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Sign Petition for HR 550

Election integrity is the foundation of our democracy.  This is in anticipation of the I Count Coalition's Lobby Days April 6-7th in Wash DC.  Please take a moment to sign Rep. Rush Holt's petition for HR 550 "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005" (full text).

Alternately, sign via the I Count Coalition form.

Three members of the Washington State delegation have not supported HR 550.  If you are represented by Hastings, McMorris, or Reichert, please urge them to also support election integrity by co-sponsoring HR 550.  The I Count Coalition has great resources for doing that effectively.

If anyone from their districts follows thru in scheduling a meeting, I'd be a) very grateful and b) available to attend.

I just spoke with John Gideon of Voters Unite (and major contributor to VoteTrustUSA's Daily Voting News).  If I understood correctly, John says HR 550 has an outside chance of getting to committee.  He also said it's the same bill as HR 2239, introduced last year.  I have no idea how this game of baseball is played.  But it's a start.  We just need to keep pushing for election integrity until we succeed.

Also, please continue to check for HR 550 related diaries on dailyKos, using this handy link.  When someone posts on this issue, or election integrity, please show them some love.

< Bold Lies In Eyman's Petitions | Voices in Wartime will be broadcast on TV >

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Below is the reply Paul Lehto, Hero of Democracy, posted to our discussion group.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wa-fairelections/message/990

From: Paul Lehto
Date: Tue Apr 4, 2006  7:58 am
Subject: Problems with HR 550

Thoughts on Holt (HR 550)

   More and more people have concerns and/or are against Holt.  At a minimum, it
is only some first steps and while better than some other bills, should not be
called "the gold standard" because, in the unlikely event it is passed, next
time around we'll get incredulous looks because they already gave us "the gold
standard" and then consider us too demanding.

   Best to use Holt to talk about transparency and visible ballot records, and as
first steps in that regard.

   Comments and Objections:

   1.  The 2% random audit of precincts is not enough to detect fraud because of
the clustering effect of doing Entire precincts, required by the bill.  This was
vetted with "computer scientists" but apparently not statisticians.  It's an
audit of computer performance not an anti-fraud tool.

   2.  The audit is available through the goverment contracting process, meaning
even activist groups can bid on it.  But government contracting is the problem
here, voting systems contracts are often sole sourced sweetheart deals.  If the
government chooses its own auditors they are unlikely to be the best.

   3.  The "official" auditor might be argued to be the only allowable auditor.

   4.  insufficient reason to believe that the auditors won't get stonewalled by
trade secrecy just like everyone else.  And if they are "allowed in" they won't
be able to report back for trade secrecy reasons, again.

   5.  Mandatory disclosure of the source code is only one of many things kept
secret that need to be disclosed and there will be maximum pressure for secrecy.

   6.  Mandatory disclosure of source code will be met with "takings" lawsuits
because "property" has been "taken" for "public use'.   (one reason I prefer the
approach of voiding contracts via lawsuits)

   7.  Congress can do nothing (Constitutionally) to impair pre-existing
contracts due to the Impairment of Contracts Clause, so this will not affect the
same, only add requirements on top.

   8.  If the requirements of Holt were somehow rigorous and without holes, the
present Congress would find a way to amend it to insure that loopholes existed,
IMHO because awareness is still building.

   9.  While the EAC remains "nonbinding" the Holt bill expands the EAC and all
it would take would be one little amendment to make it binding on all the
states, yet the EAC has done a very poor job and is politically controlled.

10.  I will be going to DC this weekend for Lobby Days on HR 550 and if I learn
otherwise I will let you all know, whether you want to know or not!  : )

   ---Paul

by zappini on Tue Apr 04, 2006 at 02:34:16 PM PST

* 1 none 0 *


From: Zach Silk
Subject: RE: HR 550
Date: April 3, 2006 6:03:58 PM PDT
To: Jason Osgood

Darcy supports and, if elected, would co-sponsor HR 550.  She would be proud to join the other members of the Democratic delegation to fight for this bill.

Zach Silk
Campaign Manager

---

Elizabeth, Juli, and I (all from Citizens for Fair Elections) got to speak with Darcy Burner at Drinking Liberally tonight.  Elizabeth asked about her positions regarding election integrity.  Burner is totally on board.  For my part, I was satisfied with Burner's answers.  Learning that she's a geek like me, I'm quite confident that she does or can understand the tech side, which is generally the biggest challenge on this issue.  Burner is also aware of the other aspects of this issue, like auditing and trade secrets and so forth.

Overall, I'd say I'm pretty happy that we can add one more person to list of people who "get it".

by zappini on Tue Apr 04, 2006 at 11:12:23 PM PST

* 2 none 0 *


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