VerifiedVoting.org has county level info on 2006 election equip

["Margit Johansson" <margitjo@xxxxxxxxx>]

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: November 7, 2006

Contact:  Courtenay Strickland Bhatia, President, Verified Voting
415-487-2255 work, 415-235-0126 cell, 
courtenay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:courtenay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

*Verified Voting Provides Nationwide County Level Information on 2006
Election Equipment*

Verified Voting Foundation staff and volunteers have just released a
nationwide publicly searchable database of detailed information about
what voting equipment is being used in each county of the United States
in the 2006 elections today.

"As in 2004, Verified Voting has sought to put together the most
up-to-date and comprehensive set of voting equipment information in the
United States and we're making it available over the web to voters, to
media, to anyone who is interested," said Verified Voting Nationwide
Coordinator Pamela Smith.   "We believe that our electoral process
should be transparent, so that the way in which our election results are
reached is open and understandable.  Part of achieving that transparency
is making crucial information like this available to everyone," Smith added.

To access the data, go to 
http://verifiedvoting.org/verifier

Information in the database can be located via drill-down maps or by
searching for particular types of information, and it can be displayed
in maps as well as tabular form, including the capability to download
subsets of data in spreadsheet format. Information for each of the 3000+
counties in the database includes specific makes and models of equipment
used to meet the federal Help America Vote Act's requirements for
accessibility, as well as other equipment used for voting and
tabulation. In many cases, there is detailed information such as user
guides, pictures, and product descriptions.

This year's volunteer effort to collect equipment data was led by David
Kerlick, a retired Boeing scientist, and John McCarthy, a retired
computer scientist from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  Both
have been volunteering with Verified Voting since 2004.

"We will continue updating and enhancing Verified Voting's Information
Resources during the coming year," said McCarthy, who currently leads
the organization's Voting Information Resources Project, and who also
worked on development of Verified Voting's Election Incident Reporting
System (EIRS), which helped the Election Protection Coalition gather
over 42,000 incident reports in 2004.  McCarthy added, "We couldn't have
done this without the tireless help of individual volunteers, as well as
organizations that provided early data and advice, including Doug Chapin
at Electionline.org and Kim Brace at Election Data Services.

In addition to voting equipment data for 2006 and 2004, Verified
Voting's Information Resources include names and contact information for
county election officials (currently being updated for 2006), and the
archive of 42,000 election incident reports from 2004.  Verified
Voting's Information Resources have been used by academic researchers,
media reporters, voting rights advocates, and individual citizens for a
variety of purposes, from legal cases to testimony before legislative
hearings, to research papers.

Said Verified Voting's Founder and Board Chair, Stanford Computer
Science Professor David Dill, "At Verified Voting, we've seen time after
time how lack of access to information about voting systems prevents
citizens from having a voice.  That is why we are making this
information freely available to the public -- so ordinary citizens can
participate in decisions about the operation of their democracy."

###

Courtenay Strickland Bhatia
President, Verified Voting
1550 Bryant St., Suite 855
San Francisco, CA  94103
415-487-2255 work
415-235-0126 cell
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/

/Every vote must count as cast./