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Put this in your email's "send" box and the email will turn into a free fax.
remote-printer.sen_kerry/304_Russel_Bldg@12022248525.iddd.tpc.int remote-printer.sen_kerry/PO_Box_34640@12022248525.iddd.tpc.int Sample Letter (format for easy faxing, e-mailing) Dear Senator Kerry, Recently you and Senator Edwards visited Florida andpledged to its voters, that every vote will be counted. I've also read that you have been organizing a legal task force to deal with any voting irregularities. While dealing with voting irregularities and voter disenfranchisement "after the fact" is necessary, I encourage you to take more pro-active measures to make sure that every vote is counted and every voter is allowed to vote. In Florida and in many other parts of the country, many counties are using paperless electronic voting systems, 'virtual voting' as I like to call it. When these machines have no paper record of the voter's intent, it is only the virtual data that decides the end count. It's hard to imagine a rigorous recount done with only virtual data and I wonder how accurate the vote counts will be using paperless systems. Some say that paperless voting is reliable, but I find that hard to believe. Recently, it's been reported that a popular kind of E-Voting system in Florida and elsewhere, the iVotronic from ES&S, has a problem with the accuracy of its internal audit procedures. When the battery is low, the machine scrambles its serial number, making the distinction as to which machines had how many votes' impossible. ES&S says that this 'audit bug' does not affect the actual vote count, only if we want to double check and do an audit. This is but one of many serious problems that are being discovered each day with these systems. Many election officials are telling the people to trust paperless voting, but how can we trust these systems, when it is impossible to prove our votes actually exist. Senator Kerry, time is running out for any meaningful safeguards to be implemented before November. If you want all of our votes to be counted and counted accurately, one thing you can do is to co-sponsor S1980, which would mandate a paper record for every vote cast on E-Voting machines. You need to speak out now about the need for better security standards and auditing procedures for electronic voting systems, otherwise the problems of 2004 will make 2000 look like a walk in the park. If S1980 and HR2239, its House counterpart, do not pass, the results of the election cannot be seriously validated. Without these bills immediately enacted to safeguard our most fundamental democratic right, voter confidence in the US electoral process, will greatly diminish. I hope you will speak out about this issue to your colleges in the Senate to provide leadership in securing the integrity of our votes. Sincerely, John Kerry for President, Inc. P.O. Box 34640 Washington, DC 20043 202-712-3000 202-712-3001 (fax) Washington D.C. 304 Russell Bldg. Third Floor Washington D.C. 20510 (202) 224-2742 - Phone (202) 224-8525 - Fax |