[ale] OT: Action Update for Ending Zero Evidence Elections in Georgia!

[aaron]

=========
IMMEDIATE ATTENTION AND ACTION REQUESTED:

The legislative efforts of patriot activists working to restore transparent,
verifiable elections to Georgia suffered a serious setback on Tuesday,
March 21. Ignoring the little testimony they allowed from only one
of our attending contingent of approximately 30 citizens, the House
Government Affairs Committee failed to amend or restore our State
wide Paper Ballot  implementation requirements to the "straw man"
SB500 legislation sponsored by Sen. Bill Stephens, a 2006 candidate
for the Secretary of State (the office that oversees all Georgia election
processes, including all voting equipment purchases).

The SB500 bill has now been rushed through rules committee and is
scheduled for a vote on the House floor FRIDAY, MARCH 23!! Your
immediate help is needed if we are to transform this meaningless,
disingenuous and ineffectual legislation into real election system reform.  

We urge you to fax, phone or email your House District representative
and ask that they PLEASE protect the right of Georgia citizens to have
their vote counted and AMEND the complete language of HB790 to
SB500. Further, if efforts to amend SB500 with HB790 should be
unsuccessful, we ask that our representatives have the courage to
call a halt to the farce and treat SB500 as unfavorable.

Contact information for you State House Representative can be found
by entering your address at:
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/state/main/?state=GA&view=myofficials#0

=======

DETAILS OF CAUSE FOR ACTION:

In it's current form, SB500 does nothing beyond serving as a
taxpayer funded advertising campaign for the Diebold corporation,
Sen. Bill Stephens and gubernatorial candidate Cathy Cox by
conducting an inconclusive, three precinct test of a new Diebold
DRE model with voter verified paper ballot printing capability.

While activist efforts did succeed in adding a precinct based manual
audit of one race in each of the test precincts, it has now been revealed
that the design and implementation of the Diebold Paper Ballot DRE
is nothing short of incompetent. Inept ballot document formatting and
the continuous roll methods used for storing the printouts seem
deliberately designed to obstruct the counting process and make it
as arduous as possible. 
  
Another major failing of SB500 is that these Diebold machines would be
the only systems that would be considered or tested, with Diebold's own
technicians, trainees or associates conducting the test and reporting any
conclusions. If the test is deemed successful, Diebold's publicly stated
no bid, no competition, tax funded price tag for putting their newest
systems into service is at least $70 million.

The majority of that $70 price tag would be incurred because of
Diebold claims that the fully functional and applicable printers installed
inside every one of our current DRE machines "cannot be used" and
external printers "cannot be added" due to "Federal requirements".
This would be important if it were true, but all of the voting industry and
election official claims of voting system certification mandates are (and
always have been) entirely false.

As a State under the U.S. Constitution, Georgia has complete autonomy
in the conduct of their elections, limited only by Justice Department
approval of equal protection under provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
The State laws of Georgia further provide that the Secretary of State has
similar autonomy in the approval of all election equipment and processes.
>From the beginning, the Secretary of State's fabricated limitations on
our system and vendor choices in election equipment has been based
on deliberate misrepresentation of both Georgia and Federal laws.

In short, there is not now and has never been a certification law or
regulation preventing Georgia voters from having Voter Verified
Paper Ballots in their electronic voting systems to meet the most
obvious, most basic auditing requirements for election accountability.

Every major independent or multi-partisan study of election systems
since 2000, including Cathy Cox's own 2001 21st Century Voting
Commission and the recent Carter / Baker Commission on Federal
Election Reform**, have recommended Voter Verified Paper Ballots
as an essential component of any form of electronic voting system.
Our current Secretary of State had no excuse for ignoring the
recommendations of her own commission in 2002, and our Georgia
government representatives have even less excuse for ignoring them
today.

By failing to provide any form of open bidding or implementation
requirements, the only result of the committee version of SB500 would
be to guarantee that our next Secretary of State will be able to hide
behind the same Diebold zero evidence election systems that our current 
Secretary of State recklessly and irresponsibly installed in 2002, and they
can continue dodging every responsibility and accountability of their office
for as long as Diebold declares their most favored customers the "winners"
of the unverifiable "election" contests they conduct.

**
[ref:
 http://www.sos.state.ga.us/acrobat/21st_Century_Report.pdf
 http://www.american.edu/ia/cfer/report/CFER_section3.pdf
]

> ___________________________
> 
> HOUSE GOV'T AFFAIRS
> COMMITTEE MEMBERS
> 
> Austin Scott (Chair)
> austin.scott at house.ga.gov
> Room 218 State Capitol
> Atlanta, Georgia 30334
> 404.656.5132
> Staff: Pam Norwood
> 
> in the district...
> 1610 John Orr Drive Building F
> PO Box 988
> Tifton, Georgia 31793
> 
> 229.386.5128 - Office
> 229.388.0896 - Fax
> Occupation: Insurance Agent
> 
> ___
> 
> Paul Jennings (Vice Chair)
> paul.jennings at house.ga.gov
> Room 411
> Coverdell Legislative Office Building
> Atlanta, Georgia 30334
> 404.656.0126
> Staff: Jan Brown
> 
> in the district...
> 1843 Castleway Lane
> Atlanta, Georgia 30345-4015
> 404.321.3158 - Home
> Occupation: Retired Banker
> 
> ___
> 
> Harry Geisinger (Secretary / HB790 Sponsor)
> Room 601
> Coverdell Legislative Office Building
> Atlanta, Georgia 30334
> 404.656.0254
> Staff: Pamela Lewis
> 
> in the district...
> 224 River View Trail
> Roswell, Georgia 30075
> 770.594.1510 - Fax
> Occupation: Consultant
> 
> ___
> 
> Tyrone Brooks
> tyrone.brooks at house.ga.gov
> Room 511
> Coverdell Legislative Office Building
> Atlanta, Georgia 30334
> 404.656.6372
> Staff: Madge Owens
> 
> in the district...
> 404.753.3361 - Home
> 404.524.5531 - Office
> Occupation: Civil Rights Worker
> President - GABEO
> 
> ___
> 
> Gail Buckner
> gail.buckner at house.ga.gov
> Room 509
> Coverdell Legislative Office Building
> Atlanta, Georgia 30334
> 404.656.0220
> Staff:
> Doris Littlejohn
> Brittany Anderson
> 
> in the district...
> 7324 Cardif Place
> Jonesboro, Georgia 30236
> 770.473.9039 - Home
> Occupation: Communication Marketing
> 
> ___
> 
> 
> Sue Burmeister
> subrmyster at aol.com
> Room 415 State Capitol
> Atlanta, Georgia 30334
> 404.656.5024
> Staff: Elaine Myers
> 
> in the district...
> PO Box 212176
> Augusta, Georgia 30917-2176
> 706.481.9591 - Office
> 706.481.9541 - Fax
> Occupation: Businesswoman
> 
> ___
> 
> 
> Howard Mosby
> mosb7101 at hotmail.com
> Room 607
> Coverdell Legislative Office Building
> Atlanta, Georgia 30334
> 404.656.0287
> Staff: Diana Lynn
> 
> in the district...
> 2101 Sugar Creek Falls Drive
> Atlanta, Georgia 30316
> 404.656.0298
> Occupation: Healthcare Administration
> 
> ___
> 
> 
> Mary Margaret Oliver
> marymargaret.oliver at house.ga.gov
> Room 604
> Coverdell Legislative Office Building
> Atlanta, Georgia 30334
> 404.656.0265
> Staff: Emily Patillo
> 
> in the district...
> 150 East Ponce de Leon Avenue
> Suite 350
> Decatur, Georgia 30030
> 404.377.0485 - Home
> 404.377.0486 - Fax
> Occupation: Attorney
> 
> ___
> 
> 
> Larry O'Neal
> larry.oneal at house.ga.gov
> Room 133 State Capitol
> Atlanta, Georgia 30334
> 404.656.5103
> Staff: Kay Goodroe
> Committee Aide: Michele NeSmith
> 
> in the district...
> 200 Willingham Dr.
> Bonaire, Georgia 31005
> 478.953.4557 - Office
> Occupation: Attorney
> 
> 
> ___
> 
> Alan Powell
> alanpowell23 at hotmail.com
> Room 507
> Coverdell Legislative Office Building
> Atlanta, Georgia 30334
> 404.656.0202
> Stafff: Rahmana Evans
> in the district...
> PO Box 248
> Hartwell, Georgia 30643
> 706.376.4422 - Office
> Occupation: Self Employed
> 
> ___
> 
> 
> Chuck Scheid
> chuckscheid at msn.com
> in the district...
> Room 401 State Capitol
> Atlanta, Georgia 30334
> 404.657.8442
> Staff: Beth Green
> 
> in the district...
> 131 Chickasaw Run
> Woodstock, Georgia 30188
> 770.516.8179 - Home
> Occupation: Business Financial Consultant
> 
> ___
> 
> 
> Lynn Smith
> lynn.smith at house.ga.gov
> Room 228 State Capitol
> Atlanta, Georgia 30334
> 404.656.7149
> Staff: Pat Alexander <mailto:pat.alexander at house.ga.gov>
> 
> in the district...
> Eight Evergreen Drive
> Newnan, Georgia 30263
> 770.253.9427 - Office
> 770.253.9427 - Home
> Occupation: Business Owner
> 
> ____________________________________________
> 
> Senator Bill Stephens
> bill.stephens at senate.ga.gov 
> Capitol Office:
> 121 C State Capitol
> Atlanta, GA 30334
> Phone: (404) 656-0048
> Fax: (404) 651-6767
> Legislative Assistant: Laurie Sparks
> 
> 
> District Office:
> P.O. Box 4400
> Canton GA 30114
> Phone: (770) 517-5229
> 
> 
>