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HR 811 ALERT!!!
TELL YOUR REP TO VOTE NO!!!

By 4 p.m. TODAY, Tuesday, September 18, 2007, all Representatives in Congress must let the House leadership know how they intend to vote on the Holt Bill - HR 811 - which has been aptly renamed by those of us opposing it as simply "Microsoft 811". 

UPDATE (9-18-07):
The bill is supposedly going to the House floor for a vote sometime this week. We have requested an update about the bill from Congresswoman Slaughter's office earlier today and will post it as soon as it is received. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) is the chair of the House Rules Committee that functions as the gatekeeper for bills going to the floor, as well as, reviews all of the proposed amendments. (Actually, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, ultimately decides which bills receive the green light or not.)

This terribly convoluted, 60+ page bill is being sold as the ONLY possible solution to the "fatally flawed" voting machines that are used by over 80% of American voters. Those pushing for the passage of HR 811 insist that "It's this bill or nothing!" in order to scare people into supporting it despite its many flaws.

The following is a list of the bill's most "inspired" requirements
(for explanations of each the following points, click on the explanation link):

1. HR  811 endorses and enshrines in law secret vote-counting. (explanation)

2. HR 811 allows the continued use of DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines. (explanation)

3. HR 811 requires that all DREs produce a "voter-verified paper ballot" which is impossible to do. (explanation)

4. HR 811 calls for audits of the "voter-verified paper ballots" that many experts say will not be effective and, in fact, will most likely be rigged. (explanation)

5. HR 811 would make the highly partisan and secretive Election Assistance Commission (EAC) a permanent agency. (explanation)


HR 811 is NOT our only chance to take back our elections from the corporations that now run them with their secretly programmed voting machines.

We should and must demand a better solution...A  simpler solution...A solution that is welcoming of all citizens.

We must demand a new bill that bans all electronic voting-counting machines, including both DREs and ballot scanners.

Call your Representative in Congress TODAY to strongly urge him/her to vote "NO" on HR 811, "Microsoft 811". 

(Go to www.congress.org to find your Representative.)

Also, call Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and all the members of the House Rules Committee (numbers below) with the same message.

And demand that they all throw their support behind a new bill that will legislate the use of paper ballots for all federal elections that are hand counted in full public view with all necessary security measures and with all results posted in public view at the precinct level before moving the ballots and results up the election tabulation ladder. It's that simple.

If you have any questions, call Karen at 512-496-7408 or Vickie at 512-775-3737.


The following elaborates on each of the most "inspired" requirements of HR 811 listed above:

1. HR  811 endorses and enshrines in law secret vote-counting. Lobbyists for the software corporations, led by Microsoft, succeeded in rewriting the "disclosure" section of HR 811 this past spring so that the public will not be granted the right to inspect the source code and other programs in the machines as previously written. Obviously, the rights of corporations are deemed more important than the rights of the voters for total transparency.

2. HR 811 allows the continued use of DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines. DREs include both the touchscreen type and the wheel selector type which is currently used in Travis, Tarrant, and Harris Counties, among others. Nationally, a number of states have now banned the use of DRE machines altogether because of the mounting evidence that they can be easily hacked, rigged and manipulated so that election outcomes on these machines are readily suspect. Writing that "electronic voting has been an abysmal failure", The New York Times called for a total ban of DRE machines in an editorial about HR 811 published on Sept. 6, 2007.

3. HR 811 requires that all DREs produce a "voter-verified paper ballot" which is totally impossible to make happen because the only ballot that a DRE can produce is an electronic one comprised of countless electromagnetic impulses that are invisible to the voter and is, therefore, impossible to verify. Instead, the only tangible object a voter can "verify" is a "paper record" (also called a "paper trail") that is produced by adding a printing device to each DRE. (Translation: Now even more of the citizens' money will flow into the pockets of the machine vendors.)

And, it follows that, even though the voter's selections can be correctly reflected on the "paper record", there is no way to know if these same selections were cast on the electronic ballot inside the machine, therefore, these "paper records" create a false reassurance to the voter

4. HR 811 calls for audits of the "voter-verified paper ballots" that many experts say will not be effective and, in fact, will most likely be rigged. Since HR 811 requires that only 3% of the precincts are to be scrutinized for foul play, it is more appropriate to call these "spot checks" rather than audits because the term "audit" means a total review of all the records.

And, even if a true audit were called for in the bill, it would be impossible to accomplish because studies have found that 10% of the "voter-verified paper records" are rendered unreadable due to paper jams and printing failures.

For the sake of proving the further fallibility of these "spot checks," let's suspend reality and say that 100% of the "paper records" were available in every precinct. Now what easily comes into play is the likelihood of insiders secretly rigging the counts of the "paper records" so they match the machine counts when the time finally comes to publicly preform the "spot checks."

This is exactly what occurred in the largest county in Ohio after the 2004 presidential election. And, gee, it only took three years to finally bring into court and convict the election officials who had performed the rigging, which meant that the "official" results were never questioned.

For these reasons, relying on audits (i.e., spot checks) to catch any manipulation of the DRE machines and then for these discoveries to have any effect on the already announced "official" results on Election Night, is a totally useless strategy for securing our elections.

5. HR 811 would make the highly partisan and secretive Election Assistance Commission (EAC) a permanent agency and give it increased influence and power over all the states, thereby centralizing what was always intended to be a very diverse and decentralized system of conducting elections.

Also worrisome is the fact that the four members of the Executive Committee of the EAC are Presidential appointees. Over the past few years, since it was first created and funded by the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the EAC has been incompetent, behind schedule by years and derelict in its duties. They have also shown to be unduly influenced by the interests of the voting system corporations.


NANCY PELOSI, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, CA (D)
235 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-4965
sf.nancy@mail.house.gov

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES RULES COMMITTEE

Democrats:

LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER, NY - CHAIRWOMAN (D)
2469 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Phone: (202) 225-3615
Fax: (202) 225-7822

JAMES P. McGOVERN, MA (D)
438 Cannon Building
Phone: (202) 225-6101
Fax: (202) 225-5759

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, FL (D)
2353 Rayburn Office Building
Tel: (202) 225-1313
Fax: (202) 225-1171

DORIS O. MATSUI, CA (D)
222 Cannon House Office Building
Phone: (202) 225-7163
Fax: (202) 225-0566

DENNIS CARDOZA, CA (D)
435 Cannon Building
Phone: (202) 225-6131
Fax: 225-0819

PETER WELCH, VT (D)
1404 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone:(202) 225-4115

KATHY CASTOR, FL (D)
317 Cannon House Office Building
Phone: (202)225-3376
Fax: (202)225-5652

MICHAEL ARCURI, NY (D)
327 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Phone: 202-225-3665
Fax: 202-225-1891

BETTY SUTTON, OH (D)
1721 Longworth House Office Building
Phone: (202) 225-3401
Fax: (202) 225-2266

Republicans:

DAVID DREIER, CA (R)
Ranking Minority Member
233 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Office (202) 225-2305
Fax (202) 225-7018

LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART, FL (R)
2244 Rayburn House Office Building
(202) 225-4211

DOC HASTINGS, WA (R)
1214 Longworth
(202) 225-5816
Fax: (202) 225-3251

PETE SESSIONS, TX (R)
1514 Longworth House Bldg.
(202) 225-2231
(202) 225-5878 fax