CLG Launches B.Y.O.B., Bring Your Own "paper" Ballot Campaign

[Lori Price CLG]

Citizens For Legitimate Government Launches B.Y.O.B., Bring Your Own "paper" Ballot, Campaign for "Election" 2004 --(press release from www.legitgov.org) CLG Founder and Honorary Chair, Michael D. Rectenwald, announced the CLG's inauguration of the B.Y.O.B., Bring Your Own "paper" Ballot, campaign. The group calls for voters in the 2004 presidential contest to print, fill-out, and notarize their own copy of the CLG paper ballot receipt, as a safeguard against the known flaws and vulnerabilities of touch-screen voting and the recent history of discarding votes and overthrowing election results.

Press Release: http://www.legitgov.org/pressrelease_bring_your_own_ballot_020704.html

[LoZoccolo]

1. I've been wondering if maybe people should call up...

...and make sure they haven't been purged from the voter rolls a la Florida 2000. I don't think I'm in a state that does that though.

[alittlelark]

3. I am a white married female living in Los Altos,CA for 12 years

No criminal record, soccer mom type who is also active in local and national groups against the war.
In our AHHHNOLD election I was not on the roles for the first time.(we had touch screen, no trail voting). I always vote. I once voted at 9 mo pregnant. The poll workers said a few others had the same problem. I was given a paper ballot that would be counted if the supervisors approved and had to fill out a form. It is still unclear if I am on the list now.

[goclark]

2. Sounds great to me..

Two questions,will you need for someone at the voting place to verify that what is on your actual ballot is on the notary version?

And,it cost money to get a notary, who would pay for it in poor areas where it is needed the most? All this may be on the website,sorry I have not checked it completely yet.

I still love the idea because even if it was done by a random number of people in the voting place,that could help to drive Jep Bush and the boys crazy!

Creativity such as this is what will win the day for us!!

[JPace]

4. I am all for a bring your own ballot movement.....

this will help keep the problem out there
where maybe we can shame some politicians
into doing something about it.

[pinto]

5. have you checked with different states' election officials re: how this

would work? great idea, but it would be a shame to put such organized energy as your organization has into a "blind alley". I'm sure you've checked it out, but a blurb on your web site about election law specifics would be useful. Thanks, pinto.

A backup option is to register absentee. That's always a paper ballot.

[scottxyz]

6. This is a GREAT idea

Since the Diebold computers can't do simple addition, we need to keep a record for ourselves of our vote.

Don't doubt it - the Republicans are cheating left and right now, because they know they have no more support. They have the MEANS and the MOTIVATION (and the lack of MORALS) to steal more elections.

Clicking on a touch-screen on a hackable computer that can't add right and that's designed by a Republican campaign contributor isn't democracy - it's a farce.

Maybe Haiti could send over some election observers to the US this fall?

I'm a database programmer, and I will re-iterate my proposal: DON'T use computers to register or total votes. Just use a paper ballot, a simple carbon-copy, which the voter can mark and then drop the white copy in one box, the pink copy in another box (for tallying by two independent groups) - and maybe keep a yellow copy (specially designed to disallow vote-buying) for their own records.

Canada does elections using paper - and the results are usually available the same night.

As a computer programmer I know from experience: if you want to really screw things up, use a computer.

[carols]

7. As a software tester

I second your sentiments :-)
Carol

[demdave]

8. Help me out here, I don't get it.

I get a CLG paper ballot recipt, I mark who i will vote for at the polls on the receipt, I get it notorized and then I go vote. How does this prove anything? I could still vote for someone other than the noted person.

Assuming I don't vote differently and I think the election results are wrong, what have I proved by having the receipt? Every voter would have to have receipt. This will not happen, so what you have are a handful of voters with receipts

[carols]

9. Well for one

it would show how many people had concerns about electronic voting. This is a form of protest...
Carol

[Lori Price CLG]

10. About B.Y.O.B....

The main point of the B.Y.O.B. campaign is to draw attention to the issue of touch-screen voting with no paper trails. We want as many people as possible to do it, and if we can get every Democrat in the country to do it, then we have some force of will to show that we did indeed vote for our candidate.

It's about drawing attention to this and the former election theft.
Thanks,

Lori Price (Mike R. answered this one.)
Citizens For Legitimate Government

[genius]

11. Good job Michael and Lori.

Let's get these paper ballots to everyone.

[Lori Price CLG]

12. Thank you very much!

We've been getting quite a few suggestions about the project, which is good.
-Lori

[icymist]

13. This could only be a form of protest.

The paper ballots, except absentee, would mean nothing in the face of the official results. However, if a big enough protest were registered in this manner, it could force the media to make a note of the lack of faith for these touch screen voting apparatuses.

[leftchick]

14. excellent!

I love this idea.... Thanks Lori!

[Zan_of_Texas]

15. two things

1. In at least some states, even the paper absentee ballot is converted into an electronic ballot, then counted with the rest of the electronic ballots. So, it could have dubious advantages over a polling place ballot. Bev Harris has also found out that in at least some jurisdictions, the absentees are farmed out to a private contractor to handle. I'm sure that makes you really feel secure, right?

2. I confess, I haven't plowed through the Help America Vote Act. But, according to Senator Ensign from Nevada, a law he helped write REQUIRES paper. There are a number of interpretations of it, however.

Regardless, the verbiage sounds clear enough to me -- the paper ballots that protesters turn in should include the verbiage from the law, eh? Quote chapter and verse from federal law.

Amendment, Voting Rights Act
Amendment No. 2900 to the Equal Voting Rights Act of 2001: “The voting system shall produce a permanent paper record with a manual audit capacity for such system.
“The voting system shall provide the voter with an opportunity to change the ballot or correct any error before the permanent paper record is produced.
“The printed record shall be available as an official record for any recount conducted with respect to any election for Federal office in which the system is used.”


Ensign says voting machine debate moot

RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
12/5/2003 12:11 am
Susan Voyles
[e-mail]

While people in Nevada and across the country debate whether electronic voting machines should produce a duplicate paper ballot, U.S. Sen. John Ensign said federal law already requires it.
But some including Secretary of State Dean Heller disputed Ensign’s interpretation of the law, saying it allows individual states to decide whether paper ballots are needed.

Ensign said Thursday that his amendment to the Equal Protection of Voting Rights Act of 2001 requires a permanent paper record be available as the official record for any vote recount. It also must give a voter the opportunity to change the ballot or correct an error before the paper record is produced.

“There’s nothing more important than having a valid ballot box,” said Ensign, a Republican, who lost a race to U.S. Sen. Harry Reid in 1998 by 428 votes.

In that race, Ensign requested a recount of the paper ballots used in Washoe County after it was determined paper ballots had been misprinted and scanning machines had misread some of them for the count.

Ensign said he will never be certain about the vote in Clark County because it was all done electronically.

“For electronic machines, you push a button and the question comes out with the same count over and over. No one knows whether there is a flaw in the system. Everyone has to ask themselves whether their computer at home has ever malfunctioned.”

The minutes of the Senate hearing clearly state his intent: The purpose is to provide for a system that “permits voters to verify their vote at the time it is cast and used as the official record for recounts.”

But Heller said he interprets the law differently.

The bill went to a conference committee of the Senate and the House, and U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., the bill sponsor, said on the Senate floor that there was no intent for the paper record to serve as the official record. “That’s left to each secretary of state,” he said.

And that’s the way federal elections officials now interpret the law, said Heller, who wants Washoe County to use new electronic machines for the 2004 election.

But Heller conceded a new Federal Elections Assistance Commission, created by voting rights act, will have the final say.

And U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., has introduced a bill that will produce “the voter verified paper trail.” It now has 74 sponsors.
The voters’ rights movement, however, gained steam in late November when California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley ordered county officials to use voting machines with paper ballots by 2006.
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