A CALL FOR CITIZEN EXIT POLL VOLUNTEERS
Feb. 20
Dear Texans for REAL Elections Coalition Member,
We need YOU to help on a Texas Citizen Exit Poll Precinct Team on Tues., March 4, 2008. Sign up at www.ProjectVoteCount.com.
This is the first REAL step citizens are taking to “take back” our elections here in the Lone Star State. Because all our votes are now counted secretly by unreliable and easily-hacked computerized voting machines – [this statement can no longer be challenged because of the abundant evidence proving it, causing three states to date to decertify their machines] - we must have a way of knowing if they are being counted accurately or not.
On March 4, 2008, Texas Primary Day, you could be greeting your fellow citizens as they exit the polling place and collecting crucial voting data that will be used to hold our election officials accountable if discrepancies between the reported election results and our polls are found.
You may have noticed that in the last few major elections, pre-election polls and exit polls have been increasingly discredited by the media pundits when the polls differ with the reported results. Never are the election results questioned; it is always some flaw in the poll-taking that is labeled the culprit. You will be participating in a nationwide effort to not only take back our elections, but to re-establish the rock-solid validity of well-conducted exit polls.
If you live in or near the Austin metro area, there will be a training session (only 1-1/2 hrs long) repeated three separate days at three different locations for our volunteers’ convenience.
They are as follows:
CENTRAL AUSTIN: Tuesday, Feb. 19, 7 pm at Brave New Books Store, 1904 Guadalupe near MLK
NORTH AUSTIN: Saturday, Feb. 23, 11 am in Bldg. 2, Rm #310 at the U. of Phoenix, N. Mopac & Braker (travel directions below.)
SOUTH AUSTIN: Tuesday, Feb. 26, 7 pm at Stop Domain Subsidies Campaign Office, 209 E. Ben White Blvd., just east of South Congress Ave. on the EASTBOUND Ben White access road.
If you do not live near Austin, you will be trained using printed materials posted on the Project Vote Count website, downloadable videos, e-mails and direct personal phone calls.
All Precinct Teams will have a Precinct Coordinator who will oversee the organizing of the Election Day schedule and the availability of poll-taking tools and supplies.
So, to summarize:
- Sign up at www.ProjectVoteCount.com
- If you are in the Austin area, pick one of the three Exit Poll Training sessions to attend. (For questions, karen@voterescue.org.)
- If you are not in the Austin area, download information that is available on the Project Vote Count website and hold tight until a Precinct Coordinator contacts you directly.
So, who are the folks here in Texas organizing this effort?
We are VoteRescue, an election integrity group based in Austin, created in early 2005 to get the word out to Texas voters about the dangers of computers secretly counting our votes. Our first galvanizing action was to organize a Citizen Parallel Election in Travis County, one of the first ever held in this country. We were primarily educating the public about hand-counted paper ballot elections by having them experience transparent voting firsthand in stark contrast to casting their invisible, electronic ballot inside the poll. We prided ourselves in maintaining strict chain of custody protocols throughout the day and counting the paper ballots in public view after the close of polls.
After four successful Citizen Parallel Elections, we decided to shift to the Election Verification Exit Poll (EVEP) format, devised by Steven Freeman and Ken Warren, in order to bring in the factor of randomness which our Parallel Elections always lacked. Now our effort was able to go statistically head to head with the “official” results. Right out of the gate, we were shocked to find such drastic differences between our poll results and the announced results of the hand-counted paper ballot TX GOP Straw Poll in Ft. Worth on Sept. 1, 2007. Soon after that, we ran exit polls at three Travis County precincts for the November 2007 constitutional amendment election. The big success of our second poll effort was that several partners from our newly formed statewide Coalition, Texans for REAL Elections, pitched in to help.
So, here we are now, with our growing Coalition, boldly joining the nationwide effort of Project Vote Count, the biggest effort yet of citizens learning the importance of conducting our own elections in full public view without the use of fraudulent computers that secretly count our votes and, in doing so, violate the most basic of all our democratic rights.
Please visit our website www.VoteRescue.org to learn more about us and to link to the numerous studies by computer experts in CA, OH and CO that have unanimously condemned the use of computers to count our votes. www.TexansForRealElections.org is currently undergoing major changes and will be up and running again soon.) For questions, e-mail karen@voterescue.org.
Here are two terrific articles about Citizen Exit Polls written by the PROJECT VOTE COUNT Ohio State Coordinator, Marj Creech:
Three Little Words
Floria Voters Sign
Thank you for knowing it is time to save our elections.
Driving Directions to the Univ. of Phoenix at 10801 N. Mopac, Bldg. 2, Suite 310, Austin Tx:
Going North on Mopac exit Braker and stay on access road. Go past Braker Lane while on access road and take 2nd right to entrance into Braker Pointe. Located in Building 2 - 3rd Floor (farthest North building).
Going South on Mopac exit Braker, take left on Braker crossing over Mopac, take left at first light onto access road. Take 2nd right entrance into Braker Pointe. Located in Building 2 - 3rd Floor (farthest North building)