This is a citizen-run parallel election to check the accuracy of the machines (not to check the accuracy of any person).
Our primary goal is to ascertain how each precinct voted in the official election.
This is a poll in which we want ALL voters to participate. In this type of poll, your vote is secret.
Accurately counting the vote ensures democracy; double-checking that count ensures accuracy.
A hand-count of paper ballots provides a valid statistical sample that may detect discrepancies between the official reported results and how citizens themselves report how they voted. Parallel Election ballots may also provide legal evidence for a court challenge.
We can't count electrons, but we can count paper ballots. No public official can demonstrate that our votes are counted as cast when they are counted with secret software.
PLEASE DONATE to help defray costs of Parallel Elections: www.FreePress.org
Michael Collins, Congressional Election Nullified – Nobody Noticed. August 2006. Follow the absorbing details of how California Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas violated state and federal laws by sending voting machines on sleepovers to poll worker homes, and how the San Diego County Court subverted State rights by allowing uncertified, suspect results to stand. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/hl0608/s00316.htm John Conyers, Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio, Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff. January 2005. www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohiostatusrept1505.pdf Harry Hursti, Expert Hacks Voting Machines in Leon County, Florida. Harry Hursti showed in December 2005 that vendors have done little to nothing to upgrade the security of electronic voting technology. Actual technical report can be found at http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbvtsxstudy.pdf and a New York Times explanation is at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/12/us/12vote.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
Wall Street Journal: Reversing Course on Electronic Voting: Some Former Backers of Technology Seek Return to Paper Ballots, Citing Glitches, Fraud Fears. May 2006. Former Secretary of State James A. Baker and former President Jimmy Carter, who co-chaired the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, warned in their 2005 final report of fraud. "Software can be modified maliciously before being installed into individual voting machines. There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industry any more than in other industries." http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/sb114739688261250925-q5rh2ocioxu6mgjms6bzpczl0hy_20060610.html
In 2004, Rady Ananda joined the growing community of citizen journalists. Focused mainly on elections, her blogs also address religious, gender, sexual and racial equality, as well as environmental issues; and are sprinkled with book and film reviews on various topics. She spent most of her working life as a legal investigator for private lawyers, and five years as an editor. She currently serves as a senior editor at OpEdNews.
All material offered here is the property of Rady Ananda, copyright 2006, 2007, 2008. Permission is granted to repost, with proper attribution including the original link.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. Tell the truth anyway. Sign this petition: http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/ny_levers_petition
Parallel elections do the job we've been paying elections officials to do, that they haven't been doing.
Like the old saying goes, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. This is a well-planned, tested, effective, and workable tool for implementing democracy in every precinct where people care.
Let's roll!
by
Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments)
on Friday, September 15, 2006 at 2:01:26 PM
1 comments
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