unfortunately, the victim of a somewhat ineffective legislative process. It is full of poison pills that also weaken electoral accountability.
I would like to see everyone get around 4 principles of electoral reform:
1. Picture ID and documentation of residency in the precincts in which one votes. The state should issue the ID for free to anyone who doesn't have a valid driver's license.
2. Equip each precicnt with a laptop and a scanner to scan the documentation that ties the voter to the precinct in which they are voting if other than a picture ID with address thereon.
3. Prohibit any voting device that doesn't create a permanent paper record of each ballot cast.
4. Limit absentee and other mail in ballots. If people in new democracies will wait in line for, in some cases, three days to vote, our lazy ass citenzry, to whom more has been given by the democratic process than to any people in history can take whatever limited time it takes to vote. I'm pretty busy on Election Day myself and I find the time to vote at the polls, as is my civic duty.
How about some bipaprtisan love on these four?
Stop over and get the GOP crowd take during the debate tomorrow night.
I can agree with the first 3. I have some questions about #4. Oregon has been voting by mail and haven't had any problems. The number of people voting has gone up, which should be a #1 goal. I do agree that people shouldn't be lazy and should go and vote, but we don't live in a perfect world.
Several reasons support no. 4 as well.
First, they do have problems in Oregon. Its inherently problematic. Think about all the married couples (and these are the majority)in which the more dominant personality will control the other's vote. There are other more serious as well.
Second, it really does cause a devaluation of the importance of voting. Remember its a right that can be waived so I don't think mere voting isn't really the highest priority of participation. We need far greater civic participation in general. Remember turnout has declined as voting has become easier.
If it seems more important people will treat it with more importance.
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