Thursday, January 25, 2007

AZ Democratic Party Passed Holt Bill Resolution

RESOLUTION FOR A CALL TO ACTION IN SUPPORT OF THE

NEW RUSH HOLT BILL TO IMPROVE THE TRANSPARENCY AND

AUDITABILITY OF THE AMERICAN ELECTORAL PROCESS

WHEREAS: The Arizona Democratic Party - Election Integrity Committee “ADP-EIC” conducted a comprehensive campaign to observe and document the 2006 election, asserting rights granted political parties under Arizona law, publicly advocating for the fundamental right of every Arizona citizen to vote and to have each vote counted as intended in a secure, transparent, impartial, and independently audited election process; and

WHEREAS: EIC members locally, statewide, nationally and collectively realize that security maintained through obscurity doesn’t work! Only by the full light of transparency can the system be secured, audited and made democratically reliable as our votes are processed to our satisfaction; and

WHEREAS: The New York Times reported on its front page January 4 2007 that Ciber, one of three companies selected and paid for by voting machine companies to secretly test their electronic voting systems failed to receive interim accreditation from the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission six months ago for failure to follow quality control procedures and an inability to document that it was adequately testing to federal voting systems standards. Ciber tested AND certified machines were in use for the November election around the nation and in Pima County and 12 other Arizona counties; and

WHEREAS: Legislation that will be introduced by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), would require all voting systems used for federal elections to produce or require the use of a durable voter verified paper ballot to serve as the vote of record in all audits and recounts by 2008; and

WHEREAS: Mr. Holt's bill would establish a nationwide mandatory random manual audit for federal elections, would require that notification be posted in each polling place informing the voter that the voter verified paper ballot will be the vote of record in recounts and audits and warning them not to cast their ballot before verifying the accuracy of the paper ballot; and

WHEREAS: The proposed legislation would force the public disclosure of voting system source code, software, firmware, and ballot programming files and prohibit partisan and corporate conflicts of interest in the testing and certification of voting systems, with an eye towards letting America's huge technically proficient population perform the “honesty checking” that the Federal bureaucracy and laboratories have thus far failed to accomplish; and

WHEREAS: Mr. Holt's legislation would require that voters be provided the opportunity to vote on an emergency paper ballot in the case of voting machine malfunction, prohibit the presence of wireless communications devices in voting systems, ban all Internet connectivity and prohibit the unsecured storage of voting machines prior to elections.

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