Suggested Letter to Congress on Electronic Voting
by kathy@truthisbetter.org Last updated 2004-05-02

Dear Congressional Representative,

It is urgent to pass Senate bill S1980 and House bill HR2239 to amend the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. HAVA must be amended months prior to the 2004 election to encourage fair democratic elections in November 2004.

1. No secret programming instructions should be allowed on voting machines in a Democracy!
2. A paper ballot is needed in case of electronic failure, so votes can be counted even if a device fails.
3. Our electronic voting machines should be certified fair by making sure they do exactly what the manufacturers claim. If gambling machines are tested for fairness, why not voting machines?
4. We need random comparisons of electronic counts with the paper ballot counts that trigger automatic statewide paper ballot recounts when errors are found.

Tampering with voting machines can be reduced by using fair open source public programs, keeping the voting machines unplugged from the network except when uploading vote talleys and other common sense measures.

If any company claims that they cannot follow these rules, there are many others waiting to step up to the plate to conduct our elections with open fair procedures.

Other versions of these bills that do not require implementation prior to the November 2004 election or which allow exceptions to a paper ballot printout for e-voting machines are not acceptable.

There will be new mathematical models for e-voting systems whereby encrypted votes could be released to the public to verify vote counts, but these are not ready yet, and they should still meet the requirements of HR2239 or S1980.

Sincerely,

Your constituent