July 2009

 

 

 

Page 3

 

 

Closed circuit television can keep a watchful eye on the ballot box where handmarked paper ballots can be kept and counted on Election Night by citizens.

 

With all that said, we have spent the last several years focusing in our own backyard on local and state election officials and can offer these suggestions to others who would like to take up the fight for election integrity:

 

Locally, we decided to find out who makes the financial decisions in our county regarding elections. In our case here in Austin, Texas where we live, that would be the County Commissioners. Every Commissioners Court meeting here opens with citizens being allowed to speak freely about any topic for three minutes. These court hearings are broadcast live on a local cable television channel as well as archived on the county website.

 

We have been going there for years and literally publically embarrassing these officials into taking a closer look at how the county conducts its elections. We simply bring in documented facts about the electronic voting systems we are using in our county and read the information into the record.

 

We will be the first to admit that this has been a very slow, frustrating process. To date we have dogged the Commissioners' Court, flown in computer experts twice to give testimony at the Texas Capitol in support of a bill written by our colleague, Karen Renick, called the "Texas Hand-Counted Paper Ballot Bill of 2007" (and 2009); held numerous press conferences in both Washington D.C. and Texas, and executed some type of exit poll or other monitoring action on virtually every major election day in the last four years.

 

We see very slow progress, but are now part of a county level "Election Study Group" that is studying the alternatives to our current touch screen type voting systems. We have a real shot at affecting a significant change here, and we hope it will be to hand-counted paper ballot systems, with enhanced security. We intend to keep educating officials and the public until they finally gain an understanding of the dangers of electronic voting and why our solution is the only viable one to help citizens regain control of the election process, and to allow for the least amount of fraud.

 

We suggest you consider the following actions to help bring election reform in your hometown or county:

 

Attend your County Commissioners' meetings and speak against electronic voting of any kind.

 

Go to: www.VotersUnite.org, www.Blackboxvoting.org, www.VoteRescue.org, www.Electiondefensealliance.org, www.bradblog.com to find copies of studies and information to read or distribute to educate your local election officials, County Commissioners, and fellow citizens regarding the dangers of all forms of electronic voting.

 

Hold press conferences and events to help educate the public (See our "Action Center" at www.hackedelections.com for more information on how to do this).

 

Host house parties and watch movies like the Grammy nominated HBO special "Hacking Democracy".

 

Volunteer to speak at political events, clubs, Democratic, Republican, Green Party and Libertarian events on this topic. Election integrity is a true non-partisan issue, and the public is usually interested and wants to know more information.

 

Form a local election reform group so that you have some fun folks to work with. Your creativity and actions as a group become more fun and powerful in numbers.

 

Meet with your city council members, state senator and legislators. Testify on a regular basis at the state legislative election committee hearings. These are often viewed by the public.

 

Consider getting a donor to fund anti-electronic voting machine messages on billboards in your town, including websites where you have local information posted.

 

Become the local expert on elections and election reform. Get to know all the political reporters at your local paper, radio and TV stations including local community radio and TV.

 

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