Susannah Goodman's User Page
|
The fight for paper ballots isn't over
By Susannah Goodman
Posted on Fri Jul 20, 2007 at 01:12:08 PM EST
The headline of a front-page story in today's New York Times - entitled "Overhaul Plan for Vote System Will Be Delayed" - is somewhat misleading.
Negotiations are still under way to pass a bill by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 811), which would require electronic voting machines to produce a voter-verifiable paper record of their vote. Holt and House Speaker Pelosi are doing their best to bring the bill to the floor for a House vote, despite mounting resistance from state and local election officials who complain the implementation timelines in the bill are too short.
We will continue to support Holt and Pelosi in those efforts, and are encouraged that talk is still happening. We will keep working tirelessly toward a resolution and are hopeful it will take place.
It is also essential that Congress recognize that we cannot go through one more national election in which the mechanics of our democracy - our voting systems - are not as secure as they can be, and that voters are not confident that their ballots will be counted as cast.
How do we try and bring democracy to Iraq when we cannot even get our own voting systems working securely?
We can't.
In the last three elections we have seen repeatedly paperless electronic voting machines malfunction and lose votes. American voters have called loudly for secure reliable elections, and that is what we will continue to fight for.
Stay tuned - we are far from finished.
Gov. Richardson stands up for a paper ballot
By Susannah Goodman
Posted on Wed Jun 20, 2007 at 01:04:37 PM EST
NM Gov. Bill Richardson
Kudos and thank yous go to Governor Richardson, both for what he has done for voters in the state of New Mexico, and today for an oped he wrote which appeared in The Hill in support of the paper ballot bill, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007.
In the November 2004 election, many New Mexico voters were forced to vote on paperless DREs. True to form, these machines lost votes and added votes, and generally destroyed voter confidence in the elections process. To address the situation, the Governor proposed a plan to move the State of New Mexico to a paper ballot system. Of course, he encountered resistance, very similar to the resistance that Members of Congress are facing today for making our voting systems reliable and secure: "Change is bad." It is costly. It can't be done. It can't be done quickly.
But with the Governor's leadership, New Mexico converted to a paper ballot system in less than a year. This past election, the number of machine-related voting problems dropped dramatically in New Mexico. Now we just need that kind of leadership on voting machines in Congress. Swift. Bold. Decisive.
Voting machine update
By Susannah Goodman
Posted on Fri Jul 07, 2006 at 05:36:58 PM EST
I wanted to give folks an update on our voting machine integrity campaign. Because of the work of so many activists on this issue, we are seeing a much better situation in this election cycle. We still have a long way to go and work to do, but many more voters in 2006 will be able to verify that their vote was recorded correctly.
According to VerifiedVoting.org and the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, in 2004 only 10 states had passed requirements that voting systems produce voter verifiable paper records - covering only 27% of registered voters. Today, 27 states have passed requirements that their voting systems produce voter verifiable paper records, covering almost 55% of registered voters. In addition, eight states and a number of counties have simply done the right thing and purchased voting systems which automatically produce paper records, bringing the total to over 65%.
Together we can reach our goal to have all voting machines produce paper records and have every state mandate an audit of those records. Muck and slime ...
By Susannah Goodman
Posted on Mon Oct 03, 2005 at 06:46:38 PM EST
The flood water in New Orleans has receded revealing all kinds of muck and slime. I'm talking about some members of our esteemed United States Congress who are using Katrina relief and recovery as an opportunity to pass all kinds of legislation that would not see the light of day in ordinary circumstances under the guise of "helping people." The New York Times really got it right in an editorial today when they wrote: Congress has used Katrina as cover for ideas that could never stand on their own and for a remarkably brazen raid on the public treasury and environmental protections.
Take, for example, Richard Pombo, the chairman of the House Resources Committee, who is proposing to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, allow states to opt out of a longstanding moratorium on offshore drilling, and suspend judicial and administrative reviews of federal decisions to open public lands for oil and gas leasing. This is the same Richard Pombo who proposed last week - joking, he said - to sell off a few lesser-known national parks if money from the Arctic refuge was not forthcoming.
Then there is Joe Barton, the Texas Republican who, ostensibly to increase fuel supplies, rammed a bill through the House energy committee that would ease clean air restrictions on refineries and drive a final nail in the coffin of New Source Review, a useful law the administration has been trying to kill for years. The law requires older industrial facilities to install modern pollution controls, and Mr. Barton's bill would remove not only refineries but hundreds of coal-fired power plants from its reach.
Similar mischief is afoot in the Senate, where James Inhofe, the ferociously anti-regulatory Oklahoma Republican who runs the environment committee, would suspend for up to 18 months any environmental law that in his view stands in the way of post-hurricane reconstruction.
The most egregious example of self-dealing comes from the Louisiana delegation. Not content with the $62.3 billion Congress has already appropriated for emergency relief, the state's representatives have asked for $250 billion more in federal reconstruction funds, equal to more than $50,000 per Louisiana resident.
This seems a bit much, especially since the proposal also calls for suspending important nvironmental reviews and funneling huge sums to the Army Corps of Engineers for projects that seem to have more to do with the delegation's political ambitions than with flood control and the intelligent restoration of the Louisiana Delta." With our Eye on the Gulf campaign we'll be here to remind certain members of Congress that if they try to exploit this tragedy for their own selfish agenda, we're watching. And they will be exposed. And they will be held accountable - especially in the polls next November. Thinking Globally, Acting Locally for Paper Trail
By Susannah Goodman
Posted on Thu Aug 18, 2005 at 12:33:33 PM EST
The dog days of August didn't deter 450 of our activists from stepping up and making our voices heard on the "paper trail" issue via in-district meetings all across the country. Earlier this week, on August 15 and 16 over 30 different groups of activists from around the country went to the local offices of their members of Congress to ask for support of the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 550). As we have written here before, this bill would require all voting machines to produce an actual paper record that voters could view to check the accuracy of their votes and that election officials could use to verify votes in the event of a computer malfunction, hacking, or other irregularity. Over all, our actvists visted 33 different Members of Congress to keep up our pressure for paper trail urging their representatives to co-sponsors of HR 550. We have received a number of emails giving us some great feedback on how these meetings went. Here is an email I got from Marcelle Bessman from from Jacksonville, FL. Marcel and her team met with Congressman Ander Crenshaw's (R-FL) District Aide and District Representative, and sent us this report: "The meeting lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes...a lot of discussion was held. Two of the attendees were very knowledgeable software people who raised issues about possible software glitches and the need for a verifiable paper trail.
We repeatedly emphasized our desire to have the congressman support HR550. The Aide indicated that since Crenshaw sits on the Appropriations Committee he was not comfortable sponsoring a bill. We also suggested that perhaps the Congressman should have a conference with our new Supervisor of Elections (a Republican) who is in the process of purchasing 300 touchscreen machines (paperless). We emphasized also that the American voting public needs to have its confidence restored in the election process. Every vote must count and be verlifiable." While Marcel and her friends were lobbying Congressman Crenshaw in Florida, on the left coast, Tessa Jenian was leading a meeting for the delegation of activists, who met with Representative Dan Lungren's (R-CA) office in California. Here are Tessa's notes: It went well. His representative let us know he doesn't cosponsor lightly. But, that she would inform him on the issue and our support of it. We'll see. We ended up with 10 people. They all had constructive things to say, even the ones who said they didn't want to speak.
It was a great first citizen lobbying experience. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to do this. Now thanks should go out to Marcel, Tessa and activists like Reed Shenck (Reed's meeting is pictured below. He led a delegation to Congressman Gary Miller’s (R-CA) office, which explains the poster of President Nixon) who have been working so hard to keep up the constant grassroots pressure for paper trail:  Are these meetings making a difference? You bet! We've already got one new cosponsor from all our efforts. Congressman Jim Ramstad (R-MN) just signed onto the bill - bringing the total number of cosponsors to 145! Keep up the great work. And as we get more reports, we'll let you know how it all went. Keeping Up the Pressure for Paper Trail ...
By Susannah Goodman
Posted on Thu Aug 04, 2005 at 01:00:48 PM EST
On behalf of Barb, Ed, and rest of the Common Cause team working on election reform, we want to thank you for all of your activism for paper trail. Thanks to all of your efforts we are continuing to make significant progress on making our elections process transparent and auditable. Today 21 states have passed laws requiring that voting machines produce an actual paper record that voters can view to check the accuracy of their votes and that election officials can use to verify votes in the event of a computer malfunction, hacking, or other irregularity. Three states have passed administrative rulings requiring such a "paper trail" process. Very soon Legislators from Wisconsin will introduce bill that enjoys widespread bipartisan support which require that electronic voting machines in Wisconsin produce a paper ballot that could be reviewed by the voter and that would be kept in case a recount is needed. And there are now 144 members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, who are official co sponsors of the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 550) a bill which would make it federal law that voting machines produce a paper record so that elections are transparent and auditable. We have your activism to thank for this. Back in June, many of you came to Washington, DC to lobby your members of Congress on this issue. Your efforts truly paid off -and we came away with a number of new cosponsors for HR 550. Now, because it is true that members of Congress truly pay attention when the cry for change comes within their own home districts, we are working with activists to organize meetings at home district offices over the month of August. We are reaching out to members of Congress who have not co-sponsored the bill yet, but whose support would be very influential. I hope a number of you will join us. You can see if your representative is on the target list and sign up by clicking right here. Thanks again.
| 
Common Blog
