Tennessee's Democratic Party "walks the walk" for election reform

[Fly by night]

For the past ten months, Tennessee's election reformers have been working hard to fight the "vapor trail" DRE juggernaut that threatens to further engulf our elections in more mystery and malfeasance. Our grassroots organization, Gathering To Save Our Democracy, has done a host of things, including developing a seven-point election reform plan with both Republican and Democratic legislators and communicating directly with our 95 county election commissions and administrators at least monthly. But yesterday, our efforts were ratcheted up mightily by the Tennessee Democratic Party and its dynamic chairman, Bob Tuke.

Bob sent the following letter to 285 Democratic Party representatives on our 95 county election commissions (Dems represent the majority on every county's five member election commission because Democrats control the state legislature). Bob asked these commissioners to use their HAVA funds to choose voting systems that incorporate voter-verified paper ballots. In our case, that would involve keeping punch-card systems (which 20 of our counties now use and universally want to keep, despite efforts by our state Coordinator of Election to misrepresent HAVA by saying that punch-cards must be discarded) or choosing optical scan systems. Several Gathering members folded, stuffed and labeled these letters yesterday afternoon and they are arriving in the mailboxes of those 285 county election commissioners as I type this.

I thought all you DUers who are working for election reform in your home states might enjoy this letter and might consider approaching your state party chairs with a similar request. (Yes, we also plan to approach our state Republican Party to send out a similar letter.) I look forward to your comments on this thread. And if you like this letter and the common sense and courage behind it, be sure to thank TDP Chair Bob Tuke on behalf of democracy-loving people around the country for sending this letter -- it would be most appreciated. (Bob's email address is [e-mail] . Be sure to mention the state you are writing from.) Peace out.
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Date: October 17, 2005

To: Democratic Party representatives on Tennessee’s County Election Commissions
From: Robert Tuke, Chairman, Tennessee Democratic Party
Subject: Choosing trustworthy and reliable voting systems for Tennessee counties

You are in the process of making decisions that are vitally important to the safety, security and trustworthiness of our voting process in Tennessee. I know you want to be sure that our future elections here in Tennessee will remain free from the problems that have occurred too often with non-verifiable, insecure and expensive electronic voting systems in several states.

For the past several years, the problems with direct record electronic (DRE) voting systems have been well documented. These expensive voting systems have encountered multiple problems that, through accident or by design, have impacted the conduct of elections in several states around the country. These voting machines have been studied by computer scientists at many universities, and these researchers have recommended against using these machines because they frequently malfunction and their secret operating software can be easily tampered with without detection by election officials.

Many of these DRE machines do not come equipped to produce voter-verified paper trails so voters cannot be sure whether their votes are being recorded accurately. In addition, no paper records of the votes are available for audits or recounts if the election results are questioned. These problems are serious in their own right, but the fact that all major voting machine companies in the U.S. are owned by self-identified Republicans should get our special attention.

Fortunately, there are voting systems here in Tennessee that use or produce paper ballots. The twenty Tennessee counties that now use punch-card ballots have a low cost, low tech and very reliable voting system; and I am informed by the coordinator of Elections that HAVA regulations allow any counties that want to keep punch-cards to do so, although this may mean sacrificing federal funding for voting machine upgrades. In addition, optical scan voting systems use paper ballots that can be recounted manually if needed. I understand the optical scan systems are less expensive to purchase and operate, and they allow voters to cast their ballots more quickly, securely and efficiently than DREs. Since federal legislation is now being considered to require voter-verified paper trails in all future elections, I hope you will consider retaining or acquiring systems that have a paper trail.

The Tennessee Democratic Party supports voting systems that are verifiable, fair and free from the threat of tampering. We have never favored any voting system that gives an unfair advantage to any political party or candidate or that reduces the trust of Tennessee voters that their votes are being counted properly. We support the efforts of Tennessee voting rights organizations and our state and federal legislators to require verifiable paper trails to make sure that Tennessee elections are secure.

Each of you will play a vital role in protecting our votes by maintaining or selecting voting systems that use or produce a voter-verified paper trail. If we can help you in that process, do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you for your efforts to protect our democratic traditions here in Tennessee.

[SteppingRazor]

1. Hope they get something done before '06...

If they can, and Ford can take the TN senate seat left vacant by Frist, we might just take back the Senate.

But the Tennessee race will be very close -- close enough to steal, unless things change.

[BeFree]

2. Great letter

It's the kind of verbage needed to push the fence-sitters off and onto the correct side. It may even get those mired in the mud to pull themselves up and get with the program, it's that good.

Of course, the key to fair elections is that once rid of the paperless DRE's, the auditing will insure our democracy regains it's required health.

Good work, Fly by.

[Fly by night]

3. Thanks kindly. Hope we can get this on the "Greatest" page.

I'd love to get a wide DU audience to thank Bob Tuke for his willingness to send out this letter.

Come on, election reform-sters, kick and nominate.

[Bill Bored]

4. No time to read it all now Fly, but looks good!

Punch cards can be retained if there is a voter ed. program that teaches them how to avoid overvotes. Might as well include undervotes in that too, right? But you still need one accessible machine per polling place under HAVA. That's where it gets tricky.

I wish our rank and file NY Democratic Party HACKS would read the fucking DNC Ohio report that CONDEMNS DREs in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS! They are totally CLUELESS and the DNC has been no help to us at all on this issue.

I'm supposed to talk to my state Party Chair if he'll talk to me, but it would be nice to have a more top-down approach on this like the Repukes do. Unfortunately we don't belong to an "organized" political party like they do. We're just Democrats.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Recommended! FIRST PRIORITY for those who want to get our country

back is restoring transparent elections. Why do you think we're in the bloody mess we're in? Americans are sensible people, and overwhelmingly disapprove of every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, way up in the 60% to 70% range, across the board in all polls, and have for two years. The Iraq war. Torture. Social Security. The deficit. Women's rights. You name it. Not to mention Bush's dismal approval ratings since before the election (and in the low 30s today). Americans are neither stupid nor uninformed (except about Diebold and ES&S). They voted the Bush Cartel out, and could not get their will enforced, because 80% of the votes were tabulated by two far rightwing Bushite voting machine companies, using SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code. It's a no-brainer.

(You think, having set up this extremely corrupt election system, with $4 billion in appropriations (right into the pockets of Bush buds at Diebold and ES&S) during the 2001-2004 period, they didn't then USE it to keep their boy in power? Ha, ha, ha. And a mountain of evidence says they DID.)

Fly, you are a wonder! Hats off to you for inspiring and organizing a model of citizen revolt against non-transparent elections!

What are the "trade secret" programming issues in optiscans and central tabulators that have not been addressed, and what is the plan for that?

And thanks for all the info!


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Standard references:

See "MythBreakers"--easy to read rundown on the perils of electronic voting: www.votersunite.org

See, for a plan to provide statistical monitoring of the '06 and '08 elections: www.UScountvotes.org

[NoBushSpokenHere]

6. Recommended n/t

[4_TN_TITANS]

7. Bob Tuke Rocks!!!!

That man is full of fire and we're lucky to have him right here, right now.....