*Ø* Blogmanac | The Threat From Computerized Voting Machines

From the Desk Of...

Martin Sheen

Dear Current or Future Member of TrueMajority,

I am writing to you as a fellow member of TrueMajority to ask for your help in preventing a scandal that could shake our nation to the roots of our democratic principles. Please take a moment to send a free fax to your Representative in Congress, and then to pass this letter on to your friends and family in the hope that they will help too.

We start with a principle so obvious it seems strange even to write it: For a democracy to work, the people must believe that balloting is conducted fairly and votes are counted accurately. Americans feel justifiable pride that our nation has created a system to ensure this, including provisions for recounts.

In the wake of the punch card voting mess in Florida, the federal government dedicated billions of dollars to help states purchase new voting machines. Some pioneering states have begun purchasing a new type of touch screen computerized voting machine. These machines register votes on a memory chip and then digitally transmit the results via telephone modem to election headquarters.

We can only hope that neither glitches nor tampering will change or erase any of our votes. We all know that computers sometimes crash and lose data. Power cords get pulled out of the wall. And what better trophy for a hacker--or over zealous campaign worker--than to skew the outcome of the actual election?

There is a simple solution to these problems. The California Secretary of State has ordered that these new computerized voting machines print out a paper copy of your vote for your approval before the vote is registered. These printouts would then be saved in case the machines malfunction or there is any question as to whether or not they have been tampered with. Without them we would just have to trust the companies that make the machines--companies like Diebold whose CEO, Walden W. O'Dell, recently wrote in a fundraising letter for the Republicans,
"I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year."

Without a paper trail, there is no way to reliably validate an election or conduct a reliable recount. It's that simple.

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Letters to the editor are another powerful way to influence your Congressmembers. This feature uses state-of-the-art technology to make it really easy for you to send a letter to the editor.

TrueMajority is working on this important issue with some of our partners, including Working Assets, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, and MoveOn.org.
The California Voter Foundation has lots of great links to these groups and news articles about this problem.

The New York Times also did a great editorial on this issue.

So please take a moment to protect your right--our right--to make sure every vote is counted and every election is fair.

Thanks for your help,

Martin Sheen