Home > Time to PUSH for Meaningful Election Reform NOW - Common Cause

Time to PUSH for Meaningful Election Reform NOW - Common Cause

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 11 November 2004
3 comments

Elections-Elected USA

Dear Politicasso ,

We know many of you are angry and frustrated about the election last Tuesday, and are deeply concerned about the stories appearing online and in the news media about problems with the voting process in states like Ohio. As the New York Times said, "the mechanics of our democracy remained badly flawed ... the election system was far from what voters are entitled to." And, it sure appears that many Americans, once again, have lost confidence in our nation’s election system.

We made a commitment to use the huge body of documented, non-partisan voter information we have been collecting during the last few weeks to reform our flawed election system. Last week, we gave you an overview of the information we collected through November 2, which you can read by clicking on the following link:

http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/...

We are going to release an extensive analysis in the coming months based on this information.

However, we are not going to simply wait to issue a report to move forward on our commitment to reform our electoral process. We’ve heard your overwhelming concern and anxiety about the November 2 election and we are assembling a public hearing in Washington, DC to make sure Congress hears of the problems that occurred on Election Day. We are working with Members of Congress and other organizations to convene this hearing so that we can air all the information groups and individuals collected on November 2 - stories that have caused the public to lose confidence in our democracy. We’ll be telling you more about the hearing via our emails and website. Please make sure to check our blog for constant updates.

We have already shared with you via email a number of stories about peoples’ voting experiences and provided updates on our blog. Here are few more we have heard through you and news reports in the last few days:

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In Ohio, a voter called us on Election Day and complained that there had been flyers in her neighborhood telling people they would be arrested for outstanding tickets when they went to vote. We contacted the voters and then a local minister who was able to use a sound truck to inform voters in the area that this threat was not true and they should go vote.

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In Vanderburgh County, Indiana, Commissioners voted unanimously to conduct an "independent audit" of the November 2 election results, following complaints about possible malfunctions of the county’s touch-screen voting machines. Reports of mechanical breakdowns and long lines for voters that forced waits of up to three hours set the stage for the decision at Monday’s meeting.

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In Ohio, an official-looking, but fake flier was distributed under the Franklin County Board of Elections’ name telling voters that due to the large turnout, Republicans would vote on Tuesday and Democrats on Wednesday. This is an old Election Day dirty trick - but it’s not a joke - we need to find out who orchestrated this and other deceptions around the country.

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In Columbus, Ohio, an electronic voting system reported that Bush received 4,258 votes while Kerry received 260 votes in a precinct where records show only 638 voters cast ballots.

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In North Carolina, 4,532 early ballots have been irretrievably lost in Carteret County, where a machine used to store electronic ballots ran out of storage space and county officials mistakenly continued to try to save ballots to it. The state may have to hold another election for some offices. The manufacturer, UniLect Corp. of California, mistakenly told elections officials that the early voting unit’s storage capacity was 10,500 votes.

Again, from all accounts it appears that not much has changed since the 2000 election except the results were not as close. This is why we need to hold a public hearing as soon as possible so that we can bring attention to all these stories in our national conscience, and strongly push our agenda to reform our election system. Can we count on your help so that we can organize a public hearing on elections in the halls of Congress?

www.commoncause.org/setupelectionhearing

We need to make sure our elected officials do not drop the ball on implementing meaningful reforms to fix our flawed election system. This will take in-depth research, communication with dissatisfied voters, and staff hours of compilation. We need your support now so that we can weave together all the stories involving serious problems with voting process and present a complete picture of what’s wrong with our election system:

www.commoncause.org/setupelectionhearing

With your help, a public hearing in the halls of Congress will force our government to hear loud and clear our concerns about the ideals of the American democratic process on Election Day.

Thank you again for your passion and commitment to Common Cause.

Sincerely,

Chellie Pingree
President & CEO, Common Cause

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