The House and Senate Emergency Paper Ballot Bills Need YOUR Support!

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The House and Senate Emergency Paper Ballot Bills Needs Support!

The "Confidence in Voting Act" of 2006

Please Urge Your Representative and Senator to co-sponsor these bills!

Support Holt, Boxer, Dodd Paper Ballot Bill!

September 27th, 2006

The House and Senate Emergency Paper Ballot Bill Needs Support!
Please Urge Your Representative and Senator to co-sponsor these bills; and support Holt, Boxer, Dodd Paper Ballot Bills!

Things are happening fast! Just last week we proposed legislation for emergency paper ballots for the upcoming election in order to protect voters from being disenfranchised. Thank all of you for encouraging Representative Rush Holt and Senators Barbara Boxer and Christopher Dodd because yesterday they introduced the "CONFIDENCE IN VOTING ACT OF 2006." These bills will protect the votes of citizens who currently depend on all-electronic voting machines - not only to COUNT their votes but to CAST them. The "CONFIDENCE IN VOTING ACT OF 2006" provides funding for states to supply "contingency" paper ballots as an option for voters who choose them and in cases where machines malfunction. Call the Congressional Switchboard at 202-225-3121 and ask for your Representative and Senator. Or write a short e-mail note in your own words supporting the "Confidence in Voting Act of 2006" which is so new it doesn't have a number. YOU ARE ASKING FOR PAPER BACK-UP BALLOTS TO AVOID DISENFRANCHISEMENT BY MACHINE!

Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) has now introduced HR 6187, The "Confidence in Voting Act of 2006," a companion to the measure introduced by Senators Boxer, Dodd and Feingold in the Senate. It would allow all States that do not already use optical scan or other paper ballot-based voting systems to opt in to a program for this November's election whereby they would be reimbursed for giving voters the right to cast their votes on paper ballots at their request.

The "Confidence in Voting Act of 2006" would:

* Reimburse States at the rate of 75 cents per printed ballot for offering voters, upon their request, the right to cast a vote by means of a contingency paper ballots, regardless of the voting equipment otherwise in use at the precinct;
* Mandate that the voter's right to cast his or her vote by means of such a contingency paper ballot be conspicuously posted at polling places;
* Mandate that jurisdictions treat contingency paper ballots as regular ballots, and count them accordingly and not as provisional ballots (unless a voter is otherwise required to vote provisionally);
* Authorize such sums as are necessary to reimburse the States under the program.
Please TAKE ACTION and urge your representative to sign on to this vitally important legislation!

Please spread the word. It's your democracy. Use it or lose it!

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