Defenders Of Democracy

Call the House Leadership, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer to tell them: 

• We want H.R. 811, "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007" to be released from the House Rules committee and voted on on the House floor. 
• We do not want  the bill weakened by the "Manager's Amendment" or the "Unfunded Mandate Amendment".
• We want the Rep. Susan Davis' amendment to ban DREs (Direct-Recording Electronic, a.k.a. touch-screen voting systems) added to the bill in the House Rules Committee.
• Paper Ballots can be counted with optical-scan systems at lower cost (per voter and per election) than  touch-screens systems, and are compliant with H.R. 811, even with Rep. Susan Davis' amendment.     
• We Georgians need this legislation passed to create the possibility for fair elections in 2008.  Without this legislation, our votes are at risk of being lost or stolen, without the possibility of prosecution of those engaged in election fraud.

Some great additional talking points are on the flyer "Back to Common Sense Voting".

At this time, focus on contacting the Democratic leadership listed below.  Defenders is non-partisan, but the Democrats control the agenda now, and Election Reform needs to be back at the top of the agenda.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
Phone (202) 225-4965  Fax (202) 225-4188

Note that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has been a longtime opponent of paper trail and election reform legislation, even signing a 2004 letter with now-convicted criminal Bob Ney against paper trails/ ballots.  Hoyer is the sponsor of the  "Managers' Amendment", designed to weaken H.R. 811.  Tell his office that it is time for him to step out of the way, as he has quit leading on this issue long ago. 

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
Phone (202) 225-4131 Fax (202) 225-4300

Majority Whip James E. Clyburn Phone (202) 226-3210
Congressional Office: Phone: (202)225-3315 Fax: (202)225-2313

U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, Senior Chief Deputy Whip
Phone (202) 225-3801 Fax (202) 225-0351

Complete Alert with Sample Letter and Committee Member Contact Info

On Sept. 5th, House Rules members failed to pass H.R. 811 out of committee, but the bill may yet reach the House Floor with your help.  Please put pressure on your Congrssional Representative (visit www.House.gov to find your representative's contact info.) and the rules committee members below (their contact info follows the sample letters) by sending them a fax like the sample below, or making a call.

The New York Times did an editorial on 9/6/07 in favor of passage of the Holt Bill, so let's keep the pressure on these committee members.  To read the editorial, click on: "A Chance to Make Votes Count."

Please note that there is extreme, well-financed opposition to transparent elections, financed by voting machine vendors.  More election officials (and professional organizations) appear to have been compromised than not.  Some of the few exceptions are, notably California's Secretary of State Debra Bowen and Leon County (FL) Election Director Ion Sancho.   Congressional Quarterly has reported on this opposition in their article entitled “State Officials’ Opposition Could Jeopardize Voting ‘Paper Trail’ Measure“.

We at Defenders Of Democracy continue to report on our compromised Elections Officials in Georgia on our website.  Some of this year's reporting includes our article on “Georgia Election Officials' Campaign to Kill H.R. 811” and a video titled "Georgia State Election Board, Chaired by Karen Handel, Votes to Campaign Against Federal Election Reform Bill H.R. 811"

Note that in Georgia and elsewhere, our TAX DOLLARS are currently being spent by the Secretary of State's office to fight against fair and transparent elections. 

Please, contact your representative and the rules committee members and flood their faxes and phones with demands to pass H.R. 811.  Use the sample letters below as a template, or pull talking points from the great flyer "Back to Common Sense Voting".

Defending a democratic republic is our duty as citizens.  Remember Benjamin Franklin's response to the question, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."  Now, it is up to us to "keep it".

Sincerely,

John Fortuin
404-438-2389

Sample Letter follows for your representative (please click here to download text).

Dear Rep.  __________________

Please pass H.R. 811,  “The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act", in the strongest form possible, as the integrity of our elections have been severely compromised by electronic voting systems. 

Please vote for passage of the following amendment to strengthen the bill:

Click for the link to the transcript and video of Dan Rather's hour long report on HDnet titled "The Trouble with Touch Screens". The first half is about ES&S iVotronic touch screens; the second half is about poor quality paper used for ballots in Sequoia optical scanners in Florida in 2000 and intentional changing of the specs for the ballots for Palm Beach County, Florida, which caused many of the hanging chad, dimpled chad, etc. problems.

It is the view of many, that the switching to deliberately inferior paper, and deliberately manufacturing mis-aligned punch-card paper ballots for Palm Beach County, could have, by itself, thrown the election for George W. Bush.

Warren Stewart of Verified Voting has written a pithy analysis of the video and transcript.

Once again, the mainstream media failed to pick up on this incredible August 2007 expose, while subsequently focusing on Dan Rather's $70 Million suit against his former employer CBS/Viacom for not permitting him to continue reporting through the full term of his contract.   The $70 Million suit is a fiscal dust speck compared to the financial impact of the thrown 2000 presidential election, which, in our opinion, Rather's story proves.

by Kathy Dopp, 07-24-2007

What is Happening in the US Senate?

Wednesday July 25th Senate Bill 1487 Senate Hearing

Tuesday Deadline to Submit Testimony

The National Election Data Archive is sending out this first in a two-part
alert, to let people know that election reform is endangered in both the US
House and US Senate; and to ask everyone to make a small effort this week
and next week to achieve integrity in the 2008 election.

According to The New York Times, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of
California and the chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee, said she has
decided against seeking any major changes in voting equipment before 2010.

"My sense is there's no way to get this thing in place by the election of
2008," Ms. Feinstein said. "Without adequate time, we could cause real
problems in the election."

On July 25th, 2007, at 10:00 AM, the Senate Committee on Rules and
Administration will hold hearings on S. 1487, the Ballot Integrity Act.

The Senate Rules Committee hearing scheduled for July 25 has a very
unbalanced list of participants. The list is heavily weighted with
unapologetic opponents of voter verified paper ballots.  They selected
Michael Shamos to give testimony while ignoring more respected experts in
computer science and mathematics. Shamos is noted for saying, "...I believe
I and the republic will survive if a president is elected who was not
entitled to the office."

The Senate hearings fail to include any recognized experts who support a
tangible record of the vote.  For the hearing to have any balance at all,
recognized electronic voting experts should be included.  Creditable voting
system experts who should be included in this panel:  Dr. David Dill of
Stanford, the founder of the Verified Voting Foundation and
VerifiedVoting.org, and Dr Barbara Simons, former President of the
Association for Computing Machinery, the world's largest association of
computing professionals.

On June 21, 2007, Georgia's State Election Board Voted Unanimously (member Randy Evans left shortly before the vote) to oppose H.R. 811. 

Thus, the Secretary of State's Office will use your tax dollars to campaign against placing many necessary checks and balances on how elections are run in Georgia and the nation. 

Also, Georgia's overpriced and expensive to maintain Diebold Voting Machines will continue to waste our tax dollars until they are replaced with much less expensive optical scan systems.

Complete Report

Update: The State Election Board Voted Unanimously (member Randy Evans left shortly before the vote) to oppose H.R. 811. The original alert follows:

The Georgia State Election Board (SEB) is expected to vote on a resolution against transparent, accountable and auditable elections.

A motion proposed by the Georgia Election Officials Association to oppose Congressman Rush Holt's Election Integrity Bill H.R. 811 came close to passage at the May 23rd SEB meeting. For more information on H.R. 811, visit http://www.gaforverifiedvoting.org/legislation.htm

The motion is expected to be voted on again at the June 21st meeting. Please plan to take the early part of the afternoon off to express your opposition to this anti-democratic motion at the SEB meeting.  Spread the word about this extremist and reactionary opposition to a bill, that if anything, is somewhat modest in its requirements for election accountability and integrity.

Date & Time: Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 1:00 PM

Location: GA State Capitol, Suite 450
200 Washington Street
Atlanta, Georgia 30334

For details on the vote on May 23rd, visit: http://www.savannahnow.com/node/291555

For details on the Georgia Elections Officials Association Campaign against election integrity, click here.

Talking Points:

The issue is that, in Georgia, our elections are not transparent, there is no voter verified paper ballot, our elections cannot be audited or recounted in any meaningful manner.  Georgia's elections, with our current voting equipment, are essentially an exercise in faith that no-one will manipulate the results.

The SEB, under Cathy Cox's administration has expected Georgians to have this faith, despite the fact that such election manipulation is easy, and can be done without detection, as shown by