Support the Paper Ballot Based Voting System Reimbursement Bill
Our right to vote was won through the decades of costly and sometimes bloody struggle. It is a right that we should cherish and protect from all threats. You may not be aware, but our precious vote is at risk in Pennsylvania.
More than 8,000 precincts in 52 Pennsylvania counties now use externally paperless Direct Recording Electronic voting systems (DREs). These DREs produce no independent proof of whether votes were properly recorded. There is no way to do a true recount, because with paperless DREs, there is nothing to count.
There have been numerous problems with these machines, which have resulted in the known loss of tens of thousands of votes. According to Common Cause, “Pennsylvania already has experienced the loss of 10,000 votes on paperless touchscreen machines in Mercer, Beaver, and Greene counties in 2004. In Berks County’s 2005 Primary election, the entire election results of several precincts were lost. 2006 saw every voting machine in Westmoreland County misprogrammed for date and time, resulting in machine failures during the crucial early morning hours, which is the only time many working people can vote. We constantly hear reports from all over Pennsylvania about voting machines failing to boot, failing to print zero tapes at start-up, failing to print results, and jumping voter’s choices from one candidate to another.”
These are just the known problems. Because there is no way to verify how people actually voted, this may be just the tip of the iceberg.
The truth is, all of our votes, and the integrity of our elections are unnecessarily at risk. There is a simple solution, already in place in many Pennsylvania counties. Many PA precincts are using a certified optical scan voting system. This system uses a paper ballot which is read by a scanning device. If there are problems that require a recount, there is a paper ballot that can be physically counted to verify an accurate result.
State Senator Charles McIlhinney and Representative Marguerite Quinn have introduced legislation that would direct the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to reimburse counties for all the costs involved in obtaining a paper-ballot based voting system. They need co-sponsors from both parties to support their bills if there is any chance for this legislation to pass.
Please sign our petition asking your senator and representative to co-sponsor and vote for the Paper Ballot Based Voting System Reimbursement Bill. Your vote and our democracy depend on it.
Dear Senator/Representative:
We the undersigned are concerned about the integrity of Pennsylvania’s elections due to the lack of a verifiable system. Experts are nearly unanimous in their opinion that elections held with externally paperless Direct Recording Electronic voting systems (DREs) cannot be relied on to produce accurate elections.
Paper-based certified optical scan voting systems have proven to be more accurate and use paper ballots which can be physically counted if there is the need of a recount.
