Voter Action's Big News, Year-End Review, & New Year's Update

[eleny]

Thier newsletter that just arrived in email:

"Voter Action's Big News, Year-End Review, & New Year's Update
January 8, 2006
Dear Friends,

Fresh from a series of litigation successes to stop insecure, unreliable and unverifiable electronic voting in 2006, Voter Action aims to have an even greater impact on behalf of election integrity in 2007. As a core supporter of Voter Action, you are among the first to share in some great news!
I am very pleased to announce that Lowell Finley, our Co- Founder, Co-Director and legal counsel has been tapped as California’s new Deputy Secretary of State, Voting System Technology and Policy.

In his new position, our Voter Action co-founder will have purview over voting machine certification and standards development, as well as serve as liaison with national organizations such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Election Assistance Commission. He will report directly to Debra Bowen, California’s newly-elected Secretary of State. As many of you are aware, Ms. Bowen’s campaign was based largely on bringing security, transparency and verifiability to the state’s election process. Naming Lowell to oversee voting systems for the State of California makes good on that promise.

Lowell’s appointment is well-deserved. It is also a tremendous endorsement of Lowell’s reputation, the organization and that of the entire Voter Action team and supporters like you. Lowell’s appointment to one of the nation’s most important state positions overseeing election standards and voting machine certification for approximately 1/5 of the nation’s voters is a victory for Voter Action, election integrity advocates and voters across the United States.

I will continue to provide the strategic and operational direction that enables this organization to be among the nation’s most effective advocates for the sanctity of the vote. Voter Action will remain committed to seeing through our existing states’ efforts and to expand partnerships with top law firms across the nation, developing new collaborations with key voting rights organizations, and building Voter Action’s reputation as an authoritative resource for the public through education and outreach efforts.

We will continue to develop compelling evidence, and to release studies – such as the report on e-voting problems in the 2006 midterm election released earlier this week through a partnership with Voters Unite and VoteTrust USA -- to ensure that voting integrity issues such as the threat of election privatization remain front and center in the national debate.

Moving forward, we are working with leaders in the voting and civil rights movement to develop a statement of common principles and policy for election integrity.

We are fortunate that Voter Action’s partner law firms, whose expertise on e-voting issues has been developed across 10 states, are committed to pursuing our legal actions and expanding them to additional states. We are also pleased that an experienced attorney with expertise in this specialized field has stepped up to provide continuity during this transition. We will be announcing the details, as well as a new legal director, in the near term.

As Co-founder, Lowell, remains committed to ensuring the long term viability and growth of Voter Action, and will continue to support and advise the organization as we grow on the foundation started during the last two years.

This past year you have helped us initiate and pursue nine statewide lawsuits, winning in New Mexico and Colorado and convincing half of the Diebold counties in California to switch to paper-balloting with optical-scan systems. In New York, we helped to head off a rush to purchase e-voting systems before the state could develop sound certification standards. Our state court actions in Pennsylvania and Ohio hold promise for moving those states toward more trustworthy voting systems; in Arizona, briefing is nearly complete on our appeal of an erroneous judgment dismissing the complaint before the evidence “discovery” process had begun. And Voter Action Wisconsin has just developed a partnership with a well established law firm to assist us on a pro-bono basis. Finally, in Florida, Voter Action spearheaded a collaborative effort with three other non-profit organizations to represent voters in a nonpartisan contest of the congressional district election in Sarasota County, in which 18,000 votes were lost by touch screen machines. Voter Action has been able to do all this by leveraging tight resources strategically and by relying on your support.

Renowned computer security experts, including Voter Action Advisory Board members Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University and David Dill of Stanford University, along with other top computer scientists with voting system expertise like Douglas Jones of the University of Iowa and Dan Wallach of Rice University, stand ready to provide expert testimony as we reach the next level of our growth.

Your continued support, through volunteer work and donations is all the more critical as we bring aboard the best legal director available, and fulfill our commitments to our partner law firms for the ongoing litigation costs of the lawsuits. These top firms are literally providing millions of dollars in pro bono or reduced fee legal services in support of Voter Action’s goals.

A single law suit, such as the Colorado case successfully concluded last September, can cost Voter Action up to $100,000 in expert travel expenses and court, deposition, transcript and other fees and costs, over and above donated attorney’s fees. While Voter Action and voters are getting a bargain, we must rely on our supporters for the funds to make it all possible

We are counting on your generosity to see the legal efforts we are pursuing through to victory. Please consider donating now, on line, by clicking the link at the end of this email. Our Watch The Vote hotline in November produced many first-hand accounts that confirm the dangers of e-voting – with or without a paper trail. We are at a critical juncture in the quest for meaningful election reform, with key battles playing out over the next several months.

THANK YOU – our allies, members and partners for your unwavering support. You fuel our victories, and ensure that our elections remain in the public domain. Together, we will not rest until we can be assured that every voter has access to cast a vote and assurance that his or her vote will be counted as cast. Voter Action will continue to help voters take full ownership of their democracy.

Holly Jacobson

Co-Director and Co-Founder

Voter Action

2006 YEAR-END REVIEW

-- In New Mexico we investigated why 24,000 votes, a number which could have swung the state election, and impacted the National election and thus, the current direction of our country, had been lost or switched by electronic voting machines. Our lawsuit blocked the purchase of new touch screen voting machines, after which we worked with the Governor’s office to support all paper ballot legislation, which was implemented statewide in the 2006 mid-terms.

-- We sponsored legal action to halt the use of unreliable, unverifiable, and secretive electronic voting machines in eight other states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

-- Eight counties – half of the Diebold touch screen counties in California –switched to paper balloting in response to the Voter Action lawsuit. Read More http://voteraction.org/States/California/Documents/News/3-21-06_1.html

-- In Colorado, a state judge ordered the Secretary of State to establish new security standards for electronic voting systems and to conduct new testing and certification under those standards. The court also ordered the Secretary to impose emergency, uniform county-level electronic voting security rules statewide for the November 2006 election.

-- Our latest lawsuit, asking for a revote, was filed November 21, 2006 in Sarasota Florida, where 18,000 votes went unrecorded in the hotly contested congressional race to replace Representative Katherine Harris. The official results showed Republican Vern Buchanan ahead of Democrat Christine Jennings by only 369 votes, making it the second closest congressional race in the country. Read More http://voteraction.org/States/Florida/FL.html

-- We received over $2 million dollars in pro bono legal work from some of the nation’s top law firms, which partnered with us to challenge state certification and use of untrustworthy and unreliable electronic voting systems.

-- We developed new evidence in states across the country through our successful 2006 Watch the Vote program, which recruited volunteer attorneys to staff a national e-voting hotline and provide advice and assistance to voters experiencing difficulties with electronic voting machines. We will be expanding this program in 2008, in collaboration with other activist groups.

-- In collaboration with leading voting rights organizations, we issued a national study on e-voting problems in the 2006 elections. Read More http://voteraction.org/reports.html

-- We have gained traction in all of the major media and through appearances on CBS Evening News, CNBC, CNN, Lou Dobbs, Air America, NPR, and other syndicated radio, as well as coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Associated Press and other major print and web media, reaching millions of voters and policymakers to increase awareness of these issues. Watch Video Reports http://voteraction.org/video.html Read Print Reports http://voteraction.org/news.html

We’ve developed partnerships, and hosted briefings across the country with artists and celebrity activists such as Bonnie Raitt, Peter Coyote and K’eb Mo, as well as social activists such as Dolores Huerta to keep e-voting on the front burner of the national policy debate.

Through all of this, we have been relentless in our pursuit of election integrity, and passion for our Democracy, in which every vote must be honored with the sacred trust that it has been guaranteed.

It is our commitment to you, our partners, and all voters, regardless of party or background that we will not rest until all votes are counted accurately and transparently, all voters have access to the polls, and we can have confidence in a democratic process where the will of the people prevails.


VOTER ACTION’s mission is to protect an open, transparent democratic election process, and ensure that elections remain in the public domain. We support the basic rights of all voters to have their vote recorded as intended and counted accurately."

[Stevepol]

1. Great Post!! K&R.

[eleny]

2. They've done some good work here in Colorado

And their news about California is very encouraging for us all.

[emlev]

3. Whooo-Hooo! Congrats to Lowell Finley and VoterAction!

This is very exciting!

Here's more about Lowell's appointment:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3999

[Wilms]

4. This IS !!11Hugh!!!.

Quite large.

Vendors are lawyering up as we celebrate!