Yesterday afternoon, MoveOn sent out an email to its members, extolling the success of last week's Lobby Days and inviting members to contribute a small amount to Common Cause to support our campaign to pass a federal bill that would require voter verified paper ballots, random audits, accessible voting machines, and publicly disclosed voting machine software. (As you know, we use Representative Rush Holt's excellent bill, HR 550, as the model for this federal legislation.)

We are very pleased to accept MoveOn's support of our work. The plan to pass legislation is comprehensive and will require both money and the energy of dedicated activists around the country.

While MoveOn cited Common Cause in this effort, the work completed to-date on the campaign to pass a federal bill modeled on HR 550 has been done by a broad coalition of nonpartisan groups. Lobby Days was put together by the ICount Coalition. VerifiedVoting, VoteTrustUSA, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Working Assets, and VotersUnite all brought members to Capitol Hill, as did Common Cause. We very much look forward to working with all these groups as the campaign goes forward; they are an integral part of the plan. Their experience, commitment, and expert technical knowledge are invaluable.

It's going to take all of us working together to achieve success. Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of unlimited time. We truly have to "get it straight by 2008."