5 Steps towards Verified Voting in Virginia

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

5 Actions Virginians can choose from to protect the election and also get Voter Verified Paper Ballots.

1. http://www.pollworkersfordemocracy.org">Pollworkers for Democracy : P4D is, of course, the project that we're encouraging everyone to take part in if at all possible. The P4D reporting will concentrate primarily on machine issues but will include some questions on other disenfranchisement issues because we are the only project with volunteers actually INSIDE the polling places all day and we would be remiss if we (in effect) expected our pollworkers to just ignored eggregious examples of disenfracnishement.

However, the emphasis is, of course, on the machines. Reporting will take place the next day via an online form. We will maintain our own database because we will be asking questions of the pollworkers that are not included in the EIRS database. However, EIRS now has ten very robust machine-focused questions, that we are also using and the P4D data (pollworker answers) for those questions will be rolled into the EIRS system. All of the info will be publicly available (except for names). P4D state leaders will have access to all the info for their states.

2. http://www.vote-smart.org/resource_political_resources_state.php">Or be an Observer - In those cases where all pollworker slots have been filled, we recommend that people contact the party or candidate of their choice about becoming pollwatchers (called challengers in some case, monitors in others) inside the polling places. These people can and should still take part in all aspects of P4D -- training, observing and reporting -- because they will be inside the polling place for an extended period of time (though not necessarily all day as is the case for pollworkers). Find your political party or other info about your state at Project Vote Smart

3. http://www.nationalcampaignforfairelections.org/pages/election_protection">Prevent Voter Supression Tactics. When people CAN''T participate as either pollworkers or pollwatchers (see above) then we want to encourage them to work on either Verified Voting's Transparency Project or the Election Protection Coalition's project (www.866ourvote.org ).

In the Election Protection effort, they can monitor from a legal distance OUTSIDE the polling place and take down and call in (to the EIRS hotline) election incidents reported by voters as they come out. Election Protection workers and the hotline operators focus more heavily on issues involving disenfranchisement and incidents potentially requiring immediate legal action but they also have a good range of machine questions as well. All the data collected through this effort becomes part of the EIRS (Election Incident Reporting System).

4. http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/transparency">Verified Voting's Transparency Project is aimed at observing different parts of the election to evaluate and increase public transparency. This is a great project for people who want to participate but, for one reason or another (time, physical limitations, political considerations, etc), can't do P4D as well as P4D volunteers who want to cover such critical aspects of the election as logic and accuracy testing, early voting, poll closing (in states where the public is allowed into the polling place for poll closing). VV is also supporting P4D, and the two projects are completely complementary.

5. Get the word out! Blog or write about the e-voting issue, or write letters to the editors.
Share with your friends, colleagues and with us!
The pen is mightier than the sword. Write letters to the editors about why Virginia needs a voter verified paper ballot, and be ready to say "I told you so" in November!
Writing is what helped North Carolina be the first state in the South East to pass a verified voting law, and I am certain that we can do this in Virginia.
Also join our list serve to discuss the issue more http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VaVV/">VA Votes

See Vote Trust USA for ideas in writing.

Any of these 5 ideas will help set the wheels into motion for your state.