Alaska recount

[Blue_In_AK]

From Alaskans for Peace & Justice this morning:

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The State recount WILL go forward. On a national level, Senator Conyers is leading hearings on Ohio and nationwide voting improprieties. See www.democraticunderground.com and http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/contact.html to register your opinion on the election and suggestions for improving things.
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Alaskans for Fair Elections

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 8, 2004

Contact: Chair, Joe Sonneman (Juneau) 463-2624, Amy Paige 586-4409
(Juneau), former US Senate candidate Jim Sykes 745-6962, David Koester
(Fairbanks) 479-6781


ALASKANS FOR FAIR ELECTIONS REQUEST RECOUNT

The citizen's group Alaskans for Fair Elections filed an application
for a recount of the high profile U.S. Senate race. The reasons given for the recount in the application letter were "significant deviation of the final results from exit polls" and a need to verify the scanning machines and tallying software. Alaskans for Fair Elections are asking for a recount to ensure the accuracy of the machines by conducting hand counted verification.

Nina Mollett from Juneau said, "We can trust machines to help us count but we must also verify it with our own eyes." Fairbanksan Stacey Fritz said that the wide discrepancy between exit poll numbers and the machine vote count needs to be checked to make sure our election was counted accurately. David Koester, also from Fairbanks, said, "We have what is in many ways an exemplary system in Alaska and part of that overall election process is the possibility to verify by recount and check the accuracy of the machines in counting the physical paper ballots. "

Former U.S. Senate candidate Jim Sykes said, "For many years I have
requested at least ten percent of the precincts should be recounted. By only recounting three of 439 precincts, mistakes or fraud would not likely be detected." Sykes added, "We need a higher level of voter machine verification because the computer program that counts the ballots became a secret when the state started using AccuVote machines."

The citizens' group is also asking that a hand count of ballots be done for a randomly-selected ten percent of the precincts before the ballots are fed into machines for recount. Group Chairman Joe Sonneman said, "We believe Alaskans are entitled to reasonable verification to ensure this root concept of an accurately counted vote in our democracy."

The group named Joe Sonneman of Juneau as its chair and designated Amy Paige and Andrea Doll, also of Juneau, as representatives of the group.




THANKS, EVERYONE.

[rumpel]

1. crossing fingers

[Boredtodeath]

2. Go Alaskans!

Great work and real activism on this issue.

Congrats! Keep up the good work. We await your reports with anticipation.