DFIA Gets First Press Mention!

Well, thanks to Alta and her media alerts, Democracy for Iowa got our very first mention in the local press!  Of course, they GOT OUR NAME WRONG . . . calling us Democracy IN Iowa.  I don't know why that kind of thing always cracks me up.  Probably because we have a long history of being "John" Dean supporters!  At least they got Howard's name right.

Anyway, excellent job, Alta, and another great quote emphasizing that one of our goals is fiscal responsibility!  Plus, Deirdre Cox Baker, the local reporter who wrote the article, did an excellent job covering the topic.  Here's an excerpt.

Scott County auditor rejects paperless voting
Quad-Cities Times

It’s something on which Democrats and Republicans agree: Scott County’s future voting machines ought to continue to include a verifiable paper trail.

Scott County Auditor Karen Fitzsimmons concurs and says she will not purchase any of the Direct Recording Electronic, or DRE, voting equipment that saves ballots electronically instead of on paper.

Fitzsimmons got a visit Tuesday from representatives of Democracy in Iowa, an organization stemming from former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s onetime presidential campaign. State co-founder Dr. Alta Price of Bettendorf delivered a 59-page study titled “Myth Breakers for Election Officials,” which includes detailed information about the DRE voting systems.

“Nothing is more important to a democracy than assuring fair elections,” Price said. “We also believe in fiscally responsible government and want to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely when voting machines are purchased.”

(more)

Scott County Myth Breakers on TV

In Scott County we delivered the booklet to auditor Karen Fitzsimmons at noon. When we arrived, she was already being interviewed by Channel 8 news. The 5 of us also got interviewed, and there will be 2 different segments at 5 and 6 pm. I talked to the Quad-City Times yesterday, and so did our auditor, so hopefully they will have an article tomorrow.

Karen knows all about the different voting systems and their pros and cons. But there were stories in "Myth Breakers for Election Officials" that even she had not heard before, and she appreciated having all the information in one place.

We all like the optical scan machines currently in use in Scott County. It warmed my heart when Karen said she would never purchase touch-screen voting machines. As long as Karen Fitzsimmons is our auditor, Scott County voters can be sure our tax dollars will be wisely spent and every effort will be made to have every vote count.

Alta Price aprice@democracyforiowa.com

Project Myth Breaker:  First Report

First!

Ah, those old habits from posting on the Dean blog for nine months die hard.  Nevertheless, I'm going to claim firsties for my sister, Nancy, who hit the windy, rural roads of NW Iowa today, on her one day off for the next three weeks, to deliver Myth Breakers to Sac, Ida, and Cherokee counties.  Now THAT'S my idear of a true believer in Democracy - drive 130-plus miles to help ensure fair elections even though it's not even remotely convenient.  Quelle contribution!

Nancy spoke with either the County Auditor or the Deputy Auditor in each county, and the information was well received.  One gal had heard of VotersUnite!  Another had not, and gazed upon the introduction with a pinched look on her face until Nancy mentioned that VotersUnite! is a non-partisan organization.  After that, the gal perked right up and was more receptive to the information.  Two of the three promised to read Myth Breakers and the other said she would look it over.

So, my thanks to Nancy and to all of you who will be out and about tomorrow hand-delivering your copies of Myth Breakers to your county election officials.  Thanks for making the room in your life to help us effect great change - one step at a time.

Check here to see which Iowa counties have already been assigned.  We still need help in many counties!

Project Myth Breaker
How You Can Help Your County Auditor

1.  Visit www.votersunite.org to learn more about the project.

2.  Sign up to deliver “Myth Breakers for Election Officials” to your county auditor at www.votersunite.org/takeaction/myth-signup1.asp

3.  After you sign up with VotersUnite, please also let Alta Price (aprice@democracyforiowa.com) know that you are planning to participate. This will help her update the media alert that will be sent out on Monday.

4.  If you have not been given a copy of “Myth Breakers for Election Officials,” download one here: www.votersunite.org/takeaction/mythbreakers.pdf

5.  You should have been given a Myth Breakers title page with the name, address, phone and fax numbers, and email address of your county auditor. Use this page as the first page of the document you downloaded in step 4.

(If you were not given such a page, either contact Alta Price, at aprice@democracyforiowa.com to have one sent by email, or use the title page that you downloaded. You will need to locate your county auditor’s office. Check here for your auditor’s name and address.)

6.  Contact other activists and arrange for them to go with you when you deliver the document. Ideally, at least one of you should read it!  If you have questions about the content, contact Ellen Theisen (ellen@votersunite.org). If you can’t get anyone else to go, just go by yourself.

7.  A media alert was sent out April 22 to media throughout Iowa. The same alert will be sent out on Monday, April 26. You should have been given a copy of the first media alert. (If not, contact Alta Price at aprice@democracyforiowa.com for one.) Feel free to use it to contact your local press, using yourself as a local contact. Encourage your local press to cover the event.

8.  Hand-deliver the “Myth Breakers for Election Officials” to your county auditor on Tuesday, April 27. We want to try to do this on the same day to make it more interesting for the press. Obviously, if Tuesday doesn’t work, pick another day.

Tell the election official, "I'm with VotersUnite.org, a non-partisan group of citizens concerned about electronic voting. We want you to have the information you need to make informed decisions about our election systems, and we're delivering copies of "Myth Breakers" to every local election official in Iowa."

9.  Share your stories with VotersUnite! (www.votersunite.org)  and Blog for Iowa (www.blogforiowa.com).

Thank you so much for your help! If you have questions or need help, please contact one of the following people:

At VotersUnite!:

Ellen Theisen, 360-437-9922, ellen@votersunite.org

At Democracy for Iowa:

Alta L. Price, MD 563-332-5051 or 563-421-1140, aprice@democracyforiowa.com

Welcome New Bloggers:

Join The Fight For Democracy

I’d have to say that, without a doubt, my proudest moment thus far (of DFIA's one-month-long existence) was the other evening when I realized that the word “Democracy” was NOT just another word that started with “D” that made a good replacement for “Dean” in Dean for America.

After Democracy for Iowa had been going for about two weeks and Blog for Iowa was just days old, Alta and I received word from an old contact in the fair elections movement.  Her name was Ellen Theisen (pronounced ty-son) and she is the former Executive Director at VerifiedVoting.org.  Ellen had just gone out on her own, creating her own website for a new organization she co-founded, called VotersUnite!

She realized through her work with VerifiedVoting.org that many local election officials were terribly under-informed about what was required by the new Help America Vote Act that was actually enacted to remedy the hanging-chad/punch-card situation but, in effect, created far more problems than it solved.  In fact, with so many new, unproven, untested, and unreliable electronic touch-screen voting machines being put into place, our very system of Democracy was being called into question.  If you couldn’t see your vote as recorded on a paper ballot, ensuring some system for a manual recount, could you be certain that a “computer” had actually counted your vote for the candidate of your choice?  Experience with these machines has proven there are many problems of this nature, and in one case, Hinds County, Mississippi, had to throw out an entire election and schedule a re-do!

Ellen’s idea was to educate the state and local election officials through a system of hand-delivering a document she created with everything local elections officials would need to know to make well-informed decisions about the very voting machines upon which our democracy depends.  Thus, Project Myth Breaker was born.

When Ellen asked for our help, I was eager since Fair Elections has been a pet project of mine since last fall, but I wondered just how much help we could be?  Democracy for Iowa was two weeks old!  We had hardly just begun to find our people!  How would we organize such a massive campaign to have the Project Myth Breaker documents HAND-DELIVERED to every county election official in Iowa?  And with just two-weeks lead time?

And up to the plate stepped Dr. Alta Price, MD, heroine extraordinaire.  Alta would organize Project Myth Breaker for Democracy for Iowa.  After all, she didn’t have anything else to do – just a full-time medical practice, a home and family, constant DFIA conference calls, emails, decisions to be made, book clubs, a district convention – in other words, she had plenty of free time, bless her heart!

Thus, DFIA’s first official collaboration with a like-minded organization was born, just like we indicated we planned on doing in the DFIA Mission Statement.  And Iowa is the first state to officially sign on board with Project Myth Breaker as a state-wide hand-delivery event.  Leading the way by EARNING it!

As for me, oh, I’ll be delivering the document to Buena Vista and Cherokee counties, but what’s more, I’ve come to the realization that Democracy is not just a great name or an abstract concept; Democracy is what we are fighting for.  Please join the fight.

Don’t just worry and fret about the inaccuracy of touch-screen voting and the fundamental threat to our Constitution and to everything we believe in.  As Ellen Theisen says on her VotersUnite! website, pray with your feet!

You can join the fight for Democracy here and here.

Linda Thieman, Storm Lake

Project Myth Breaker Delivers Facts On E-voting To Local Iowa Election Officials

WHO: Activists in multiple counties around Iowa, recruited through Democracy for Iowa (www.democracyforiowa.com) in collaboration with VotersUnite!, a non-partisan voter awareness organization.

WHAT: A simultaneous delivery of "Myth Breakers for Election Officials," a 59-page research document detailing little-known e-voting facts including:

- HAVA misunderstandings
- recent election disasters
- price comparisons of e-voting systems
- hidden costs of DREs
- election complexities of DREs
- alternative HAVA-compliant voting systems

WHERE: County election officials’/auditors’ offices in multiple counties throughout Iowa. The locations are listed at (http://www.votersunite.org/takeaction/kickoff-participantsIA.htm).

WHEN: Tuesday, April 27

"Myth Breakers for Election Officials," was compiled through extensive research by Ellen Theisen, co-founder of VotersUnite! and former Executive Director of VerifiedVoting.org.

"Election officials are in a real bind," says Ms. Theisen. "They are under pressure to make decisions quickly about a complex machine that carries out the most important function in our democracy. In most cases they rely on the vendors, and that isn't always the best source of objective information."

"Even the local media is sometimes sidetracked by the enormous amount of misinformation being distributed. We’re here to help them separate fact from myth."

Individual activists and members of grassroots organizations across the country, united in this nationwide campaign known as Project Myth Breaker, will download "Myth Breakers for Election Officials,” at (www.votersunite.org) and distribute the document until each of over 3000 local election officials across the United States has received a copy.

"Nothing is more important to a democracy than assuring fair elections," says Dr. Alta L. Price, co-founder of the new statewide organization Democracy for Iowa, inspired by Howard Dean’s Democracy for America. "We also believe in fiscally responsible government, and want to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely when voting machines are purchased. We would like to deliver this document to every county auditor in Iowa."

Members of the press are also invited to download their copies at (www.votersunite.org/takeaction/mythbreakers.pdf)

Contact:
      Alta L. Price, MD
      563-332-5051 or 563-421-1140
      aprice@democracyforiowa.com
      - or -
      Ellen Theisen
      360-437-9922
      ellen@votersunite.org

Voters Unite!

Participate in Project Myth Breaker

Many local election officials don't have the information they need to make wise decisions about voting equipment. They hear many conflicting stories, and it's hard to tell truth from myth. Here's your opportunity to help.

Join with other voting advocates across the nation to hand-deliver eye-opening information to local election officials. Educate them with:

- the real scoop about HAVA misunderstandings
- examples of recent election disasters
- price comparisons of voting systems
- hidden costs of DREs
- election complexities added by the use of DREs
- alternative HAVA-compliant voting systems
- and more!

Simply download "Myth Breakers," print it, and take it to your county election official's office. Read more about the project at http://www.votersunite.org/takeaction.htm

Be part of the nation-wide kick-off event at 1:00 pm EST, Tuesday, April 20 at your county election official's office. For details about the event, see http://www.votersunite.org/takeaction/kickoff.htm

Together we can show election officials, the media, and the American people that the concern about electronic voting is widespread throughout the nation and based on FACTS.

Join with us in a unified voice. Sign up at http://www.votersunite.org/signup.asp.
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~ The VotersUnite! Team  www.votersunite.org