Uncounted-- Interesting email on Voting

Dear Friends,

If you have not seen the documentary, "Uncounted," about the current
state of the election process in our country, then you really need
to. Every American needs to see this movie (and then call their
representatives in Congress). We saw this movie at the Ashland
Independent Film Festival in April and then purchased the DVD to
share with friends. Check out the You-Tube trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nJz09T0HME and then let us know if
you'd like to borrow the DVD for a night. As many people as possible
need to see this film before the next election. We are looking into
renting a movie theater to show the film to more people, let us know
if you'd be interested in that, as well.

Thanks,

And this was attached to it:

Tonight, my family watched "Uncounted," the documentary that exposes the systematic infiltration of voting precincts by voting machines that have no paper trail and cannot be audited for accuracy. This plus sworn testimony before Congress of individuals who have since left the suspect companies they worked for -- that they were involved in an intentional effort to provide voting machines and software that enabled votes to be 'adjusted' or 'flipped' so that the candidates with less votes would receive 'certified' votes that reflected just the opposite.

The State of California and other jurisdictions pulled such voting machines from service in the 2006 election.

This story is available online and in the video documentary. Here is a link from the Clarksville, TN newspaper that is a good place to start to review the situation:


http://www.clarksvilleonline.com/2007/11/11/uncounted-uncovers-new-math-of-american-elections-voting-machines/


And a 'trailer' for the video is available online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nJz09T0HME. Watch it now.

It is so alarming that it makes one wonder what can be done in the six months remaining before Election Day 2008 to guarantee that the votes of U.S. citizens will counted and recorded in a timely and accurate manner. There have been many suggestions with investigation of the reliability and verifiability of computerized voting machines leading the list.

While this is ESSENTIAL in order ti maintain the integrity of the voting system and restore public confidence, which is now badly eroded, I have also thought that there needs to be some action-oriented procedure that ordinary citizens can participate in at the local level -- indeed, in every city, county, and local precinct in the country.

Here is what I have come up with:

Public interest groups (such as the League of Women Voters) could organize groups of volunteers who would conduct supervised exit polls in key precincts and publish the results alongside the official election results in their local papers. This could involve a number of volunteer organizations, but the League has a respected track record of advocating for 'get out the vote' campaigns and providing of non-partisan information to voters prior to the elections.

This plan would preserve the non-partisan position of this or other participating organizations. They would simply act to record and report exit interviews with voters leaving the polls in order to verify that the official results (however they might turn out) are generally consistent with the voluntary information collected in exit polls.

This could be especially valuable in areas where the voting registration is known to be preponderantly of one party, so that apparent 'undervoting' or 'overvoting' by one party or another could readily be detected and, if necessary, recounts or other corrective actions taken.

I am interested in the reaction of others to such a plan. In my opinion, it would work best if supported by a wide portion of the community, with endorsement of the effort by city governments and various public interest groups. The stealing of votes or tampering with the voting process is NOT a partisan issue. It IS a crime and should be prosecuted. But the most important thing is to act together with other citizens to PREVENT it from occurring in the first place.

ANY election is too important to leave the detection of such skulduggery to chance -- but especially this election, after two notoriously suspicious elections in 2000 and 2004.

-- A concerned citizen.