Saturday, April 29, 2006

*** Update on SB1557 ***

Senate Bill 1557 (SB1557) is going through some amendments in the House. Republican Representative Jonathan Paton has made some amendments that are a good compromise between what all sides of the issue wanted. The end result appears that a decent bill could be passed, that will help secure election integrity. You can read the amendments by clicking here.

Negotiations between elections directors President Brad Nelson, (Pima), Director Karen Osborne (Maricopa), Senator Karen Johnson (R) and Representative Ted Downing (D) and many other elections, legislative, and citizen leaders have been underway to amend SB1557 in a manner that represents all of the interested concerns. This is a bipartisan compromise in the interest of public confidence in our elections systems in Arizona.

We need letters and email to all the legislators in support of the negotiated bill amendments. Please contact your legislators and let them know you support the Paton amendments and the passage of SB1557 in amended form.

The amendments and bill would result in several changes including:

• A reduction in voter wait time
• 2% random sample of the precincts and hand counts by parties with volunteers
• Durable paper ballot
• Defined "triggers" to expansion of a hand count
  

You can contact your Senators here and your Representatives here.

---------------oOo---------------

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

The Voter Confidence in Elections Act - Petitions

Several groups and individuals are passing around the petition to ensure our votes are counted. Please either download the forms and circulate or pick some up at the Pima County Democratic Headquarters.

The Pima County Republican and Democratic parties also have booths set up at the Pima County Fair where you can sign the petitions. Please do so and encourage all your voting friends and family in Pima to. The booths are set up in Thurber Hall. Upon entering, turn left 2 aisles then turn right. The second booth down is the Democratic Party booth and directly across from it is the Republican Party booth.

The Voter Confidence in Elections Act will require the following:

1. A paper trail for all voting machines, with the ballots securely stored in case of recount.

2. A hand count of a randomly selected small number of precincts, as a check on the computer counting system.

3. A mandatory recount in all elections where the margin of victory is less than one half of one percent (it is now one tenth on one percent).

4. Requires that all recounts are done manually (instead of the current system which makes manual recounts illegal for the most part - electronic recounts are mandated now).

---------------oOo---------------

Monday, April 24, 2006

New Bill Threatens Clean Elections

Larry Sakin in Opednews discusses the current bill SCR1013 that would aim to dismantle Clean Elections:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_larry_sa_060423_arizona_roundup.htm

"On the state level, a Senate/House compromise bill just passed the Senate Appropriations Committee to render the 1998 voter-passed Clean Elections laws effectively mute. The Bill, SCR1013, was written by Rick Murphy, R-Glendale, who strangely enough, was a clean elections candidate. Problem is Rep. Murphy received a $10,000 fine in June of 2005 by the Clean Elections Commission for overspending. So in essence, Murphy wants to gut the laws he violated, thereby wiping his corrupt ass clean with the paper the law was written on. But Murphy isn’t stopping there. He wants to raise the cap on individual contributions to privately funded legislative candidates to a total of $10,000. The current limit is $296.00 for a legislative race and $760.00 for a statewide race. He also wants to remove the limit of $3500.00 from private donors to all candidates.

Considering the current US House corruption scandal which made the name ‘Jack Abramoff’ a synonym for greed, you’d think that Mr. Murphy would be a bit more cautious about sponsoring a bill which allows politicians a financial windfall of campaign contributions."

"Murphy thinks the electorate is just way too stupid to understand the whole campaign finance situation. Should the full Senate pass the Bill, it will be included on the November 2006 ballot."

---------------oOo---------------