Help me make the case to BAN electronic voting machines in the House!

[wheresthemind]

Hey everyone...

I'm in the YMCA's Minnesota Mock Government program. I am a member of the
"Kellogg House" and am on the Environmental Committee. Each and every member in congress has to write a bill and in January each will go to committee and will make their way through the system (we take over the state capital for a weekend!). I've decided my bill will ban electronic voting machines in the state of Minnesota because I believe this is the biggest threat to our Democracy right now.

I did some brushing over black box voting and will study more extensively this weekend, but in the mean time I'd like to hear from you guys. Does anyone have an archive of the mainstream press's coverage, things I could cite when questioned?

Any suggestions of specific language to use, situations to cite, etc, etc? Would it be alright to have electronic voting machines that produce paper ballots that are then submitted separately?

thanks for the help. I'll be writing the bill this weekend.

[Eric J in MN]

1. as long as there is a printout the voter checks and puts in a secure box

As long as there is a printout the voter checks and puts in a secure box, electronic voting is as good as other forms of voting.

Find out what Minnesota law currently says.

This is from EFF. You can look into the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 (HR 2239).
-------------------------------------
Verify the Vote: Tell Congress to Fight for Secure Elections!

The 2004 presidential election might not be flawed like the last one was; it might be even worse. Communities across America are purchasing electronic voting (e-voting) machines, but the technology has serious security problems that need to be addressed. Most of the machines use "black box" software that hasn't been publicly reviewed for security. Almost none provide voter-verifiable paper ballots to detect fraud. And despite the efforts of one voting technology company to silence its critics, the public has become increasingly aware of the problems with e-voting. The bill has momentum with 62 sponsors, but we need your help. Send your representative a letter supporting the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 (HR 2239), which would require openly reviewed software and voter-verifiable paper audit trails for all new e-voting machines.

Make your voice heard with the EFF Action Center:
http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

[Eric J in MN]

2. California requires 1 percent of votes to be manually re-counted (nt)

nt