Your Vote At Risk
People struggled
and sacrificed to win the right to vote. If you are a citizen - no
matter where you were born, no matter who you are - you deserve to
vote the same as any other American. Voting is very important. It
lets you decide who will represent you and who you trust with
important offices. In this way, you help guide the future of this
country. Your vote is your voice and we will help you protect your
right to be heard by voting.
Voting should be simple and easy, but that's not always the case. Former Florida
Secretary of State Katherine Harris made unfair partisan decisions which removed
qualified voters from the registration rolls and prevented votes from counting.
Voting problems in Florida led to weeks of confusion which ended with Bush's
appointment as President by the Supreme Court in 2000. In 2004, Ohio's partisan
elections procedures prevented many African Americans and voters in poor neighborhoods
from voting. Difficulties were reported nation-wide. Machine and human error
as well as corruption, manipulation and partisan actions endanger your vote.
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA)
was supposed to help voters, but didn't fix many of the worst problems. Some
people say it's made matters even worse. This law uses federal funds to push
states into adopting electronic voting machines. Despite proven security flaws,
the voting machine companies have privatized our elections. Bob Ney, convicted
former congressman from Ohio, sponsored HAVA. He resigned under investigation
for having unsavory ties to the Diebold voting machine company and accepting
improper donations.
Many people question Ney's
role in writing this legislation which uses tax money to fund private industry
in this drastic change. Computer experts express grave concerns about the voting
machines. Limited testing consistently exposes insecurity in the electronic
voting machines. Election machines should be certified by federal and state
officials, but serious questions remain. Machine companies influence and control
the regulation and testing processes!
Most local elections officials lack the experience, resources, or staff to
run elections on these machines without bringing vendors into their internal
operations. Local officials must rely on the vendors to run key aspects of elections.
Most voters remain uninformed about the known flaws and vulnerabilities, and
elected officials lack access to complete testing data. It's up to you to protect
your voting rights.
We can protect our voting rights through:
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public education and involvement;
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closely monitoring elections;
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demanding new laws to protect elections;
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filing lawsuits to investigate and remedy unacceptable activity;
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maintaining real security for paper ballots and paper records;
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requiring strong audits of electronic voting results to ensure their
accuracy;
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demanding voter verifiable paper ballots for all elections, starting
November 2006.
We strongly suggest you demand paper ballots when you vote on Election Day!
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