Election Protection Strike Force

No registered voter should ever be turned away from the polls without being
allowed to cast a vote. Yet this happened time and again in primary
elections this year when electronic voting machines failed to operate in even
their usual untrustworthy, nontransparent manner. That's why Velvet
Revolution and BradBlog have enlisted organizations and leaders all over the
country to insist on the availability of emergency paper ballots for the
November 7 election. This campaign is part of our Election
Protection Strike Force.
 
Last week we sent a letter to all 50 Governors, Secretaries of State and
State Election Directors urging them to provide emergency paper ballots for the
November election. This letter was signed by over 50 organizations and leaders
from around the country, including Senator Barbara Boxer, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
and Florida's Ion Sancho. The text of the letter appears below with the full
list of signatories.
 
States are beginning to respond. In California all counties have been told
to make paper ballots available at all polling places, although the specifics of
the directive from the Secretary of State's office are problematic. And in
Missouri plans for paper ballots on request are in the works; this may have been
a response to our efforts on the national level with the Confidence in Voting
Act introduced by Barbara Boxer and Chris Dodd in the Senate and by Rush Holt in
the House. (Congress was unable to pass that legislation before their election
recess.)
 
Now it's time to add the voices of your members to the call for
emergency paper ballots. State officials must hear from their
constituents on this issue. As part of the coalition who signed the letter,
Progressive Democrats of America has created an action alert
for citizens to urge their Secretaries of State and Governors to ensure such
plans and procedures are created and implemented immediately. Emails can be sent
to election officials here. Please
post this link prominently on your website and strongly encourage your members
to send emails to support this effort.
 
The Velvet Revolution Election Protection Strike Force is working on many
fronts in addition to the emergency paper ballot campaign:

• $250,000 reward
  offered for information about illegal election rigging leading to the
  overturn of a Congressional election and the conviction of those responsible
  (whistleblowers email here,
  call-in tip line coming soon);
  
• Election Day Vigilance Campaign in tandem with Video The Vote;
  
• Independent exit polling;
  
• Ongoing litigation efforts to pursue electoral justice;
  
• Strike Force website launching in the next few days to keep people
  up-to-date on the election trainwreck and actions needed;
  
• Online election coverage on Election Day--stay tuned for more
  developments!

We're raising funds for these and quieter aspects of the Election
Protection Strike Force. Please support our work by donating and linking to VelvetRevolution.us.
 
More announcements and a special area on our website will be coming
shortly!
 
We know you're counting on us. We're counting on you, too!
Full text of emergency paper ballot letter is below.
 
Toward clean and honest elections,
 
Emily Levy
for VelvetRevolution.us.
 

October 11, 2006

Honorable
Governor, Secretary of State & State Election
Director:
 
As
you likely know, many legally registered American voters across the country
were turned away from polling places without being able to cast a ballot this
year.  In state after state,
voters were unable to exercise their franchise simply because electronic
voting systems malfunctioned, suffered programming problems, or were otherwise
unavailable for use.
 
We
are sure you’ll agree that should never happen in this country. No legally
registered voter should ever be
turned away from the polls without being allowed to vote on Election Day in
America.  No legally registered voter should
ever be told to “come back later,” or be forced to use a provisional ballot
simply because a voting system is unavailable to them at the time they are
able to vote.  It is imperative
that an ample supply of Emergency Paper Ballots be made available to account for any
unforeseen circumstance.
 
Common-sense legislation for Emergency Paper Ballots at
the polling place this November was recently filed in both the U.S. House and
Senate.  The proposed legislation
would have:
 

• Mandated that voters be given a paper ballot upon
  request
  
• Required election officials to post information
  announcing and confirming that right at each polling place, and
  
• Mandated that all such paper ballots be counted as
  regular, not provisional, ballots.

 
Unfortunately, legislators were unable to pass this
important measure before adjourning for the Election Recess.  Now the responsibility for this vital
democratic process must rest on the States and Counties to ensure that
millions of Americans will be able to cast their ballots in the general
election on November 7th.
 
Many of your state's citizens and polling places will
be using new electronic voting systems for the first time. Such systems have
already caused unforeseen problems this year, resulting in disenfranchised
voters from Maryland to California, from Texas
to Indiana
to many other states and counties around the union.
 
In
Maryland,
the Governor recently called for Emergency Paper Ballots statewide after
catastrophic problems in their recent primary. In Texas and Arkansas, election officials wisely
instructed their counties to have Emergency Paper Ballots on hand during
runoff elections after thousands were unable to vote during primaries, or when
voting machine companies failed to program balloting systems
properly.
 
In
America, in 2006, such occurrences
should never have happened, and we write to you hoping that you will take
every measure to ensure they do not happen anywhere in your state this
November.
 
Therefore, we, the undersigned groups and individuals,
strongly urge you to make
contingency plans and procedures to ensure that every legally registered
American voter can vote in the upcoming general election. All voters must have
the option to vote on an Emergency Paper Ballot if necessary, and all such
ballots must be counted as regular -- not provisional -- ballots.
We
hope that your state and every county therein will take careful, yet
aggressive measures to institute plans for ample Emergency Paper Ballots, to
be made available in every voting jurisdiction.
 
Several states have laws in place requiring the use of
emergency paper ballots for voters if voting equipment is unavailable or has
malfunctioned.  Many more states
and counties, however, do not have such provisions.  In addition, many poll workers are
unaware of such state laws and elections code. 
 
So
many Americans have fought and died in this country and around the world --
and indeed, are fighting today – in the defense of our most basic freedoms, to
ensure the right to freely cast a vote and thus determine the consent of the
governed in this great democracy. 
Our vote is our precious franchise. We believe it is worth defending,
and worth the effort to guarantee that that right remains assured and
inviolate.
 
We
urge you to please take this opportunity to draft, establish and publicize
your own state’s common-sense plans for Emergency Paper Ballots at every polling place this Nov.
7th, so that every election official, poll worker, and voter may be
crystal clear on the procedures for utilizing such measures.
 
With Great Respect,
 
The
Undersigned
 

ORGANIZATIONS
51CapitalMarch.com
AUDIT-AZ
BlackBoxVoting.org
Broward
Election Reform Coalition
Citizens for Legitimate
Government
Common
Cause
Democrats.com
Election
Defense Alliance (EDA)
Election
Reform Network
Las Vegas, NM
Peace and Justice Center
MoveOn.org Political
Action
National Election Data
Archive
NetworkOfCitizens.org
New Yorkers for Verified
Voting
Ohio Honest Elections
Campaign
Palm
Beach Coalition for Election
Reform
Progressive Democrats of
America
(PDA)
SAVE Our Votes: Secure,
Accessible, Verifiable Elections for MarylandFlorida Fair Elections
Coalition Georgians for Verified VotingTrueVoteMDCoalition for
Peace Action, Princeton NJCitizens for Election Integrity
MinnesotaIowans for Voting Integrity Voting Matters [New
Mexico]
Solarbus.org
TrueMajorityAction.org
United
Voters of New
Mexico
Valley
Grassroots for Democracy
VelvetRevolution.us
VerifiedVoting.org
VotePA
VoterAction.org
VotersUnite.org
VoteTrustUSAColoradoans for Voting Integrity The National
Coalition on Black Civic ParticipationThe National Committee for Voting
Integrity
Wake Up and
Save Your Country
We Do Not
Concede
 
 
INDIVIDUALS
Clifford O. Arnebeck, Jr,
election attorney, OH
John C. Bonifaz, voting
rights attorney, Boston
Sen.
Barbara Boxer
Bob Fitrakis, Ph.D.,
J.D.
Brad
Friedman, investigative journalist
Bruce Funk,
County Clerk, Emery County, UT
Sarah Granger, computer
security consultant
Rush Holt, Member of
Congress
Douglas W. Jones,
computer scientist, U. of Iowa
Robert F. Kennedy,
Jr.
Sen. John
Kerry
Prof. Mark Crispin
Miller, NYU
Freddie
Oakley, Yolo County,
CA,
Clerk/Recorder
Ion Sancho, Supvsr. of
Elections, Leon
County,
FL
Barbara Simons, retired,
IBM Research