Coalition for a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail

Diverse Coalition Mobilizes for a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, April 5th, 2004

Diverse Coalition Mobilizes
for a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail

With only one day left in the 2003-2004 legislative term, staff for the House Government Affairs Committee reported Monday morning that over one hundred faxes had been received across the weekend in support of Committee action on SB-500 to require a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail for Georgia's elections.

"In the past week we have welcomed the support of groups as diverse as the Georgia Christian Coalition, MoveOn and Ben Cohen's group, True Majority," said Hugh Esco, chair of the Voter Choice Coalition. "We're absolutely down to the wire on this, but we're still hopeful that the members of the Assembly will see the light on this one as they meet Wednesday to finish their legislative business."

In the past week, the Georgia Christain Coalition and True Majority both sent out email calls to action. MoveOn will send out their own action alert Tuesday.

Last Wednesday, Representative Buddy DeLoach postponed until Thursday a meeting of the Elections sub-committee, before cancelling the meeting out right on the thirty-ninth legislative day. Meanwhile community activists from the Voter Choice Coalition, CountTheVote.org, League Opposed to Virtual Elections and others showed up at the Capitol to demonstrate for Members of the Assembly how easily the data on the Diebold county servers could be manipulated without leaving a trace in their logs.

"Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller evaluated the Diebold (election) system and found that it represents 'a legitimate threat to the integrity of the election process'", said Richard Searcy, chair of Unwrapped Elections.

Georgia has already accepted Federal funds under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, to reimburse the $54 million expenditure of taxpayer money the Georgia Assembly authorized at the urging of Secretary of State Cathy Cox. The HAVA Act requires election systems purchased with Federal tax funds produce a "permanent paper record . . . (providng) a manual audit capacity".

"There is not a single vote that doesn't have Diebold's fingerprints on it," said Aaron Ruschetta, of the Electronic Frontiers of Georgia. "A review of paper records printed after the polls close is not a real audit."

"If our election officials aren't capable of counting paper ballots within a reasonable margin of error, we sure as hell can't trust them with digital votes," said Donna Price, Stone Mountain resident active with CountTheVote.org.

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For background information, link to:

http://www.voterchoice.org/

http://www.countthevote.org/

http://action.truemajority.org/ctt.asp?u=10644&l=455

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