Guest Blogged by John Gideon (Augmented by Brad Friedman)
Wednesday’s Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN picks up on the Emergency Paper Ballot legislation now filed in both the U.S. House and Senate.
Additionally, the story was also covered on MSNBC’s Hardball yesterday (video with RFK Jr. here) and the NY Times picked it up the day before.
The Media is beginning to get it, the Democrats in Congress (those who have sponsored it, anyway) are beginning to get it. So where are the Congressional Republicans? Do they not want American citizens to be able to vote this November? We’re just asking.
Said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), one of the original sponsors of the Senate legislation to Kitty Pilgrim on CNN last night: “I really have lost a lot of faith in these machines and it’s expensive. Why not just go back to the simple paper ballot, at least until we’re really sure that we’ve resolved all the problems?”
Dodd, Feingold and Kerry have now joined here on the Senate bill (S. 3943) and Holt’s bill has several Democratic co-sponsors in the House (HR 6187).
The BRAD BLOG proposed the idea of Emergency Paper Ballots early last week, but the legislative session will likely adjourn this week for the Election Recess. Action is needed now in order to mitigate the possiblity of millions of Americans being disenfranchised this November. Please call and/or write your Congress Members of both parties now.
UPDATE: Video Now Available here… (Hat-tip BRAD BLOG commenter “Stop_George”)
The complete text-transcript of Wednesday’s segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full…
Kitty Pilgrim reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Less than six weeks until the November election, and still utter confusion over the hastily purchased and problem-riddled electronic voting systems across the country. At least 31 million voters will use touch screen electronic voting machines for the first time on November 7th, many without a paper record.
Some in Congress say it is better to have backup, paper ballots but those ballots are expensive to produce, costing up to 92 cents per ballot. Senators Barbara Boxer of California, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin have proposed a $15 million emergency spending bill to reimburse states for the price of printing paper ballots.
The bill states election officials must post “a notice stating that contingency paper ballots are available at the polling place, and that a voter may request to use such a ballot at the voter’s discretion.
SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D), CALIFORNIA: I really have lost a lot of faith in these machines and it’s expensive. Why not just go back to the simple paper ballot, at least until we’re really sure that we’ve resolved all the problems?
PILGRIM: Also on Capitol Hill today, Senators Russell Feingold and John Kerry introduced a resolution calling for states to have a backup system to deal with any failure of electronic voting equipment. New York University’s Brennan Center has a new study on electronic voting.
LAWRENCE NORDEN, NYU BRENNAN CENTER: This was implemented so quickly that we didn’t put the right procedures in place. And I think if we do put the right procedures in place, we do put the right security measures in place, that electronic voting can be a great benefit.
PILGRIM: In recent months, machines used during the primaries have crashed and poll workers have been befuddled with running and understanding the machines.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM: Now, a quick update on Colorado. Last week, activists sued to have the state go to an all-paper ballot. The judge refused to decertify the electronic voting machines, but today the court issued 10 pages of detailed rules on operating, testing and securing the machines for the elections and the activists we spoke to call it a victory. Lou.
DOBBS: Well, it sounds like it is and certainly a victory for the people of Colorado. The fact that anyone would even contemplate going into this election without standards and without training and without a paper trail is just completely mindless. Thank you, judge. We don’t get to say that very often around here, do we? Kitty, thank you very much. Kitty Pilgrim.
Don’t expect an endorsement from that sack of sh*t from Illinois House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Hastert swore REPUBLICAN BILBRAY in before the final vote results of an illegal runoff election in San Diego,CA was completed in the Busby-Bilbray contest. He is the modern example of the worst Illinois representative in the state’s history. The criminal Bushit administration got their ANTI_AMERICAN torture bill to pass allowing Bush the authority to torture and detain SUSUPECTED TERRORISTS any way they want which is was the bastard has been doing all along illegally in disregard of the Geneva Convention, the Magna Carta, and our bill of rights anyway. The hitch is now they official gave themselves permission.
The Bushit administration doesn’t care about a legitimate vote, only perpetuating their war against nature and any other country the Bushit war machines deems terrorist and cannot be held accountable for this particular crime.
The Bush administration are the biggest, most powerful terrorist organization in the world and these greedy lying criminals will do whatever it takes to perpetuate their power and reign of terror.
When they win and the results of polls and tainted unverifiable election results are peddled in the corporate controlled mass media, evidence of the real choice of “we the people” by our majority vote WILL NOT BE AN ISSUE> Then poof the stories will mysteriously disappear!!!
After the vote in the senate today on giving the criminal the right to arrest anyone they want, and hold them as an enemy combatant. I am scared. They have given a crazy, criminal, and killer the power the Germans gave Hitler. They will never let us have a fair election again. The only way we are going to get justice is to take too the streets. I firmly believe this now.
We are giving our style of Democracy to IRAQ.
What do Iraqis living in IRAQ want?
According to a story at RAW STORY http://www.rawstory.com there are 800-900 attacks on Americans a week in this war costing the American taxpayer 2 billion dollars a week.
But how is our success story being received in Iraq you wonder?
61% (a DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY) approve of these attacks.
A state department polled Iraqis in Bagdad produced the statistic that 2/3 or 66% want immediate American withdrawal. Another DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY!
If the Bush administration believes in DEMOCRACY as the voice of the people in Iraq’s Democratic governement, then they need to open their f*cking ears and listen before anymore unappreciated Americans come back mamed or in a body bag.
Dodd, Feingold and Kerry have now joined here on the Senate bill (S. 3943) and Holt’s bill has several Democratic co-sponsors in the House (HR 6187).
I’m a little confused – I thought the version of the House bill we wanted to support was HR550?
That’s the one that the formatted letter at Vote Trust USA endorses.
HR-6187 is an emergency bill that will allow states to put ’emergency’ paper ballots at poll sites for use if/when the voting machines fail.
HR-550 is the voter verified paper audit trail/audit/open source code/no wireless bill that many of us have been working for for four years now.
By the way, we hit a milestone with HR-550 today. Four more Representatives signed-on as co-sponsors which put the bill over the 50% level. This means that a majority of the House of Representatives has now co-sponsored the bill. It won’t make any difference for this congress however. It’s too late. Maybe next time.
I consider Tom Hartmann the “brains” on Air America..something he has said makes me stop and think…..we are on the verge of a total economic meltdown….if we put in Democratics..(and some of them should be voted out, along with all Republicans, especially those Dem’s who voted for toture and domestic spying) when Bush and Company’s economic crap hits the fan..(its coming, look at the real estate) will the Dem’s take the blame, even though twelve years of Republican rule set it all up?
John Gideon re: #5 – Thanks for the clarification, I’ll update the information on my blog.