RE: Count Every Vote: Sign the Petition

["alkolwicz" <alkolwicz@xxxxxxxxx>]

Christian,

We are pleased to see that the Dean team's aware of the threat posed by
unverified voting.  Sadly, it appears that they are being lulled by the
false promise that an audit trail is a solution to the problem.

The "audit trail" bills are intended to deceive voters into believing that
they are verifying the votes that will decide an election.  This is not what
these bills do.  

Instead, voters would be verifying a secondary document that: (1) does not
necessarily reflect the voter's choices, (2) is printed in a form that is
excessively difficult for voters to verify and costly for officials to use
for independent counting and (3) is not the official ballot and will rarely
be counted.

The fundamental requirement is this: each voter must be able to verify that
their real votes that will be used to determine the election outcome are
recorded as the voter intends and must be able to obtain a replacement
ballot if they are not.  (There are additional requirements such as:
recorded votes must be permanent, every ballot must be secure and accounted
for, and the interpretation of votes must be unambiguous, but these
requirements are not documented here.)  

We continue to ask for the following:

Trustworthy Elections Resolution 

WHEREAS trustworthy elections are basic to democracy,

WHEREAS trustworthy elections require that each vote is anonymous, secure,
verified by the voter and counted as intended by the voter,

WHEREAS paperless voting machines make it impossible for us to verify that
our votes are correctly recorded, 

WHEREAS paperless voting machines make it impossible to prove that each vote
is correctly counted, 

WHEREAS a receipt printer on a paperless voting machine would not solve
these problems because the votes printed on the receipt can be different
from the votes stored in the machine, and because votes on the receipts
would rarely be counted, 

WHEREAS accurate re-counting requires that the votes on the original paper
ballots be examined and counted, and that the results from a previous count
are not known to the people doing the re-counting, 

WHEREAS failure to conduct trustworthy elections opens the door to
undetectable errors and fraud and destroys voter confidence, 

THEREFORE, we voters want to hand mark or machine mark our votes onto
full-ballot-text paper ballots, to check our votes before we cast them, to
know that the votes on our paper ballot are what get counted, and to have
access to proof that every ballot is accounted for and that every vote is
correctly understood and counted.   

 
Al Kolwicz


CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@xxxxxxxxx
www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz 
http://coloradovoter.blogspot.com  

-----Original Message-----
From: Christian Rudolph [mailto:reindeer@xxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 8:59 AM
To: cvv-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Fwd: Count Every Vote: Sign the Petition

This message came to me from Howard Dean, so I trust it.
Check out the petition:
http://petition.democracyforamerica.com/page/p/verify
and decide for yourself if you want to sign it.
Please forward this to other lists if you find it worthwhile.

-Christian



-----Forwarded Message-----
> From: Gov. Howard Dean <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: Christian <reindeer@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Count Every Vote: Sign the Petition
> Date: Mon, 24 May 2004 22:10:44 -0400
> 
> 
> 
> Dear Christian,
> 
> In order for your vote to affect the outcome of this election, it must
> be counted. As November nears we must act now to ensure that our
> voting systems produce accurate and verifiable results.
> 
> Right now, some states are planning to use machines that will not
> allow voters to verify their choices. This means that any flaws in the
> machine or software will never be caught -- and no recount will be
> possible. And the head of the largest e-voting machine company -- who
> is a major contributor to George Bush and has promised to deliver Ohio
> to him -- asks that we just trust him.
> 
> Today we call on Congress and the states to require any electronic
> voting machine used in this election to produce a paper trail -- one
> that allows voters to verify their choices and officials to conduct
> recounts. Add your name to the call for accountability:
> 
> http://www.democracyforamerica.com/verify
> 
> We will deliver the petition to Congress and the secretaries of state
> of every state planning to use electronic voting machines.
> 
> Please forward this message to everyone you know who wants to see that
> every vote is counted this year. You can also spread the word by using
> our grassroots action center, Organize for America, to invite your
> friends to sign the petition:
> 
> http://www.democracyforamerica.com/verifyinvite
> 
> Casting a vote is the most fundamental action we take as citizens. But
> voting is not a symbolic act -- the last presidential election
> demonstrated that every vote matters. Our responsibility in the months
> before November is to ensure that this time, every vote will be
> counted.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Governor Howard Dean, M.D.
> 
>  
> 
> 
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