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Wednesday, June 10
Iowa's Congressman Loebsack Defends Democracy
by
Trish Nelson
on Wed 10 Jun 2009 12:00 PM CDT
Iowa's Congressman Loebsack Defends Democracy
 Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2009
Second District Congressman Dave Loebsack signed on Tuesday as a co-sponsor of the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2009.
The following is a letter from Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ), who introduced the bill.
Dear Colleague:
Voting is the foundation of democracy, but: there are still states and jurisdictions in the United States in which the accuracy of electronic vote tallies cannot be independently confirmed. That is why I am reintroducing my Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2009, which would:
* mandate the deployment of paper ballot voting systems accompanied by accessible ballot marking devices, and
* require routine random audits of electronic vote tallies.
While it has been gratifying to see so many states and counties address this problem on their own – in fact, jurisdictions serving 10 million voters deployed paper ballot voting systems between 2006 and 2008 alone -- our work to ensure the accessibility, verifiability, and auditability of the vote nationwide is not done. The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act will ensure that every vote is verifiable and auditable.
The 2008 election in Humboldt County , CA shows why this is so important. During the tabulation process, almost 200 votes were deleted from one of the electronic tallies. The votes were lost due to a software error which caused all of the votes from the first batch uploaded to the central tabulator to be deleted. The error was so egregious, the California Secretary of State filed an official report about it with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission; it is available here: www.eac.gov under “Voting System Reports Clearinghouse.” If California did not require paper ballot voting systems, and if a rigorous audit had not been done, those lost! votes would never have been discovered. The same, or worse, could still happen in any paperless jurisdiction.
The clear trend is towards paper ballots. In fact, every jurisdiction that has chosen to change its voting system since 2006 has chosen to use paper ballots with optical scan counting. That should be the standard.
There are still seven entire states and counties in approximately a dozen others that are not using paper ballot voting systems. In addition, only 18 states currently require any sort of routine audit of electronic vote tallies.
Please join me in protecting the accuracy, integrity and security of the vote count. For more information about the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2009 or to become an original cosponsor, please contact Michelle Mulder or call (609) 750-9365.
Sincerely,
RUSH HOLT ROBERT WEXLER
Member of Congress Member of Congerss
Groups Endorsing
Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act in 111th Congress
American Council of the Blind
Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law
Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University
Common Cause
Credo Mobile/Working Assets
Democracy Unlimited (David Cobb, 2004 Green Party Presidential candidate)
Electronic Frontier Foundation
True Majority
Verified Voting
Voter Action
Arizona Citizens for Fair Elections
Berks County (PA) Democratic Committee
Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota
Clarion County League of Women Voters (PA)
Coalition for Peace Action – New Jersey
Concerned Voters of Centre County (PA)
Connecticut Voters Count
Enduring Vote Montana
Florida Voters Coalition
Gathering to Save our Democracy - Tennessee
Georgians for Verified Voting
Green Party of Pennsylvania
Iowans for Voting Integrity
New Era for Virginia
New Yorkers for Verified Voting
Pennsylvania Verified Voting
SAVE Our Votes Maryland
Southern Coalition for Secure Voting
State College (PA) Peace Center
The Black Political Empowerment Project (B-PEP)
VoteAllegheny (PA)
VotePA
Voting Matters - Oregon
In the Second District contact Dave Toll Free: (866) 914-IOWA), or (202) 225-6576, or write and thank our Congressman for standing up for fair elections and protecting our Democracy.
Open Letter from Iowan to Senator Chuck Grassley: Real Health Care Reform
by
Trish Nelson
on Wed 10 Jun 2009 05:00 AM CDT
Open Letter From Iowan to Senator Chuck Grassley: Real Health Care Reform
 Tom Lindsey over at Political Fallout wrote this. We republish with permission....btw, have you written your senior senator lately? Write today and cc your local paper. "Sen
Grassley u got nerve sayin u bipartisan u only partisan to BiG Hellth
INsurnce and PharMA. Put da profit hammer down start actin morally" Dear Senator Grassley:
My monthly health insurance premiums are killing me, literally.
I wish I was speaking hyperbolically. And no, I’m not a hypochondriac: Who could afford to these days with skyrocketing health care and insurance costs, especially in the midst of an economic crisis?
One of my biggest fears, other than Congress sabotaging a golden opportunity to reform health care (If only we could sue our elected officials for Political Malpractice, eh?), is my mailbox. You heard me right Sen. Grassley: my mailbox. But before you file me away under “Crazy Constituents” and cast aside this letter, I implore you to hear me out.
It’s not that I’m afraid of mailboxes per se, rather it’s what’s lurking in them that scares the living bejesus out of me: bills. I am especially afraid of reconnaissance bills which attempt to lessen the inevitable financial and subsequent psychological blows, claiming they are not bills with “THIS IS NOT A BILL” emboldened in the letterhead. Not yet, anyhow.
In March I received one of these non-Bills in my mailbox from my health insurance provider, Wellmark BlueCross Blueshield of Iowa informing me they want to raise my monthly premium 17.3 percent from $529 to $641, which covers me and my three sons (ages 1, 4 and 7). Given the effective change date was to be April 1st, I initially thought Wellmark was playing an April Fool’s Day joke on me. After all, what reputable, legal business can jack their price up 17 percent and still stay in business during an economic crisis? Reputability aside, Big Health Insurance and Big Pharma are the only industries that can pull this off, while Our employers, The Big Three Branches of Government, haggle over policy proposals while We sit by and watch our savings accounts bleed to death, one painful payment at a time -- hoping to elude Bankruptcy’s knock at the front door.
Speaking of which, a recent Harvard Medical study that will be published in the August issue of “The American Journal of Medicine” indicates that Bankruptcy will come knocking on an estimated 1.5 million American doors this year and 60 percent of these will result from an inability to keep pace with incoming medical expenses.
But who am I to tell you, Sen. Grassley, about bankruptcy. After all, as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, you helped usher in the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), which makes it more difficult for individuals to file for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. Shame on the uninsured and under-insured consumers for taking advantage of our country’s vulnerable and financially unstable health care business, eh?
Like you, Sen. Grassley, I’ve served the public my entire adult life, working at all levels of the government. I served two years active duty in Germany with the Army, followed by working seven years with the City of Iowa City as a swimming pool manager during college, and I have been working the past twelve years teaching high school English in Iowa City. Moreover, I’ve been coaching junior high swimming to help fill the financial gap and pay my monthly insurance premiums.
Unlike you, however, my employer’s health care benefit is no longer an option. Although the school district pays for an individual premium ($485/month), I would have to kick in an additional $750/month for a family plan (that’s $1235/month, which is more than our mortgage payment and property taxes, so I’ve had to purchase my own policy).
Unlike you, I have been struggling to pay my monthly health insurance premiums for the past seven years, and I’m on the verge of dropping into the health care casualty pool of the uninsured, thus driving up the costs of the insured – unless drastic reforms are implemented soon.
Now, since you are technically one of my employees, I thought I would tell you what needs to be done to help draft and pass real health care reform that is more cost efficient, affordable, and accessible. Ideally, a single-payer system, where all working Americans buy into the system makes the most sense, especially since it removes for-profit incentives from the equation which is immoral in the first place. I realize National Health Care scares some folks, who feel threatened and turn to their Socialism crutches as an only retort and feel the need to resort to fear mongering.
Like my mailbox phobia, these fears seem irrational, since we already implemented a similar system: Medicare. My 73-year-old mother, a lifelong Republican who worked as a billing receptionist for a neurosurgeon, always complained about how difficult it was to get payments from the private industry compared to Medicare. She also contends that the biggest causes of the problems facing this industry are when health insurance became attached to employment and when Big Health Insurance and Big Pharma hopped into bed together.
To help legitimize and rationalize their fears, I’m sure opponents of a public option are out researching industrialized countries with a national health care program, scouring for health care horror stories. If that’s the case, I suggest they start digging in our own back yard and talk to the survivors of the estimated 22,000 Americans who died last year because they didn’t have adequate health care coverage.
But I also realize you’re under a lot of pressure from lobbyists representing Big Health Insurance and Big Pharma, who fear they will be driven out of business if the government sets up shop, so I’m willing to make a compromise and let you push through a public option. That way, those who are afraid of the S-word taking over their lives can stick with their current policy. Personally, I’m more afraid of whether or not I will be able to pay my premium next month and what will happen to my any one of my sons, should we lose coverage in the near future, than being called a Socialist.
If anything I have conveyed to you in this letter does not make any sense, maybe I can simplify and condense my message into Twitter format, something you are more familiar with, Sen. Grassley:
"Sen Grassley u got nerve sayin u bipartisan u only partisan to BiG Hellth INsurnce and PharMA. Put da profit hammer down start actin morally"
Sincerely,
T.M. Lindsey
Iowa City, IA
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