[ale] [OT] E-Voting -- SB500 Hearing THURSDAY

[aaron]

=================
State and Local Government Operations
Committee Meeting:

THURSDAY, MARCH 4th, 4:00 pm 
Legislative Office Building, Room 310
(across the street from South end of State Capitol building) 

To support SB500, requiring voter verifiable Paper Ballot Printouts
on the Georgia's electronic voting systems.
=================

Now a little background as to why you need to be there if you can:

I have been pursuing the Georgia electronic vote machine issues very actively 
for the past several weeks, in part as a representative of many ALE members 
who have expressed serious concerns with the security and fraud 
vulnerabilities of the current Diebold voting systems. Following is a brief 
rundown of what's been happening recently and where things stand:

-- There are TWO bills in process for the General Assembly that would require 
voter verifiable paper ballot printouts to be a component of the touch screen 
systems: SB340 and SB500
<http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2003_04/sum/sb340.htm>
<http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2003_04/sum/sb500.htm>

-- One of these bills, SB500 is currently before the State and Local 
Government Operations committee [SLOGO] for review and vote to get on the 
calendar. Committee details and member contact info are here:
<http://www.legis.state.ga.us/cgi-bin/gl_org_detail.pl?Com=gasslgo>

-- Tuesday, 2004.02.24 saw the first SLOGO committee meeting on this bill. I 
was present and gave testimony, along with several other members of the 
various groups working in our coalition to fix the voting system.

-- Nine members of this coalition, including myself, also managed to arrange a  
meeting with Cathy Cox on Friday, 2004.02.29. We presented much well 
researched evidence of the Diebold system problems, but little progress came 
of the meeting.  The obstinate and ignorant (bordering on absurd) stance of 
the Secretary of State's office is that the coordinated, large group 
conspiracies need to perpetrate fraud against the paper ballot verifications 
are more likely and possible than the single point entry needed to perpetrate 
massive fraud on insecure computer systems that lack any kind of paper audit 
trail (which would provide proof when such computer fraud occurred).

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-- A second SLOGO committee meeting is scheduled for:

   THURSDAY, MARCH 4th, 4:00 pm 
   Legislative Office Building, Room 310
  (across the street from South end of State Capitol building) 

Anyone who can attend to show support for this issue should be there.

The committee has requested demonstrations of touch screen systems that 
include the desperately needed voter verified ballot printout and paper audit 
trail. There may be opportunity for other testimony to be heard as well, so 
if you have something you want to add to the issue, you should research the 
details and prepare a brief statement.

Again, in all cases, if there is any way you can attend you should be there.

**************************************
peace
aaron