Well, that’s somewhat amusing. An 800 number that I just gave out to folks while on the Thom Hartmann Program for the U.S. Capitol Switchboard has now apparently been switched to an “adult” phone service! Whoops!
Please use this one instead: 1-800-828-0498
I’ve just tested it, and it gets you through to Congress. Successfully. Though perhaps not as much fun as the other number, this one will allow you to ask for your Congress Members and tell them it’s time to ban DRE touch-screen voting machines once and for all! No more excuses.
Even the New York Times editorialized just last week that “electronic voting has been an abysmal failure” and then they went on (finally!) to call for a federal bill “banning the use of touch-screen voting machines.”
Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA) has filed an amendment to the fatally flawed Holt Election Reform Bill (HR 811) that restricts such machines, but even that doesn’t go far enough. Worse, the House Rules Committee may not even allow her amendment to be debated or added to the bill. So call your reps, and demand that they amend the Holt Election Reform Bill (HR 811) to ban touch-screen voting machines and to require a paper ballot for every vote cast in America!
Holt’s bill does not do that right now — no matter how much propaganda you are given to the contrary by the bill’s supporters!
Please don’t dial the other number that I gave out on the air. As Peter B. Collins — who’s sitting in for Hartmann today — said: that number is apparently for Sen. David Vitter’s private use only. Our apologies for the confusion. Especially to the Senator.
U.N Power grab over America’s election’s?
http://capwiz.com/jbs/issues/al...ertid=10301641
H.R. 811, This bill is supposedly about verifying votes via a paper trail, but the 62-page bill is packed with federal controls that would make the EAC (Elections Assistance Commission) into a federal regulatory agency over US elections. Over half of the states have already begun to require a paper trail in voting, so why should the Congress add federal controls at the same time? Congress could constitutionally pass a resolution informing the states of the dangers of not having a paper trail and that it could refuse to seat a member in case of a questioned election where such votes exceed the plurality.
Far from ensuring accurate and honest elections, H.R. 811 would put all recounts and audits under federal control with no provision for targeted audit recounts (where the selection of precincts to recount is based on candidate requests with the losing candidates’ getting the lion’s share) nor for mailings to the voters to ensure they really exist.
In addition to being a federal power grab over American elections, it may also be a UN power grab as well. By concentrating the power in the EAC, it would make it much easier to have UN observers become part of our electoral process by means of cooperation agreements between EAC and the UN. Many of the members of Congress who requested UN observers in the 2004 elections are co-sponsors of this bill.
Ask your Congressman not only to oppose H.R. 811, but ask him to help undo the damage done by previous Congresses by sponsoring legislation to repeal HAVA (so-called Help America Vote Act) and Motor Voter. Legislation like that would actually help America vote in accurate and honest elections.