(And Who Will Decide) Who Counts the Votes?
"The Patriot Act demanded
that in exchange for safety, we must give up
civil rights.
The Holt Bill demands that in exchange for a
paper trail, we must transfer control of
elections to White House appointees."
--Bev Harris, Founder of
BlackboxVoting.org
The
EAC, created as a
temporary advisory
commission to implement HAVA, is in fact a
federal executive commission that can at any
time be converted into a federal regulatory
agency by the insertion of a single line of
text in any act of Congress.
Regulatory powers would enable the EAC to
effectively bypass Congress and create law
that preempts Constitutional state
sovereignty in election administration. This
would allow four White House appointees to
determine:
- Which voting systems are approved for
use in our elections
- Who counts the votes, and how votes are
counted
- How recounts are conducted and outcomes
decided
This is a clear and present danger to
American democracy.
We cannot allow it!
Halt H.R. 811!
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We'd all like to think that Rush Holt's
H.R. 811 bill, The Voter Confidence and
Increased
Accessibility Act, is a good thing.
But just
like No Child Left Behind, The Healthy
Forests Act, and The Patriot Act,
the name
doesn't match the reality.
Well-intentioned groups such as MoveOn and
PFAW--and even some voting activist
groups--have been taken in by the Holt "Voter
Confidence" spin. They assure
us that H.R. 811 will "Ban Paperless Voting,"
but here's what's hidden in the fine
print:
H.R. 811 Actually Requires More
Computerized Voting!
The Holt bill opens a back door to permanent
electronic voting in every polling place in
America, by mandating a new generation of
unnecessary, unproven computerized voting
technology, adding more secret software to
our elections, and sending at least another
$4 billion in taxpayer money to the
electronic voting industry.--and--
H.R. 811 Consolidates Executive Control
of Elections
H.R. 811 gives permanent control over the
nation's voting equipment to the Election
Assistance Commission (EAC)
-- four White House appointees!
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| PEN a Letter to Congress and Press |
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To the Honorable:
I write in opposition to the Holt Bill, H.R.
811, which promises "increased voter
confidence" but actually perpetuates secret
vote-counting by computers while handing
centralized control of federal elections to
four White House appointees.
Because it requires a computerized text
conversion device in every polling place,
H.R. 811 would actually require electronic
voting machines, effectively ruling out
noncomputerized voting methods such as
handcounted paper ballots.
For the same reason H.R. 811 would also rule
out noncomputerized voter assistive devices
that provide better accessiblity features at
far less cost, while avoiding the
unacceptable risks of secret, computerized
vote-counting.
This unnecessary, unproven, as-yet
nonexistent text converter device that H.R.
811 requires is a gift to the E-voting
industry and an under-funded federal mandate
that will impose huge cost burdens on the
states.
.
. . read more . . .
Then PEN Your Letter to Congress, the Press, and
Friends--All at Once!
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| State, County Election Officials Oppose H.R. 811 |
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The nation's election administrators are rising
to resist Holt. The National Conference
of State Legislatures (NCSL) and the National
Association of
Counties (NACo) issued a joint
statement opposing H.R. 811 and the Senate
companion
bill, S. 559.
"This legislation
would exacerbate, rather than assist states
and counties in addressing these challenges
which could lead to
disastrous unintended consequences in the
2008 presidential election."
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Election Defense Alliance is a sponsored
project of International Humanities Center, a
501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
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