Iowa Could Recover Over $5 Million if Holt Bill Passes

[We received an urgent note yesterday from Iowans for Voting Integrity]

Unless
Congress acts, in 2012, over 130 electoral votes will be decided in
states where most or all of the votes are not verifiable.

Call your Congressman today and ask him to sign on as an original co-sponsor of the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act.  The more co-sponsors the bill has when introduced, the better chance it has of making the uphill journey into law. [You can also go to Democrats.com and sign the petition to Congress.]

You can remind your Representative that the bill authorizes retroactive funding for any state that has adopted paper ballot voting systems since 2004, so Iowa could recover over $5 million in state funds that were spent on optical scan systems in 2008.

Iowa has adopted a statewide paper ballot voting system, and is moving toward post-election audits of electronic vote tallies. But many states are still using unverifiable voting systems.

Congressman Rush Holt of New Jersey is preparing to introduce his Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act. The Holt bill will make the Iowa standard in voting the nation's standard: it requires that all electronic voting machines be replaced by paper ballot voting systems. Paperless voting machines must be replaced by the 2010 general elections, and voting machines with a “paper-trail” printer by 2014.

We need this bill. In 2008, approximately 25% of the nation's registered voters lived in areas where the only voting system available election day were paperless voting machines.

 A majority of the votes in states such as Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia are cast on these machines. Unless Congress acts, in 2012, over 130 electoral votes will be decided in states where most or all of the votes are not verifiable.

Contact information:

Congressman Bruce Braley (1st District): 202-225-2911
Congressman Dave Loebsack (2nd District): 202-225-6576
Congressman Leonard Boswell (3rd District): 202-225-3806
Congressman Tom Latham (4th District): 202-225-5476
Congressman Steve King (5th DIstrict): 202-225-4426