BBV update from True Majority

[MoonRiver]

Great things are being done by people working feverishly to protect our voter rights! :loveya:

Friends:

We're making waves and the tide is turning. The last week has been a big one
for the Computer Ate My Vote campaign, and I wanted to share with you some of
the progress we've been making.

In California, 50 TrueMajority members filled a Sacramento sidewalk last week
calling for accountability from paperless electronic voting terminals. It was a
fun event -- our "hungry computer" prowled around for votes to eat and
TrueMajority balladeer Laramie Crocker sang his ode to paperless voting,
"Little Black Box," while the crowd urged state officials to dump California's
unverified voting machines. The very next day California's Voting Systems and
Procedures Panel said that's exactly what should be done. The panel recommended
to California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley that he revoke the certification
of the model TSx paperless electronic voting machine, made by Diebold Election
Systems.

This is big news. California is the biggest market for election equipment in
America. A rejection of paperless electronic voting terminals there will have
ripple effects throughout the country, and we expect California Secretary of
State Kevin Shelley to issue that decertification any day. We continue to work
in California to extend the decertification of the Diebold TSx machines to *
all* paperless electronic voting machinies.

On the day of the California announcement, TrueMajority members in Canton, Ohio
gathered outside the annual shareholders' meeting of Diebold Corporation.
Ironically, Ohio is considering buying the very same Diebold TSx machines
recommended for decertification in California.

A banner reading "Diebold Devours Democracy" floated from three helium-filled
weather balloons outside the auditorium where Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell
addressed shareholders and media. Activists gathered around a smoking, flashing
mock-up of a malfunctioning Diebold voting terminal as TrueMajority organizers
detailed the long list of failures by Diebold's machines in states across the
nation. The event made news not only in Ohio newspapers and on Ohio television
and radio but also throughout the country due to coverage by the national wire
services.

Our work continues in Ohio, where the legislature is still debating a bill to
require a paper trail (a TrueMajority organizer testified in favor of it). The
bill doesn't go as far as we'd like -- some counties would still be able to
purchase paperless machines this year, and retrofit them later -- but it's
still a turnaround for a state which had been on the verge of locking *every*
county into paperless voting for the foreseeable future. Diebold, meanwhile,
seems to be changing it's tune. Instead of claiming that paper trails are
difficult to produce, as they did at the beginning of our campaign, company
spokespeople said last week they'd be happy to make paper-capable machines for
states who want them.

We reported to you earlier that eight states have required paper trails for
their electronic voting terminals. Here's more good news -- Maine just joined
the club April 22, when Governor Baldacci signed LD1759 into law. State Rep.
Hannah Pingree, the chief sponsor of the Maine bill, tells us that your
messages to the secretary of state there softened the ground and were important
in getting the law passed.

We're not stopping there, though. In addition to pushing on in Ohio and
California, we'll soon be taking on the new federal Election Assistance
Commission. That's the new board tasked with writing the standards for
electronic voting machines. We'll be asking them to write "voter verified paper
trail" into the federal standards, so all those states who are waiting until
next year to buy voting machines will buy the right ones. Look for an alert
soon on that topic.

More and more news outlets are waking up to this nationwide movement, and
elected officials are listening. I'm glad to be able to work with all of you to
protect our democracy.


Ben Cohen
President, TrueMajority.org


PS: For more information about our campaign, check out www.truemajority.org/
voting.cfm. For more information about computer voting systems, check out
http://action.truemajority.org/ctt.asp?u=551342&l=578 or
http://action.truemajority.org/ctt.asp?u=551342&l=579.

[althecat]

1. Cool :)

[LittleApple81]

2. Are we having a plan to support Bev Harris? I have seen some

threads in DU by Bev and other activists detailing reprisals that use the Patriot Act to try to silence her.