# Voting



Action Alert: Urge Senators to Pass Verified Voting in 2009

(We have a lot of close elections in Iowa and need confidence that our machines are counting votes accurately. - promoted by desmoinesdem)

 

Your help is needed to keep Iowa moving toward verified voting. House File 682, the work of a task force of citizens, election officials, and lawmakers, would require Iowa to conduct hand-counted audits of election results. HF 682 passed the House unanimously on Monday evening, but the Senate is not moving the bill forward.

Audits are done by comparing a hand-tally of paper ballots to the machine tally, in a number of precincts selected at random. If the results don't match, further checking can be done. Unlike recounts, audits happen every time as a check and balance on the system — not just when a particular contest is at stake. It's not difficult to do; in November 2008, audits were done in 22 states and the District of Columbia. And for good reason: computer scientists who know our voting systems, including Iowa's Douglas Jones, view audits as no less important than voter-verified paper ballots. 

You can use Verified Voting's Action Center and send a message:

 http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/199/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26937

Thanks for your help!

Sean Flaherty

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Tell President-Elect Obama to Support Verified Voting

(Verified voting has been on my mind lately, so thanks to Sean for posting this diary.   - promoted by desmoinesdem)

We have an opportunity to make sure that President-elect Obama hears from citizens about the importance of verified voting. The Presidential transition team has set up a system called “Open for Questions” on change.gov Citizens submit questions of their own, and vote on other questions. The transition team will gather the responses and post answers in the New Year.

You can help by recommending this question for consideration:

“President-elect Obama has cosponsored two bills* that would eliminate unverifiable voting in federal elections. Will he ask the 111th Congress to pass a law requiring paper ballots and random hand audits of computer vote tallies?”

You can recommend as many questions as you like, so you will not lose other opportunities to share your ideas by doing this.

Tips for recommending a question on the flip.

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Iowa Democrats Lost Congress?

While Democrats picked up two new seats to claim a majority of Iowa’s Congressional delegation, the overall congressional vote was tilted in the Republican’s favor – they won 520,798 votes (50.6%) to our 490,476 (47.7%).  This margin represents less than the margin in just Congressional District 5, but that margin is slated to move on over into at least one of our competitive districts in six years.

A similar result can be seen in Indiana, where Democrats lost the statewide congressional vote while picking up three seats to bring them to a majority.  The only other state with as dramatic results as Iowa and Indiana is New Hampshire, but considering they won their only two Congressional seats, they obviously managed an overall majority as well.  It might just be the fact that Democrats were doing so poorly before the election that the races they weren’t able to compete in – CD 4 and 5 here and 4, 5, and 6 in Indiana – overwhelmed the results of what were targeted, competitive races on both sides.  We’ll get a better idea in 2008, when Republicans are the ones trying to pick off our seats.