[Pacg] Action Alert - Contact your County Auditor ASAP!

[Carolina 1961]

>From Rapid Response Iowa:

Friends,

Your action on this issue is crucial to restoring our democracy - please
engage:


The good folks at *Iowans for Voting Integrity*
http://www.iowansforvotingintegrity.org/News.htm
 have been working hard behind the scenes to assure election integrity in
Iowa.  They are working with state legislators to introduce a bill that will
bring paper ballots and verified voting to all Iowa elections.

As you know, even the Republican Governor of Florida has decided to abandon
touchscreen voting machines. * * http://www.nytimes. com/2007/ 02/02/us/
02voting. html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/us/02voting.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin>
Iowa should abandon touchscreens too.
Your help is now needed.  County Auditors may well be resistant to more
changes in equipment; last year the Iowa's Auditors' association opposed
even the modest bill SF 351, which would only have required that paper
printers be added to the touchscreens.
*Action:*

*Please consider calling or writing your County Auditor and ask her or him
to support legislation that would replace touchscreens in Iowa.  Be sure to
note that you support legislation that would have the state fund the
transition to paper ballots.

Click here for contact information for all the County Auditors in Iowa:

* *http://www.sos.state.ia.us/elections/auditors/AuditorsList.html*<http://www.sos.state.ia.us/elections/auditors/AuditorsList.html>
**
*New Legislation being introduced this week:*
**
Legislation being introduced this week by U.S. Representative Rush Holt will
establish strict new standards for the paper rolls, which no current
touchscreen system meets. This will strongly favor paper ballots, with
assistive marking devices for disabled voters.

*Rep. Holt's bill will provide $300 million to states and counties to
upgrade to the new standards. *
**
 <http://www.sos.state.ia.us/elections/auditors/AuditorsList.html>

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/us/02voting.html?_r=1&ei=5094&en=a76a36ca9b6f80b8&hp=&ex=1170392400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

*Contact your auditor:  *
**
 *http://www.sos.state.ia.us/elections/auditors/AuditorsList.html*<http://www.sos.state.ia.us/elections/auditors/AuditorsList.html>
 **
You may ask, why not just add the printer on to the touchscreen to allow the
voter to see their vote on paper? Below is some information.

*From the IVI website:*

A survey by the group Iowans for Voting Integrity (IVI) found that *one-fourth
of* * Iowa* *voters* *used the touchscreens* in the June 2006 primary.

Says IVI chair Carole Simmons, "With touchscreen machines, votes are
recorded as a chunk of computer code that the voter cannot view.  This
leaves the door open for error or fraud."

Numerous academic studies and independent security reports over the past
year warn that elections on these machines are at high risk of being
compromised, either unintentionally or by deliberate, malicious design.

*Touchscreen systems, even with an added paper printout the voter can see,
are no match for voter-marked paper ballots.*

*All touchscreens* used in the U.S. have proven vulnerable to calibration
problems; e.g., *"vote flipping."  *See the article  "All Four Major
E-Voting Machines Flip Votes in Early Voting" by Warren Stewart of VoteTrust
USA.


http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1967&Itemid=26

*Why paper ballots are better than a "paper trail": *

In case of a *recount*, ballots are far superior than a printer roll.  *A
ballot marked by the voter more definitively communicates the voter's intent
* than a secondary printout. *Paper ballots are more amenable to recount or
audit by hand*.

Disabled voters have successfully used paper-ballot markers like the
Automark (used in almost a third of Iowa's polling places) without trusting
to *glitch-prone touchscreens.*

The paper that the printer rolls use is low-quality, flimsy paper; the roll
is commonly called a "toilet-paper roll."

Legislation being introduced this week by U.S. Representative Rush Holt will
establish strict new standards for the paper rolls, which no current
touchscreen system meets. This will strongly favor paper ballots, with
assistive marking devices for disabled voters.

*Rep. Holt's bill will provide $300 million to states and counties to
upgrade to the new standards.
*
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/us/02voting.html?_r=1&ei=5094&en=a76a36ca9b6f80b8&hp=&ex=1170392400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

* **Iowa* should not find itself in the position of catching up to *Florida.
*

We should move to adopt the most proven, easily verified method of voting
throughout the state: *the paper ballot. *
**
*If you have questions, send an e-mail to Iowans for Voting Integrity at *
 iavotingintegrity at yahoo.com.

Visit their website at http://www.iowansforvotingintegrity.org/index.htm
**
*Thanks, everybody.*
**
*Trish and Ellen*
*RR-Iowa Coordinators*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.qcprogressiveaction.org/pipermail/pacg/attachments/20070206/664a41aa/attachment.htm