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Dear Congress Person,Please take heed of the advice in this Nov. 24 Washington Post OpEd article (An Electronic Canary, by E. J. Dionne, Jr.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/23/AR2006112300965.html )
"If the courts punt [on the challenge to the 18,000 undervotes in Florida's 13th Congressional District in Sarasota County], Congress, which has a right to judge the credentials of its members, should get to the bottom of this... Democrats and Republicans should not make this a fight about which party picks up one more seat. Instead, they should conduct a joint inquest into this contest to provide a basis for bipartisan legislation creating national standards for improving our voting systems."
As my elected representative, please do not let this issue pass. Jump on it and use it as an issue around which to UNITE all democracy loving Democrats and Republicans in the new Congress and in our country. As long as our votes are being counted in secret by computerized machines, the integrity of our vote the cornerstone of our democratic republic is in jeopardy. This is an issue that all Americans of every political stripe will care deeply about IF it is brought out into the spotlight and exposed in a public and sustained way.
Please use this contest in Sarasota County as a catalyst to conduct a bipartisan inquest not only into that particular contest itself but into the dangerous and unreliable use of computerized voting machines to count our votes. Open source software is not enough. A paper trail is NOT enough! (Vote totals can be rigged to sufficient degree that no recount is ever called for. And a random audit of 2% of precincts, as called for in Holt's HR 550, does not have nearly enough statistical power to catch potential fraud.).
Please cosponsor Kucinich's bill, HR6200, which proposes to amend HAVA by requiring States to conduct Presidential elections using paper ballots and to count those ballots by hand.
And please take the initiative to sponsor a similar bill which requires hand counted paper ballots in Congressional elections as well.
Jump on this opportunity to take the lead in a bipartisan effort to expose the magnitude of this problem and create REAL solutions to our endangered vote, and not band-aid solutions that attempt to secure a voting system that is intrinsically insecure. I believe an in-depth and objective public inquiry, with testimony from a full spectrum of independent computer experts, will reveal that in fact only publicly HAND COUNTED paper ballots (including mail in ballots) can ever genuinely guarantee the reliability and security of our vote. Do not sacrifice our democracy by settling for insufficient but "realistic" band-aid fixes.
NOTE: If you still feel these suggestions are too extreme......
Take a moment to read these notes from one of the legions of experienced IT professionals who are convinced that by its nature no computerized vote counting software can ever be made secure (due to its lack of transparency, security vulnerability, and the anonymity of our vote, and myriad other reasons) :
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bruce_o__061025_pull_the_plug_on_e_v.htm
And most importantly, please seriously consider this excellent proposal produced by a team of IT professionals recommending a public 10% hand count of all hand marked paper ballots (including mail-in) in EVERY precinct on election night, as the only way to statistically ensure the accuracy of the scanned and computerized vote totals:
http://electiondefensealliance.org/files/UPSPressRelease090806.pdf
Finally, take a moment to watch these short videos of New Hampshire citizens hand counting their votes at the precincts, and at a State manual recount.
http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/videos/Lyndeborough_WM9_256Kbps_download_NTSC.html
http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/videos/State_WM9_256Kbps_download_NTSC.html
This is what democracy should look like in America, and not just in New Hampshire! Please be our champion and make it happen.
Sincerely,
Your constituent
