For Immediate Release, March 3, 2008 Contact: Vickie Karp, 512/775-3737
Karen Renick, 512/496-7408
Attention: Political Assignments Desk Abbe DeLozier, 512/736-5802
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Texas Citizen Exit Pollers Display E-Voting "Wheel of Glitches" on Primary Election Day March 4, 2008
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Concerns and mistrust continue in Texas regarding electronic voting machines, their insecurity, and their secret vote counting.
Citizens are willing to sign vote verification affadavits in Texas and other states to
watchdog their votes!
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Austin, Texas
Media representatives who have come to Texas to cover the high-drama Presidential Primary election can take VoteRescue's "Wheel of Glitches" for a spin on Election Day and see the many ways electronic voting machines used in the state can "mess with" a voter's vote.
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When: Tuesday, March 4th, 2008, ELECTION DAY, 12 pm Noon.
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Where: Austin, Texas, at the Rosedale Elementary School, 2117 W. 49th Street, Austin, Texas 787__ , Travis County Precinct 236.
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Who: VoteRescue and their Coalition, Texans for REAL Elections
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What: Display of VoteRescue's "Wheel of Glitches", a large roulette wheel affixed to the screen of a giant-size Hart InterCivic E-Slate voting machine, the kind used in Travis County (Austin), Harris County (Houston), Tarrant County (Ft. Worth) and other parts of the state.
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Why: To demonstrate the myriad of ways that electronic voting machines can secretly alter votes, totally unknown to the voters.
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In affiliation with the national Citizen Exit Poll effort spearheaded by Project Vote Count, Austin-based VoteRescue has organized and trained Exit Poll/Affidavit teams for a number of precincts in two counties: Travis and Williamson. Citizens conducting and participating in exit polls represents the first step towards making sure our votes are counted correctly. Ultimately, secret vote counting must be replaced by public vote counting to ensure the accurate expression of the will of the people.
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The election integrity group has been working for years to inform the public of the danger to democracy in using the very types of electronic voting machines and optical scan counters on which over 90% of Texas voters will vote on Tuesday.
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All of the electronic voting systems currently used by Texas voters have been discredited and in some circumstances decertified in three states within the past six months: Colorado, California and Ohio. The reason? In-depth investigations by computer security experts have revealed that machines made by ES&S (Electronic Systems and Software); Hart InterCivic; and Diebold (now known as Premier Election Systems) "lack the necessary security features to prevent tampering".
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VoteRescue has presented Texas Secretary of State Phil Wilson with volumes of evidence proving that the voting machines used in Texas are unsafe and conduct secret vote counting. Yet in a recent newspaper interview he claimed to have high confidence in these voting systems. Two lawsuits have already been brought against the Secretary of State, both related to his allowing the continued use of these insecure voting systems.
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Media representatives who come to Rosedale Elementary on Election Day will be able to spin the "Wheel of Glitches" and see how many ways their vote could be altered if they voted in the Texas Primary.
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