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Re: Window of opportunity





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12/30/2005

Act Now: You Can Block E-Voting in Boulder County

PLEASE TAKE ACTION TODAY!

Dear Concerned Boulder County Citizen,

You have the chance by acting NOW to stop the forced introduction of E-Voting in Boulder County.

The Boulder County Clerk's Elections Office is trying to purchase Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting computers in Boulder County, as well as eliminate local precincts in favor of "super size" vote centers.

The DRE computers are the worst possible technology for voting, as has been proven repeatedly around the country in real-world elections use and professional testing. If you haven't heard the facts or read enough horror stories about election errors already, visit http:// www.votersunite.org

The Clerk is basically trying to sneak these devices in since she knows there is overwhelming popular opposition to these machines. The initial comment period was only two days around the Christmas Holiday, and it has since been expanded to a few more days around the New Years. The 40-page proposal document insufficiently outlines how we will be conducing our elections for years to come, focusing instead on the purchase of DRE equipment and use of vote centers.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION TODAY!

By writing a Letter to the Editor in one of our local county papers and CC'ing it to the Commissioners and Clerk (and others), we can turn up the heat on this issue and get the citizens and voters back in control of our elections, instead of abdicating responsibility (and deflecting blame) by using outside for-profit vendors as the Clerk is planning to do.

Please take 5 or 10 minutes today to write down your objections to electronic voting and vote centers in Boulder County. At a minimum, the entire community should be included in the discussion that leads to any decisions about our elections, as opposed to being repeatedly excluded as the Clerk has attempted to do, resulting in the assorted disasters we've had in our elections here.

Thank you for taking the time to act on this fundamental issue. We must have trustworthy elections, our democracy is at stake.

Sincerely,

Joe Pezzillo
PO Box J
Boulder, CO 80306 USA
jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx
303-938-8850

PS - Please get involved in the local discussion online at < http:// www.coloradovoter.net > including a local e-mail list and document archives.



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On Dec 30, 2005, at 8:34 AM, Evan Daniel Ravitz wrote:


Folks,

Somehow, a unique window of opportunity has opened for citizens to get the County Commissioners to abandon unverifiable voting, partly thanks to the ACLU, and partly due to the contempt for citizens and incompetence of the County Clerk.

We already know that NO ammount of time and logic will move the Commissioners from their robotic adherence to privatized elections.

I suggest a campaign of letters to the editors of the Boulder Camera and Longmont Times-Call. Embarassing our (elected?) Commissioners in the public eye may spark others to weigh in as well. The public is by now quite educated about Diebold, DRE's etc.

Fear is about the only thing which will motivate public officials to change course. I've known Will Toor for almost 20 years. While we share many viewpoints, I've never seen him show a shred of courage in his leadership. Now that he has 2 kids, his lack of courage is sealed. Only fear of losing his job would motivate him to do the right thing.

New Year's could be a time for new things.

If 2 of our ad hoc leaders I single out in this email's header will write letters I will too, and will email the 142 volunteers for hand-counting asking for their help.

I suggest that each letter urge citizens to contact the commissioners at commissioners@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx or to write their own letters to editors.

Evan

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Evan Ravitz          303 440 6838           evan@xxxxxxxx
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