The vast majority of US voting systems are in much worse shape today than they were in 2000 or 2004 because the reach of any one technical person to undetectably e-rig elections extends to more locales than ever before in U.S. history. (For instance one Diebold technician could conceivably undetectably rig elections in 37 states.)

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n 6/26/06, Kathy Dopp wrote:

Great News Everyone!

The US League of Women Voters at their Minneapolis June Summer Convention adopted a resolution that all voting systems should include voter-verifiable paper ballots which should be the official ballots and used in independent hand-counted audits of election results

Utah's League of Women Voters Executive Director, Sandy Peck, wrote this account (See item #4 on page #10):

http://www.lwvutah.org/voters/summer%20voter%202006.pdf

----------- BEGIN LWVUS RESOLUTION -----------

The LWV adopted a resolution on voter-verifiable paper ballots directing that the LWVUS position on Citizens' Right
to Vote be interpreted to affirm that LWVUS supports only voting systems

? that have a voter-verifiable paper ballot or other paper record that is the official record of the voter's
intent, that the voter can verify while in the process of voting;

? that is used for audits and recounts;

? that can be used by an independent hand count to verify vote totals;

? that can be used in routine, published audits in randomly selected precincts in every election

-------- END LWVUS RESOLUTION ---------

My Comments:

Utah's Utah's LWV Executive Director Sandy Peck seems, from her written comments, to agree with Utah's election officials' and Diebold's story-line. i.e. that guarding voting machines would prevent fraud and that independent audits (hand counts) to check electronic accuracy would be too inconvenient.

I have studied graduate level computer science and I trust what expert computer scientists say, so I am keenly aware that there are dozens of ways that votes could be manipulated right under our noses without raising any suspicion by simply inserting a memory card used to hold votes, or attaching to a voting machine or tabulator for less than a minute, etc. In the course of conducting elections, no one would even be aware that the election was tampered with without independent audits.

62% of delegates to the US LWV Summer Convention voted to put an end to unaudited US voting systems which currently give insiders utter freedom to tamper.

I am thrilled to see the US League of Women Voters adopted this resolution that, if adopted, would ensure that U.S. vote counts are accurate!

This resolution puts the US League of Women Voters in the very forefront of the effort to fix American democracy because, unlike some other prominent nation-wide "election integrity" groups, the US League of Women Voters recognizes that:

1. voter-verified paper ballots are insufficient in themselves unless some of them are hand-counted in audits that check the machine counts, and

2. the paper ballot should be the official record (not the electronic ballot).

I hope that other election integrity groups such as VerifiedVoting and CommonCause which have endorsed voter-verifiable paper ballots (VVPBs) but neglected to sufficiently point out that VVPBs, without being counted in independent audits, are no more than a false assurance to voters and leave the risk for malfeasance and error high, will now follow the example of the US League of Women Voters.

Without independent audits, any voting system is wide-open to error and tampering.

A hearty "Thank You" to the delegates who took the time to attend the US League of Women Voters Summer Conference in Minneapolis and vote in favor of this patriotic resolution. Thank you for fighting to preserve our democracy and our freedom and way of life.

The vast majority of US voting systems are in much worse shape today than they were in 2000 or 2004 because the reach of any one technical person to undetectably e-rig elections extends to more locales than ever before in U.S. history. (For instance one Diebold technician could conceivably undetectably rig elections in 37 states. Yet the vast majority of states which use Diebolds, like Utah, have taken no meaningful actions which would prevent, detect, or correct such malfeasance. And Diebold is probably not the only voting system with such flaws.)

The National Election Data Archive has a do-able plan to detect vote miscounts,despite such flawed voting systems, by analyzing detailed vote count data that we have a legal right to obtain in most states, but which election officials do not routinely publicly release in any state.

Without analyzing detailed vote count data prior to candidates' conceding, insiders could undetectably pad votes for one candidate in one vote-type and subtract votes for a different candidate in another vote type, or tamper with one vote-type. Evidence of these problems appeared in both states where we were able to obtain the detailed data after the 2004 election -- New Mexico and Washington state.

Please help NEDA to complete the system so that we can actively monitor election results in all states. Donate to US Count Votes' National Election Data Archive (NEDA) Project.

We need $2000/month to pay NEDA's new programmer to complete the functionality and backup system for obtaining detailed vote count data and making it publicly available from the over 3300 separate county election offices in America.

Please see http://electionarchive.org to donate or find out how candidates, voters, and political parties can ensure that the correct candidates are sworn into office.

Please see http://electionarchive.net if you would like to sign up to help obtain the data for your own county or state.
--
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Kathy Dopp
435-658-4657
http://electionarchive.org
National Election Data Archive
Dedicated to Accurately Counting Elections
Subscribe to announcements by emailing election-subscribe@uscountvotes.org

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day," wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1816

Submitter: Joan Brunwasser

Submitters Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Submitters Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.