Reply #39: Priority 1: Trustworthy Elections [View All]

Election Revolt!

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. If we fail to fight for our right to have confidence in our elections, we are truly insane.

What good does it do to promote candidates for 2006 if elections across the nation are corrupted by systematic vote suppression, data manipulation, human and machine error, and fraud?

Massive overhaul is needed in every state. We must demand what we require. The recommendations in Conyers report are a start.

DREs have no place in free, fair, and open elections. The bottom line on the machines is this:

1) Secret Vote Counting is Unlawful.

2) Direct Recording Electronic voting machines (DREs) count our votes in secret. This is intolerable.

Sure, machines could be used to capture choices in a way that prevents over or under-votes, but the output must be a paper ballot and that voter verified paper ballot MUST be the official ballot. No result can be official until those ballots are counted in a way that is open to public scrutiny.

Every citizen must be afforded an equal opportunity to cast their vote and have that vote accurately counted. Hours long poll tax lines and other intolerable barriers render an election invalid.

Tragically, a vast majority of the organizations like the Center for American Progress or the National Priorities Project fail to include trustworthy elections as a priority. Trustworthy elections never seem to appear on those "What is most important to you" polls."

Even the ACLU fails to include voting rights -- our most basic right -- on the list of rights they are dedicated to preserving.

This is insanity.

It is imperative that every organization fighting for us on other fronts include the fight for Trustworthy Elections.

If you care about preserving the consent of the governed – our founding principle – please call, write, and fax the ACLU and other organizations that are failing to fight for voter rights. Take a look and see if the organizations you support have joined the fight. If they haven't, make some noise.