OK Here's my VIVA Support Letter, where's yours?

[demodonkey]

I support Ensign's VIVA bill -- it is our best shot to stop any more Boards of Election from buying more PAPERLESS DREs right NOW (paperless machines which, once bought, we will probably be stuck with for years!)

Below is my very non-partisan letter as a Dem to my two GOP Senators... note that I said only that this bill will "help to improve public confidence in our electoral process". I did NOT say that I believe this is the perfect, cure-all bill for our electoral problems. But Ensign's VIVA will at least stop more paperless machines from getting into the system, and from there we can build.

FMI: http://www.ballotintegrity.org/action.html

So here is my letter... If you agree, please go and do thou yours, today!


-----------------------------

Dear Senator Santorum:
Dear Senator Specter: (sent to both)

I am a Pennsylvania voter and pollworker in Xxxxxxxxxxxx County, Xxxx Township Ward X Precinct X. As a pollworker, I am keenly aware of how much our citizens cherish their right to vote. People coming in to vote at my poll have recently been expressing many concerns about the future, when they may have to vote on computerized voting machines which will produce no back-up paper ballot. As a voter myself, I share their concerns.

Senator John Ensign is introducing a bill, the Voting Integrity and Verification Act of 2005 (V.I.V.A. 2005), to require all electronic voting machines to produce a Voter-Verified Paper Ballot. The paper ballot produced will allow each voter to confirm his or her choices prior to voting and will preserve a permanent record of the vote. I'm writing ask that you please co-sponsor this bill and support it.

This is very MUCH NEEDED legislation, as it will help to improve public confidence in our electoral process. Mr. Ensign introduced a similar bill in the last session under S. 2437, but there was not time for it to be passed by the end of the session. We urgently need this legislation to be reintroduced and voted in during the 2005-2006 Congress.

Voting into an electronic box with no back-up paper ballot to count (even in the event of machine failure or other problem) seems risky at best. Again I hope that you will co-sponsor and support V.I.V.A. 2005 along with Senator Ensign.

Thank you very much for your kind attention and concern about this serious matter.

Xxxxxxxxxxx
(Me)

[EC]

1. mines being published this week....

Voice of the People
Kenosha News
5800 – 7th Ave.
Kenosha, WI. 53141

Dan Thomasson's article on Sunday, 01/23/05, "Being a sore loser isn't a sound strategy" misses the point. This isn't about "sour grapes", it's about our right to vote being sidelined by a mindset of doing anything to win.


There were 58,000 complaints filed with 1-866-OUR-VOTE call line on election day, 37,000 of them in Ohio alone. These are complaints called in by voters and poll workers, Democrat and Republican, from all over the country given the phone number at the polls. There were a few Republican complaints, but the bulk was Democrat. Right here in Kenosha, where I thought everything was fine and dandy, I found 28 cases reported, several, that were very disturbing to me: complaint# 036348, 11/02/04, 9:47 AM PST Voter Intimidation Carthage College, Kenosha County, Wisconsin Dean of Students is sponsoring a shuttle to various polling places for college students. African American students report they are not allowing rides to polling sites, and that only White students are allowed rides, complaint # 043636 11/02/04, 2:12 PM PST Voter Intimidation Ward 24, Kenosha, Kenosha County, Wisconsin Politician Operative Wisc. T-shirt harassing poll workers. Elderly poll workers being harassed - caller very upset, complaint # 046856 11/02/04, 4:09 PM PST Other polling place problem Kenosha, Kenosha County, Wisconsin Students being denied on grounds that their residence is elsewhere.

Ohio was much worse, and the recount was not any better since a proper ballot hand count was never done, as required by law. I will not go into all the problems but will ask you to go to: https://voteprotect.org and http://www.freepress.org and look for yourself. By 2008 Wisconsin will have to replace the lever voting machines still being used because of Help America Vote Act (HAVA). We must demand methods of voting that allow for paper trails.

If voting rights are important to you, then please look at the websites, I assure you, you'll get angry, then get working, write letters to our Congressmen , Senators, to the Governor, this is 2005, this shouldn't be happening in this day and age, this is a democratic republic, not a banana republic.

[meganmonkey]

2. Here's mine, Dem oriented for my Dem Senators:

(Please note, I am being polite about HAVA, not quite honest ;) )

Dear Senator,

I am writing in regard to two bills addressing Election Reform which are being considered in the Senate. I urge you to support Senator Ensign’s upcoming bill rather than Senator Dodd’s (S.17).
Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) in order to prevent the kinds of problems seen in Florida in 2000 from recurring. Unfortunately, HAVA did not succeed entirely in its mission. There is one dangerous loophole in HAVA that concerns me, and I believe Senator Ensign’s bill addresses it.
Counties across the country are rushing into the use of electronic voting machines. The language of HAVA allows that a printout at the end of the voting day suffices as a proper ‘paper trail’. In case of a questionable election result, a recount, or an audit, there is no way to verify whether the electronic machine recorded and counted the votes properly.
Senator Ensign’s bill closes that loophole and provides a backup. If passed, it will require that electronic voting machines print a paper copy of the ballot that the voter reviews and approves. This paper copy is handled in a secure manner, and in case of audit or recount, it is the voter verified paper copy of the ballot which is used. If there is a discrepancy between the electronic and manual vote count, the paper ballot count overrides the electronic numbers and serves as the primary ballot of record. This is essential to instilling confidence in the voter that his or her vote will count, and be counted properly. The State of Nevada used this system in the 2004 election and was very successful.
The biggest problem in S.17 is that it does not require implementation of voter verified paper ballots until 2009, which means that there will be two major Federal elections without this protection. In addition, between now and then, countless new voting machines will be purchased which do not provide voter verified paper ballots. This is unacceptable.
Senator Ensign’s bill would be implemented immediately. As you may know, it was introduced in the last session of Congress (as S.2437) and had bi-partisan sponsorship at that time. I urge you to reach across the aisle and offer sponsorship and support of this bill. It is a simple and necessary addition to HAVA that needs to be in place before the 2006 election.

Sincerely,

meganmonkey

[Cocoa]

3. VIVA's ok, but s17 (Dodd/Conyers) is better

VIVA concerns itself with what I consider to be a marginal issue, S17 covers what I think are the much more important and real problems with our voting.

[meganmonkey]

4. And Dodd's doesn't go into effect until 2007

and doesn't require Voter Verified Paper Ballots until 2009.

Why don't you start your own thread for support letters to Dodd's bill instead of highjacking this one?

KEEP HOPE ALIVE

[demodonkey]

5. Not buying more paperless DREs at this time is NOT "marginal".

Dodd's bill only provides for a "voter verified ballot". This COULD be interpreted as an on-screen "ballot" because it does not specify paper. So there we go with the paperless DRE machines, "grandfathered" into place for years.

YOU WANT THAT??

Also, Dodd's bill has no GOP co-sponsors. And let's face it, right now the GOP is in control. So good luck getting a bill with no GOP sponsorship passed.

Ensign's bill has GOP sponsors as well as Dem. It actually might have a chance.

There's plenty more wrong with Dodd's bill:
http://www.ballotintegrity.org/AnalysisofS17.pdf

Here's why I support Ensign:
http://www.ballotintegrity.org/action.html

If you don't like Ensign's bill, then don't support it. But if it is good enough to get support from people of The National Ballot Integrity Project, and verifiedvoting.org, as well as others who have been studying this for years, it is good enough for me right now.

[banishbush]

6. I believe that we need to make it a Constitional right to vote

Until we achieve this, everything else is just a Band-aid.
Dodd, Ensign, Reid.... I'm no lawyer and pretty confused at this point. What will work?

I live in Pennsylvania also, and have found that Senator Rick(the dick) Santourm "is happy with the results of the election" as stated in his letter to me. What kind of help are we going to get from someone who "is happy with the results of the past election"?

I don't mean to be pesimistic but it hurts to see my country fastly going down the toliet.
:hurts:

[demodonkey]

7. I'm sure that Saint Ricky Santorum IS happy with the last election, but...

this is not about the last election. Make it about voter confidence, etc. And he MIGHT do something on this bill because a lot of other GOP-ers are on it also. He will NEVER support an all-Dem bill, that's for sure.

I support the Constitutional Right to Vote too, but that is going to take time. The ratification process on a US Constitution Amendment is long. In the meantime, this Ensign bill will AT LEAST get paper on the DREs. Paperless "black boxes" are a recipe for total FRAUD and disaster.

Please check out the links in my post #5. If the country is going down the toilet, we need to roll up our sleeves and grab it (even if that's yucky) before it is completely gone into the sewer!

[banishbush]

8. Thanks for pointing that out.

It's my nature to be blunt so I would never connect voter confidence with election fraud, and you are correct and creative in that approach. I will write my letter now and send the call to action to friends.
In Solidarity

[newyawker99]

14. Hi banishbush!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Bill Bored]

9. Ah, the great state of PA!

Please see this thread and scroll down to the part about the Pennsylvania Straight Party Voting option:
<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x310796>
I'd love to hear your comments deomdonkey. Any Diebold DREs in your state???

Nice letter BTW!

[demodonkey]

10. PA Straight Party Voting Option...

Most places, if you vote a straight ticket (where it is allowed) you will make an overvote if you also vote an individual candidate in any races. Meaning if you voted for someone at the top of ballot, and down ballot cast a straight party vote (by marking straight party rather than individual races), the top of ballot IS lost because it will be counted as an overvote. Technically you voted twice for that top-of-ballot office.

BUT!

Pennsylvania has a quirk in our straight-party voting law: if you vote a straight ticket AND also individually mark a candidate of ANOTHER party in any race, it is NOT counted as an overvote -- the individual mark TAKES PRECEDENCE over the straight ticket for that office only. Example: on November 2, if a voter marked (or punched, etc) "Republican" straight ticket AND ALSO marked or punched KERRY, it would count as one vote for all GOP candidates EXCEPT Bush; instead Kerry would get one vote.

This is called a "split ballot".

Incidentally, under PA law a person can also vote a straight party and do a write-in for an individual office which then takes precedence over the straight ticket for that office only. This is also considered a "split ballot", not an overvote.

So... actually Diebold (or anybody else) is probably correct in having a special option for PA Straight Party Voting. That said, I don't think there are any DREs (or any machines) in Pennsylvania made by Diebold as of now. Only three counties have touchscreen (Unilect) and the others with DREs are mostly Danaher and Sequoia. My own county is still on lever machine which, BTW, will not allow a "split ballot". We do occasionally have them on our absentees, which are hand-marked and hand-counted paper.

Goal of supporting the Ensign VIVA bill is so that the counties that have NOT purchased paperless DREs (including my own county) will NOT do so!

[Bill Bored]

11. I don't think it's the same

Diebold says "If a straight party race has been defined, all candidate selections made prior to straight party selection will be lost on the ballot..." I assume this applies to candidates of the SAME party too! This was one of the complaints on Nov 2.

Now, your post seems to suggest that you can't vote for OTHER-party candidates and a straight party at the same time (except in PA). These are NOT the same, are they? I.e., you should be able to vote straight Dem and vote for Kerry at the same time without Kerry being considered an over- or under-vote.

[demodonkey]

12. OK, I just checked my PA Election Manual (pollworker manual)...

It reads (again note this is PENNSYLVANIA LAW ONLY):

"At November elections, a cross or check mark in the square opposite the name of political party or political body in the party column, shall be counted as a vote for every candidate of that party or body so marked, including its candidates for Presidential electors, except for those offices as to which the voter has indicated a choice for individual candidates of the same, or another party in any office block, in which case, the ballot for such office block shall be counted only for the candidates thus individually marked, notwithstanding the fact that the voter has made a mark in the party column, and even though in the case of an office for which more than one candidate is to be voted for, he has not individually marked for such office as the full number of candidates for which he is entitled to vote."

Meaning in Pennsylvania, a mark in an individual Office Block always takes precedence over the Straight Party mark, regardless of which party is marked in either place.

But, I THINK in some other states, if you mark both places it is considered an overvote (technically, you really voted twice, even if for the same person?) Note I am not sure about this because I have only ever voted and worked the polls in PA.

[Yellow Horse]

13. Kick. Called my Senators this morning! nt