From: http://www.blackboxv...
The truth about the Holt Bil (HR811)
Paper ballots may not matter if white house appointees are put in charge of elections. They can end run the Holt Bill any time they want, in many different ways.
The Holt Bill, HR811, permanently funds putting elections under the control of four White House appointees (the "EAC").
This structural change will permanently alter the checks and balances of our representative democracy.
One of the very first acts the EAC did in 2004 was to try to arrange for the cancellation of elections in crisis situations. We need a paper ballot, but we cannot afford to have this perilous structural change accompany it. This is dangerous. Kill the bill. from:
Brad Blog
http://www.bradblog....
A press release from the office of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) begins:
In the wake of a news report that the Election Assistance Commission altered its findings to overstate the pervasiveness of voter fraud, U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) today asked the Senate Rules and Administration Committee to look into the matter. Menendez has written Committee Chairwoman Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), expressing his concern over the revelations and asking her to examine the process by which the EAC report was produced. Menendez maintains that the use of the EAC to advance a political agenda is a blow to the integrity of the electoral system and that an investigation into the motivations behind the panel's report is warranted.
PFAW, MoveOn, and Common Cause among others after seeing the above problem of partisanship with the Election Assistance Commission, may now want to retract their curious support for Holt's HR 811 and join the majority of their own membership to move against Holt's HR811. Let's see what they do. But, much more importantly, let's see what their members do.
Sample Letter and Talking Points
ACTION PAGE:
http://www.ElectionD...
Warn Congress: H.R. 811 is The Patriot Act of Elections
To the Honorable
I write in opposition to the Holt Bill, H.R. 811, which promises "increased voter confidence" but actually perpetuates secret vote-counting by computers while handing centralized control of federal elections to four White House appointees.
Because it requires a computerized text conversion device in every polling place, H.R. 811 would actually require electronic voting machines, effectively ruling out noncomputerized voting methods such as handcounted paper ballots.
For the same reason H.R. 811 would also rule out noncomputerized voter assistive devices that provide better accessiblity features at far less cost, while avoiding the unacceptable risks of secret, computerized vote-counting.
This unnecessary, unproven, as-yet nonexistent text converter device that H.R. 811 requires is a gift to the E-voting industry and an under-funded federal mandate that will impose huge cost burdens on the states.
H.R. 811 provides no means to enforce election laws that are being routinely violated. This hardly inspires "increased voter confidence" in elections.
Election auditing procedures in H.R. 811--which apply to post-election results rather than to the first count--are poorly conceived and inadequate to reliably detect electronic fraud or mistabulation. This inspires alarm, not confidence.
The EAC, created as a temporary advisory commission to implement HAVA, is in fact a federal executive commission that can at any time be converted into a federal regulatory agency by the insertion of a single line of text in any act of Congress.
Regulatory powers would enable the EAC to effectively bypass Congress and create law that preempts Constitutional state sovereignty in election administration. This would allow four White House appointees to determine:
* Which voting systems are approved for use in our elections
* Who counts the votes, and how votes are counted
* How recounts are conducted and outcomes decided
This is a clear and present danger to American democracy. Do not allow it! Reject H.R. 811!
True election reform that ensures, rather than threatens democratic foundations, requires
* Public ownership of any voting system
* Citizen oversight of all electoral processes
* State sovereignty in conducting elections
H.R. 811 is opposed by the National Association of Counties, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the National Association of Secretaries of State because elections administrators in the 50 states understand the disastrous destabilizing effects H.R. 811 will have on U.S. elections. That's why they say NO to H.R. 811 -- and why you should too.
Sincerely,
Support State Rep. Lon Burnam's HB 3894 for Hand Counted Paper Ballots in Texas.
Find Contact Information for your Texas Representatives at:http://www.fyi.legis...
But, protest Holt's HR 811 which gives more power to the Executive Branch for the 2008 election.
Go to:
http://www.ElectionD...
And:
You can also
Call Rush Holt's office 202-225- 5801 and your Reps 202- 225- 3121.
UPDATE:
from: http://markcrispinmi...
Dems commit assisted suicide
snip
...HR 811 has now passed out of that committee and is headed to the floor for consideration by the House. Although some changes have been scribbled into it, the bill still permits the use of DRE machines. So HR 811 is, at best, as good as useless.
Thus the Dems have tucked themselves into their deathbeds, and will disappear into the Great Beyond as sure as shootin', with the Bush Republicans in the role of Jack Kevorkian (but without the solemn face).
Why are the Dems doing it? Basically, because they cannot, will not, recognize that it is happening. It's too big, too scary, and they don't want to go there--even though the unraveling US Attorney scandal makes it ever clearer that election fraud is at the heart, and is there very basis of, this whole regime.
So let's just keep on screaming bloody murder about this, on the assumption that a lot of good Americans, both left and right, care very much about Bush/Cheney's long crusade against American democracy, even if the Democrats refuse to face it.
MCM
..........
snip
Holt Election Reform Bill Passes Out of Committee, People for the American (PFAW) Still Misleading Public About It
Advocacy Group's Press Release Disingenuously Continues to Forward Unsupportable Notion that Bill Would Have Prevented Sarasota's FL-13 Election Meltdown
Legislation Still to Allow for Uncounted and Uncountable Electronic Ballots on Touch-Screen Voting Systems...
Rush Holt's Election Reform Bill (HR811) was successfully voted out of the U.S. House Administration Committee Tuesday after a four hour mark-up session. We'll have analysis of the bill in the coming days as we are able to review a copy of the final version which is now headed to the House floor. We have been told that electronic balloting on Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) touch-screen systems will continue to be allowed in the bill.
Apparently, a paper ballot --- one that is actually counted --- for every vote cast in America is of little interest to either the Democratic and Republican members of the committee.
First out of the box to trumpet today's "triumph", naturally, was the bill's top supporter, the public advocacy group, People for the American Way (PFAW). They had a press release good to go before the ink even dried on the dangerous new version of the bill (which, we should add, does include both some improvements to the initial version, along with several watered down provisions as we've been told...but we'll wait until we actually read it before commenting further on any of that.)
For now, however, we have little choice but to characterize the tactics used by PFAW in their press release as despicable, while they continue to knowingly mislead the American people about what the Holt bill will and won't do. (Their press release is posted in full at the end of this article.) This group knows better, and yet, they are doing it anyway...
FULL REPORT: http://www.bradblog.... |
