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HR 2989, which someone else found and I apologize for not getting that name but THANKS, is a bill that superficially sounds good. In reality, it would gut what is currently in HAVA and lead to elections that cannot be audited or recounted.
It might be a good idea to adapt this a bit and send it to the Senate, too, as I don't have time to check if there was a companion amendment introduced there also. At least, give them a heads up on it.
Honorable Representative _____________:
An amendment to the Help America Vote Act has been introduced in H.R. 2989 that endangers our right to vote and have it counted as cast.
Amendment number 11, introduced by Representative King of Iowa, part (b):
“None of the funds appropriated in this Act for requirements payments under subtitle D of title II of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 may be used to obtain any voting system which is not capable of providing a permanent, auditable, and individually verifiable paper record of each vote cast on the system.”
Superficially, this sounds like an amendment requiring paper ballots as proof of the vote cast, but it contains glaring and dangerous omissions and deceptive verbiage.
The HAVA Act calls for a voting system to produce a permanent paper record with a manual audit capacity for such system and that the paper record produced under subparagraph (A) shall be available as an official record for any recount conducted with respect to any election in which the system is used.
(HAVA, Title III, Subtitle A—Requirements, Sec. 301, (a), (2))
Note that while Amendment 11 mentions auditable and paper, it is specifying “individually.” It omits the requirement for the ability to conduct recounts. Individuals may compare their votes but a total audit of an election—or a recount-- is impossible and recounts are not mandated in Amendment 11.
Please, vote against Amendment 11 in H.R.2989, should it come to a vote. It violates citizens’ rights to accountable elections and eliminates the ability to conduct a total election audit and therefore, recounts are impossible.
Amendment 11 smacks of creating favorable legislation for one voting company that claims to have created a “solution” for auditing elections that gives the voter a slip of paper. The Bellevue, Washington company, VoteHere, is touting a system that gives voters a slip of paper they can check against records listed on computer or at auditor’s offices. This system has the same effect, interestingly enough, as Amendment 11. Individual verification of the vote is claimed but there is no means to conduct an audit of the election because an audit requires a voter verifiable, physical source and that source leaves with the voter. Voters also would not see a readable ballot, they would have to correlate code on the paper to code on a list.
In addition, Amendment 11 sets up Internet voting where requirements for recounts via a physically auditable medium would have to be eliminated. If we are to maintain our democracy, physical evidence of voter intent should never be eliminated. Internet voting, due to the Internet’s inherent security problems, is even worse than paperless voting.
The surest way to secure honest vote-counting in this country is to implement voting systems that can be audited with physical, voter verified evidence of true voter intent- a voter verified paper ballot, put in a secure ballot box and used in recounts and robust audits of elections.
Please back Representative Holt’s legislation, H.R. 2239, instead. Holt’s legislation helps protect our vote and our democracy.
Thank you.
Respectfully,
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