Count Every Vote

Reaching out to the masses

2006-03-19T15:27:00.000-08:00

This week we have an article by a great activist for fair and verified balloting - Ms. Joan Brunwasser reflecting on 6 months of sending out DVDs of "Invisible Ballots" to many, many people across the nation.

2005-11-29T18:22:00.000-08:00

Here is a great listing from an Italian lady explaining the problems with electronic voting

Top 10 reasons for paper balloting

2005-11-26T20:29:00.000-08:00

This is a summary - click on first link for full article

TOP 10 REASONS FOR PAPER BALLOTS ON EVOTING MACHINES

1. EVOTING MACHINES ARE NOT RELIABLE.
2. EVOTING MACHINES NOT VIRUS/HACKER PROOF.
3. PROGRAMMING 'SOURCE CODE' IS SECRET.
4. VOTES CAST RUN RISK OF NOT BEING COUNTED.
5. THE VOTE IN DATA CARTRIDGE IS 'CERTIFIED' BY ITA'S.
6. THE MACHINES ARE PROGRAMMED BY THE VENDORS.
7. 'SMART CARDS' ALLOW MULTIPLE VOTES.
8. MEMORY ON VOTING MACHINES TOO SMALL.
9. MACHINE CALIBRATION 'IFFY' AT BEST.
10. MACHINES LOSE ELECTION DATA.

SUMMATION: Electronic voting machines have been touted to be easy to use, giving quick election results with no mechanical breakdowns. This is simply not the case. These electronic voting machines have proven to incorrectly tally votes, cost counties more money, take longer to complete elections and cost states millions in recounts (when they can perform one). These are just some of the many reasons why having a paper ballot is a necessity. It is imperative that these machines be equipped with paper ballot (vvpb) audit capacity to insure that every vote cast on them is in fact cast, counted and can be recounted if necessary. Paper ballots/receipts on these unreliable machines will not fix this broken system, however at the very least an audit of the election can be performed to see if the receipts match the machine totals.

Robert Koehler asks the right questions

2005-10-15T18:06:00.000-07:00

Bob Koehler asks the question that the American media and we, the citizens, refuse to ask and are afraid to answer "Was the 2004 election stolen". see his link at the top of the link list.

Invisible ballots review

2005-10-08T17:34:00.000-07:00

Anthony Wade reviews the movie invisible ballots. I agree with him that there should have been more on exit polls. However, he does get to the root of the problem - inaudibility, narrow ownership of voting machine companies, company ties to thh Republican party, and Secretary of Stae bias.

Please review and comment on top link in links:

Carter-Baker lowdown

2005-09-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

Some hot info behind the Carter-Baker election reform committee. Link

And now Carter-Baker on vote reform

2005-09-19T15:44:00.000-07:00

On the Carter-Baker commission

Here is how the Washington Post reported it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64518-2005Apr18.html

Many basic points were addressed:
"Those recommendations are not expected until September, which is a good thing because the academics, advocacy group leaders and politicians invited to testify yesterday provided a dizzying list of electoral problems that might make some wonder how any ballots were counted in November."

But Diebold security (or rather the lack of it) was not.
See this expose:
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001838.htm

And as to be expected:
"Carter and Baker were clear on what they do not plan to address: how congressional districts are drawn, whether the electoral college ought to be revamped or abolished and whether the District ought to be able to vote in Congress."

My prediction:
Carter will be the front man, the honest guy for yet another of Baker's devious plays....

Count Every Vote agenda and plans

2005-09-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

Agenda and Resources, September 18, 2005

Agenda

What we’ve done so far:

1. Letter-writing campaign: journalists, community activists, public
officials, public figures, union officials

2. Group letters: journalism schools (inviting them to get students
involved in investigating voting systems, voting irregularities,
electronic voting machines), Political science professors

3. Public libraries: purchase requests

4. Meetings: Skokie Mayor Van Dusen, Rep. Jan Schakowsky,
Washington aide to Sen. Durbin

5. League of Women Voters: organizing a meeting

6. Setting up "Count Every Vote" blog

7. “Invisible Ballots” movie. Purchasing and disseminating

8. Chain letter to friends and relatives linking to
"Count Every Vote" blog

9. Business cards bought and distributed at political and
informational meetings along with blog print out.

Plans for the future

Journalists’ reviews
Showings of movie
Lending library
Letters
Library purchase requests

Brainstorming:
New contacts
New ideas
New directions

Reading Resources

Rep. John Conyers, Judiciary Committee, “What Went Wrong with Ohio”

Greg Palast “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy”

“Did George W. Bush Steal America’s 2004 Election? Essential Documents,”
Fitrakis, Rosenfeld and Wasserman

“Invisible Ballots: A Temptation for Electronic Vote Fraud” (movie documentary)

Declaration

2005-08-26T16:32:00.000-07:00

ELECTORAL REFORM

It's possible that the elections would have gone the same way, even without all the vote fraud, suppression, and voter intimidation which was reported. But what does it say about a system where tens of thousands of complaints were made, where only urban poor, blacks and liberal college students report standing in line for up to eleven hours while white suburban voters were unaffected by the misallocation of voting machines, where voting lists were purged, where voters were directed to the wrong precincts after waiting hours in line, only to receive provisional ballots which were later thrown out. Greg Palast and Rev. Jesse Jackson calculate that as many as two million voters were disenfranchised through various means in the 2004 election. Black voters were eleven times more likely than Whites to have their votes thrown out. Statistically speaking, this could not have been an accident. This is shocking. We are outraged. Do you hear anyone talking about it? Why not? Are we so jaded that this is just politics as usual? How heartbreaking !

Free and fair elections are the foundation of our democratic way of life. We need to restore our trust in the electoral process. Without confidence in the the system, we lose confidence in the legitimacy of our elected officials and this puts the whole political process at risk. We propose basic, far-reaching electoral reform to strengthen electoral integrity. Reform must be in place before the primaries for the 2008 elections. That is our goal. That is why we are contacting you. But first, we need to educate our citizens about has occurred in the last two elections, alternative solutions to the problems, and the need for a ballot with a paper trail. The mainstream press has dropped the ball on this, to their utter shame. The only way to achieve this is through a national grassroots campaign of education.

Ensuring universal voting rights needs to be of concern to every
American regardless of political affiliation.

Goal
We need a nationwide educational campaign to explore voting irregularities and various voting methods.
Our ultimate goal is to enable easy and universal access to voting, using an accurate and verifiable system. This will restore voting rights to Blacks and the urban poor who were disproportionately disenfranchised as well as minimizing the tossed-out votes.

Recommendations

1) Require a paper trail

2) Create a National Presidential Voting Holiday.

3) Secretary of State must be impartial, unbiased and non-partisan (i.e. not a member of election campaign team)

4) Open source code for electronic voting machines.

5) Support new legislation to close the loopholes adversely affecting voter civil rights.

6) Implement current technology to dramatically reduce the possibility of systematic vote fraud (Two Pass Voting)

Conclusion

If we cannot trust our voting system then we cannot trust our democracy. We ask you to join us in helping to forge a just election system.

For those who received this in a printed format this blog is at http://counteveryvote.blogspot.com/

CountEveryVote@gmail.com