House to Vote This Week on Protecting 2008 Election
By Sean Flaherty, Iowans for Voting Integrity
So who's up for watching the Presidential election returns on November
4, 2008 hoping that electronic voting machines across the country work
properly? Anyone?
That's all right, we don't have to. Rep.
Rush Holt's bill to protect the accuracy, auditability, and
accessibility of federal elections is getting a vote. HR 811 is on this
week's House calendar.
Call the House at 202-224-3121 and
tell your Rep. to support the bill. If you've been reading these
alerts, they have heard from you. Of course they need to hear again.
If HR 811 does not pass, tens of millions of voters in over a dozen
states may have to depend on unverifiable, insecure, paperless
electronic voting machines in 2008. That includes Virginia,
Pennsylvania, and Texas.
After California's top-to-bottom
review of voting systems this summer, and a drumbeat of security
reports by computer scientists, a paperless Presidential election is
too great a risk to take (and it was a bad idea from the start).
Call the House, and use the e-mail form from the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Best wishes,
Sean Flaherty
Iowans for Voting Integrity
Tell Congress to Support E-Voting Reform!
A bipartisan bill requiring paper trails for electronic voting machines
just cleared a major hurdle and could soon be taken up by the House of
Representatives. Click the link below and support H.R. 811, the Voter
Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007
E-voting machines have wreaked havoc and undermined confidence in our
election system. Despite demonstrated technical failures — including
the loss of thousands of votes — nearly half of all states still do
not require a voter-verified paper ballot. Most of the voting machines
in operation today haven't been sufficiently reviewed for security, and
pollworkers frequently do not receive adequate training to deal with
machine problems.
Along with requiring machines to produce a
voter-verified paper ballot, H.R. 811 mandates random audits and many
other critical reforms. For over three years, EFF has been helping Rep.
Rush Holt move this legislation forward, and support from individuals
like you has been crucial in garnering an astounding 215 cosponsors.
Hundreds of activists joined EFF for Washington, D.C. lobby days in
2005 and 2006, and thousands of letters have poured in to Congress.
Now those efforts are paying off, and victory in the House is within
reach — take action now and fight for fair, transparent elections:
More information:
Electronic Voting Machine Headaches Shut Out Citizens (November 7, 2006) EFF's e-voting information page
Complete the form on the left with your information.
Personalize the message text on the right with your own words, if you wish.
Click the Send Your Message button to send your letter to these decision makers:
Here's the link:
https://secure. eff.org/site/ Advocacy? JServSessionIdr0 06=mrninwyqh1. app6a&cmd=display&
page=UserAction&id=109
Blog For Iowa 
I'm concerned about the changes made to HR 811, reference:
“Microsoft 811 – Safety For Voting Machine Vendors”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/4/22227/04844
Here is a quote from the above article: “What happened to disclosure of software and methods upon request of any person?”.
The article explains that the bill itself has had changes made that reverse the original intent. Should I still be telling my Rep in Congress to support this?
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Software disclosure has been significantly weakened, but that does not make the bill unworthy of support. The most important element of the bill is voter-verified paper by 2008, and random mandatory audits of the paper to check against electronic tallies. Matt Zimmerman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation discusses this here:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005421.php
Kathy Dopp of the National Election Data Archive also has a good analysis of the changes made this summer:
Click to access Analysis-HR811-Aug2007.pdf
MoveOn sent out an alert today that makes the case well:
Dear MoveOn member,
Imagine the 2008 election results are in. In a tight race, our next president is determined by a few hundred votes in a swing state like Pennsylvania—where the electronic voting machines have no paper record whatsoever. Who really won?
This week is our last chance to stop this nightmare scenario. The House is deciding whether to ban paperless voting machines by 2008.
Can you urge your representative, Dave Loebsack, to ban paperless voting by supporting H.R. 811?
Congressman Dave Loebsack
Phone: 202-225-6576
Then, please report your call by clicking here:
http://pol.moveon.org/call?tg=FHIA_02&cp_id=578&id=11174-7667739-Yl.kyI&t=2
MoveOn members have worked for years to get the strongest possible paper ballots bill to a vote. H.R. 811 falls short in some key areas—like allowing 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.
But on balance, the bill is a step forward for our elections. H.R. 811 requires a paper trail in 2008. And 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.
Election integrity groups like VerifiedVoting.org1, the Electronic Frontier Foundation2, the Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause, and People for the American Way support H.R. 811 while continuing to fight for more ambitious changes. And so do MoveOn members. We surveyed all MoveOn members who've ever signed a petition or made a phone call on the election integrity issue—72% support the latest version of the bill, 18% aren't sure, and 10% oppose.
Many election officials are fighting against H.R. 811 because they think it's unnecessary and too difficult to implement. If H.R. 811 is defeated in the House, our next president will be decided by paperless electronic voting machines. Please call Rep. Loebsack today.
LikeLike
Software disclosure has been significantly weakened, but that does not make the bill unworthy of support. The most important element of the bill is voter-verified paper by 2008, and random mandatory audits of the paper to check against electronic tallies. Matt Zimmerman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation discusses this here:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005421.php
Kathy Dopp of the National Election Data Archive also has a good analysis of the changes made this summer:
Click to access Analysis-HR811-Aug2007.pdf
MoveOn sent out an alert today that makes the case well:
Dear MoveOn member,
Imagine the 2008 election results are in. In a tight race, our next president is determined by a few hundred votes in a swing state like Pennsylvania—where the electronic voting machines have no paper record whatsoever. Who really won?
This week is our last chance to stop this nightmare scenario. The House is deciding whether to ban paperless voting machines by 2008.
Can you urge your representative, Dave Loebsack, to ban paperless voting by supporting H.R. 811?
Congressman Dave Loebsack
Phone: 202-225-6576
Then, please report your call by clicking here:
http://pol.moveon.org/call?tg=FHIA_02&cp_id=578&id=11174-7667739-Yl.kyI&t=2
MoveOn members have worked for years to get the strongest possible paper ballots bill to a vote. H.R. 811 falls short in some key areas—like allowing 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.
But on balance, the bill is a step forward for our elections. H.R. 811 requires a paper trail in 2008. And 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.
Election integrity groups like VerifiedVoting.org1, the Electronic Frontier Foundation2, the Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause, and People for the American Way support H.R. 811 while continuing to fight for more ambitious changes. And so do MoveOn members. We surveyed all MoveOn members who've ever signed a petition or made a phone call on the election integrity issue—72% support the latest version of the bill, 18% aren't sure, and 10% oppose.
Many election officials are fighting against H.R. 811 because they think it's unnecessary and too difficult to implement. If H.R. 811 is defeated in the House, our next president will be decided by paperless electronic voting machines. Please call Rep. Loebsack today.
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