Election Reform Organizations in Vermont - Volunteer!
Call to Action!!!!!
Provisional Ballots
Introduced by federal law in 2002 as part of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the provisional ballot was designed for voters whose registration was in question. Initially proposed by the Congressional Black Caucus, it was to save the rights of those wrongly purged from voter rolls.
HAVA provisional ballot law allows election officials to give provisional ballots to any persons who:
- show up at the polls on Election Day but find that, for whatever reason, their names are not on the voter rolls; or
- have their right to vote challenged by an election official. (Note: In many locations it’s not just election officials, but also partisan observers who challenge voters).
ACTION: Check with www.CanIVote.org to see if you are registered. They also need to ensure their ID matches the voter registration name exactly. Voters can be challenged over minor things, such as a middle initial on their ID while the voter roll has a full middle name listed. Next, check to be sure your polling place has not moved.
Read The Truth About Provisional Ballots.
New Voter Identification Laws
Many states have passed laws that require citizens to provide a photo identification piece proving that they are indeed citizens. A driver’s license and a birth certificate are inadequate because the former doesn’t prove citizenship and the latter doesn’t provide a photo. A passport does qualify. As the state supreme courts review these new laws, many have already been struck down as unconstitutional because they are barriers to voting.
ACTION: All citizens should check with their Elections office to ensure what the current requirements are. If a photo ID is required, a protest should be lodged as to the unconstitutionality of the law.
Join the Transparency Project
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6389
Vermonters for Voting IntegrityNewsletterOctober 24, 2006
Vermonters!
Vermonters for Voting Integrity continues to push for better security with the Diebold electronic voting machines used throughout our state. Recently, the Secretary of State handed us a major setback.
If you have been following the situation, we recently shared the good news that Secretary of State Deb Markowitz announced there would be a random audit on November's election. This means that for the first time, some of the machines will be tested for accuracy. All other industries except the voting machine industry conduct regular audits on their systems, and this is something that virtually all computer security experts recommend. In fact we have been supporting a letter writing drive to ask the Secretary to conduct audits for some time, and only recently has the office admitted it's a good idea (only a few months ago Director of Elections Kathy DeWolfe wrote, "I do not believe that we do not need random audits in Vermont.")
So naturally we were pleased when we found they have changed their minds, and there will an audit this November.
Since then, we have been trying to get details about the audit, to no avail until now, and the information we are getting is not good. We have recently been told by the Secretary's office that the audit will in effect be a secret audit. The office will not disclose how many precincts are going to be audited. And the very worst of it is, the precincts will NOT be randomly selected. The fact that they will not be randomly selected greatly diminishes the effectiveness and integrity of the audit. More...
For a daily update of election news in your state go to www.votersunite.org, click on "Daily Voting News" for the appropriate date and a set of news articles will come up listed alphabetically by state.
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