Response from Dr. Pastor (Fed. Election Reform) to my letter [View All]

[KaryninMiami]

Snips from my letter to him follows below. He's asking for our suggestions--I say we send them!

Dear Ms. xxx

Thank you for your recent comments about the need for election reform. The Commission on Federal Election Reform was established to achieve that goal.

Common Cause (www.commoncause.org) and the Election Protection Coalition (www.electionprotection2004.com) registered hundreds of thousands of complaints related to the 2004 presidential election. Public confidence in the electoral process is low, and reform is needed. This was underscored by a meeting convened by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and other groups in December 2004. I was invited to testify and remained for the entire day. The audience was deeply concerned about the state of the electoral process, and many advocated change.

After the hearing, I spoke with President Carter, who said he would favor establishing a panel to examine U.S. election reform. As you may know, he co-chaired a Commission with President Gerald Ford in 2001 that made recommendations that led to the Help American Vote Act (HAVA). I worked with both of them on that Commission and, indeed, worked with President Carter on election-monitoring projects for seventeen years at The Carter Center. As President Gerald Ford was not able to Co-Chair this panel, we consulted with Republican leaders who spoke with President Bush. They proposed former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III. President Carter has worked with Mr. Baker many times and is extremely pleased to work with him again. With such highly-respected Co-Chairs, we expect that Congress will take our recommendations seriously.

We solicited suggestions for other members of the Commission from a wide range of groups, and the Co-Chairs selected the members. It is comprised of approximately one-third Republicans, one-third Democrats, and one-third non-partisan leaders. You can read the bios of the members at www.american.edu/Carter-Baker. The Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University is organizing the Commission with the support of the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the Knight Foundation.

Our current challenge is to look beyond the partisan perspectives and fashion proposals that address the problems in a practical, democratic, and effective manner. We would greatly appreciate your ideas as we carry out this work. Please send them to [e-mail], or mail them to 3201 New Mexico Avenue, Suite 265, Washington, DC, 20016.

Sincerely,

Dr. Robert Pastor

Executive Director,

Commission on Federal Election Reform

Snips from my letter to him:

Dear Mr. Pastor,
There seems to be quite a lot of conversation going on regarding how many of us are actually involved in the election reform movement and how many of those have written to you. I can assure you, that there are far more then 7 or 8 of us. My guess is that the number of Americans who are as deeply concerned as I am about the state of our electoral process is in the millions.

Mr. Pastor, in 2002, the year Florida first started using electronic voting machines (touch screen ES&S), I selected my choice for Governor and the other elected officials and referendums on my ballot. The machine asked me to recheck my vote. I did - and it said that I had voted for the other candidate for governor- not the one that I had selected. It was on the third try that my vote finally reflected my choice.

I will never forget how violated I felt at that moment knowing that there was a chance my vote did not count. Never did I imagine, until I shared with a friend what had happened when I voted, that there had been hundreds (maybe more) who'd had the very same experience. Machine malfunction? Perhaps. Deliberate default switch? Perhaps. We'll never know.

Since that day, I have become obsessed with learning all that I can about the way these machines work and the multiple ways they can be tampered with, as well as the multiple problems that can arise with the use of these machines.

Since that day, Clint Curtis, a programmer for Yang Enterprises, has presented a sworn testimony, followed most recently, by a lie detector test, that he was hired by Yang in collaboration with Feeney, a Florida elected official, to design a software program that could rig an election.

Since that day, millions of people like myself, have been working relentlessly to let the world know that something is terribly wrong with the way our country votes and that our right to vote and have our vote counted in the way it was intended is in serious jeopardy.

It's these people who you are hearing from. It's these American citizens, who are deeply concerned that a commission formed to look into these issues, may not be looking at the facts- all of the facts, so that they can make an honest, non-partisan assessment of how this country votes and make significant changes based on that assessment.

Last week, over 200 of us gathered in Nashville, to explore all of the facts on the 2004 election. We came from around the country-- people of all ages, professions, lifestyles, took the time to gather together to do just that. This was a grassroots effort that was truly one of the most inspirational and powerful gatherings I have ever attended.

This is not a partisan issue, Mr. Pastor. This is issue has to do with the basic fundamentals our democracy. It is therefore, in all of our best interests to know that all of the facts related to election issues-- including the statistics, reports and details that the hundreds of election reform activists have been working on for the past two years, are explored as part of the work of this commission.

The emails you are receiving are coming from concerned Americans who want the truth exposed and want to know, beyond any doubt, that our elections are fair, verifiable and credible and reflect the will and intent of the people. Otherwise, there will never be any faith in our democracy which Mr. Pastor, is what concerns us most of all.

Sincerely yours,

Karyn Miami, Florida