ELECTION TECHNOLOGY:
Can voting machines be partisan?



Here's a great article by Molly Ivins at Myrtle Beach Online that sums up well the current situation with touchscreen voting - the gross inaccuracies, the hack-ability, and the stuck-in-committee bill that would assure the very foundations of our democracy.

. . . The problems with electronic voting machines are numerous and grave, starting with the fact that the software that runs them is considered "proprietary information" by the companies that make them. In other words, they won't tell anyone what it is, how it works or anything else about the systems, meaning we have no way of knowing if they're clean, reliable or functional.

That uncomfortable situation was rather dramatically underlined when Walden "Wally" O'Dell, chairman and chief executive officer of Diebold Election Systems and a Bush campaign "Pioneer" (meaning he raised at least $100,000), wrote in a 2003 fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president." At the time, Diebold was trying to get on Ohio's "favored vendor" list and is now on it. Elections Systems and Software, the country's largest maker of the machines, also has a Republican pedigree.

It's a shame Diebold isn't a big Democratic fund-raiser who said he was committed to delivering Ohio for Kerry, so the Republicans could see how they like that. But I'm sure there are enough Republican conspiracy theorists to contemplate the happy proposition that, while chairmen and CEOs may lean Republican, there are any number of partisan Democrats lurking in engineering departments and liberal moles in software-writing offices.

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Project Myth Breaker: What You Can Do To Help

Democracy for Iowa, in conjunction with VotersUnite.org, a non-partisan fair elections organization, is in the process of blanketing the state of Iowa with hand-delivered copies of Myth Breakers for Election Officials.  Check here to see in which Iowa counties we have already delivered a copy to the county auditor.  If you commit to delivering to your county auditor, please reserve your county at VotersUnite.

For more information on Democracy for Iowa's participation in Project Myth Breaker, go here.  Once you have made your Project Myth Breaker delivery, please report in to VotersUnite.org, and director Ellen Theisen will mark your county with a gold star.

What Else You Can Do in Just 2 Minutes

Write your representatives in Congress and ask them to support these all-important verified voting/paper ballots bills that are currently stuck in committee.

It’s fast, free, and easy!  The letter is written for you.  Just fill in your name and address, mark "Send A Fax," and submit.  (Faxes are preferable to emails.  Emails get deleted; faxes get read.)

Click here to send an instant fax to Senators Harkin and Grassley.  (In support of S.1980)

 

Click here to send an instant fax to your representative in the House.  (In support of HR.2239)

 

Send A Free Fax-by-email To The House Administration Committee Members

If you have a few more minutes to devote, here's a way you can send a FREE FAX BY EMAIL to 6 out of the 8 members of the House Administration Committee that is holding up HR.2239.

Go here.  It's all set up for you.

Thanks for your help!

For Further Reading

It used to be, as recently as last fall, that articles about the grave dangers involved in e-voting were few and far between.  Now, they are everywhere.  We seem to be reaching a kind of critical mass.

For an excellent collection of recent articles on the subject from VotersUnite.org, go here.

To read that one shocking article that really set everybody off, go here.  It's called "All The pResident's Votes."  Don't read this one if you are faint of heart.  This details pretty graphically just exactly What Went On when Diebold controlled the Georgia elections of 2002.

Please take action today.

(Poster copyright Rand Careaga, from The Diebold Variations.  Used with permission.)