Clarksville, TN Online » Bernie Ellis

It’s time to ensure every vote is counted

Bernie Ellis — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:00:42 +0000

Now, more than perhaps ever before, your voice will mean something for Tennessee. If you speak up in the next week, your voice will be amplified by the growing call to our legislature to move the TN Voter Confidence Act forward now. At this moment, this call from voters across Tennessee and across the nation is strongly bipartisan, broad-based and basic in its request: Let our votes count in Tennessee in ’08. What follows shortly is an email action alert that is being sent to our core election integrity supporters here in Tennessee. Some of you are among that group, but many more of you are not. That is why I am writing to all of you myself, one last time.

Please take 30 minutes to voice your support to replace our non-verifiable touch-screen voting machines in Tennessee with paper ballot-based voting systems in time for the November election. To help you do that, I am sending you the latest call to action from Gathering To Save Our Democracy (www.votesafetn.org), and I am appending on that action call a few more steps you can take if you believe as strongly as I do that free, fair and verifiable elections matter in this country.

No matter your political persuasion, please email some or all of the Tennessee leaders whose email links are provided below. Tell them you support anything they can do to move the TN Voter Confidence Act (HB 1256; SB 1363) forward to immediate passage. (If you copy-and-paste the grouped email addresses into the address line of your message and
“blind-copy” all the recipients, you need only write one message to reach each entire group.)

Now I must finish planting the first tomatoes and preparing for a drive to Knoxville this afternoon. Tomorrow, when my Garden is enjoying a 70% chance of rain here in the holler, I will join a few of you again to watch and discuss “UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections”, this time with the TN Federation of Democratic Women, U. Tennessee faculty and students and others.

If you live in Tennessee, your voice has to be heard NOW for free, fair and verifiable elections. If you live elsewhere, let TN’s leaders know that secure elections here matter where you live too.

Currently, the bill is in the House Budget Subcommittee, where the Chairman wants to keep it until the end of April, at least. There is no reason for the bill to remain in subcommittee waiting for the state budget to pass—all the money we need is already available—federal money. But time is short—we don’t want to wait that long to get the ball rolling. We need your help again!

What you can do right now: E-mail the House Budget Subcommittee members and ask them to act now, and pass the bill (H.B. 1256), so it will go to the full Finance Committee. If any of the members is your Representative, please mention that, and include your address.

House Budget Subcommittee members:

rep.harry.tindell@legislature.state.tn.us,

rep.joe.armstrong@legislature.state.tn.us,

rep.lois.deberry@legislature.state.tn.us,

rep.craig.fitzhugh@legislature.state.tn.us,

rep.mike.harrison@legislature.state.tn.us,

rep.steve.mcdaniel@legislature.state.tn.us,

rep.gary.odom@legislature.state.tn.us,

rep.doug.overbey@legislature.state.tn.us,

rep.randy.rinks@legislature.state.tn.us,

rep.dennis.roach@legislature.state.tn.us,

rep.johnny.shaw@legislature.state.tn.us

Senators:

Senate Finance Committee members:

sen.randy.mcnally@legislature.state.tn.us,

sen.douglas.henry@legislature.state.tn.us,

sen.tim.burchett@legislature.state.tn.us,

sen.diane.black@legislature.state.tn.us,

sen.raymond.finney@legislature.state.tn.us,

sen.joe.haynes@legislature.state.tn.us,

sen.rosalind.kurita@legislature.state.tn.us,

sen.jim.kyle@legislature.state.tn.us,

sen.mark.norris@legislature.state.tn.us,

sen.bo.watson@legislature.state.tn.us,

sen.john.wilder@legislature.state.tn.us

TACIR commissioners recommend voter-verified paper ballot for Tennessee

Bernie Ellis — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:58:49 +0000

The TACIR “Trust But Verify” report recommends that Tennessee move to voter-verified paper ballots to improve election integrity.

Our efforts to achieve more secure elections in Tennessee moved forward this week when the TN Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) voted unanimously to release the TACIR staff report, Trust But Verify, to the state legislature and the general public.

The TACIR Commissioners were obviously influenced by the outpouring of emails and other messages they received from many of you last week. They told us that hearing from so many people did influence their deliberations. We need that to happen again in the next 2-3 days in order to move safe elections legislation forward.

The joint legislative study committee that is considering a bill to require optical scan voting systems statewide by November, 2008 meets on Tuesday, December 18. The recommendations of this study committee and the actions it recommends to the legislature will go a long way toward determining if our elections will be secure in 2008.

I urge you to go to www.votesafetn.org and follow the suggestions there. Send an email to the legislative study committee members supporting voter-verified paper ballots and mandatory random audits to be put in place before November, 2008. You can write each member separately or write them en masse. Whatever you do, it will make a difference so please send these emails in the next 2-3 days. (Bernie Ellis, pictured at right, urges verifiable ballots during at right during a recent appearance in Clarksville).

If you have a few more minutes, you can also scroll down at the web-site to find contact information for other important state officials, including Governor Phil Bredesen, Secretary of State Riley Darnell and others. Letting them hear from you will help our efforts immensely.

Finally, if you’re not from Tennessee but know that, if our country is to survive, all of us have a stake in how votes are cast and counted in every other state, please take a few minutes to write our Governor Phil Bredesen to tell him to please let our votes count in Tennessee. His email address is Phil.Bredesen@state.tn.us

Since 2000, more issues than answers arise in e-voting’s short history

Bernie Ellis — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:00:58 +0000

In the wake of 2000 election issues, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002. HAVA was intended to address the problems of accuracy and functionality such as “hanging chads”– of the voting systems then in use. HAVA’s mandate also included ensuring that all voters with disabilities have access to voting systems that would provide private and independent voting.

These changes were required in every state for the 2006 federal election. Millions of tax dollars were allocated and dispersed to the states to upgrade and buy new equipment that would incorporate these requirements.

Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines are touch screen machines with no paper ballot. In Tennessee manufacturers of electronic voting systems including Diebold (a Diebold Voting Machine is shown above right), ES&S, Hart, and Microvote, eagerly marketed their Direct Recording Electronic machines to county election officials, although most of these manufacturers also produce optical scan voting systems. Optical scan systems are less costly, more efficient, and most importantly use paper ballots, marked by each voter, then optically scanned to record and count the vote.

Problems with DREs

DREs are essentially notebook computers programmed to display ballot images, record and count voter choices, and store this information on removable memory cards. Like any computer, the DREs can get a virus, be incorrectly programmed, or malfunction, either through innocent mishap or malicious intent. It is important to remember that when problems occur with the DREs, there is no independent record of each vote, so no meaningful recount or audit is possible.

Thousands of problems with electronic voting systems have arisen in dozens of states, including votes “flipped”, votes not counted, and malfunctioning memory cards. While most problems have been machine malfunctions from programming errors or poll worker inexperience, some less savory problems have occurred, including in 2006 in Memphis, where evidence revealed tampering had occurred in the central vote tabulator. It is clear that DREs are vulnerable to errors, malfunctions and tampering. As a result, it’s impossible to safeguard votes on such equipment.

In early 2005, I organized Save Our Democracy, a grassroots group that has continuously learned about voting issues and equipment. In 2006 SOD formed a coalition with Common Cause TN. The group’s members have also worked with county and state election commissions, legislators, the state coordinator of elections and other citizen groups to encourage county commissions to purchase optical scan voting systems, NOT DRE’s.

Finally in 2006, 93 of the 95 Tennessee counties chose DRE systems. Only Pickett county bought an optical scan system, while Hamilton County converted to optical scan voting nine years ago.

The current reality in the US and Tennessee

In 35 states, all votes are cast on voter verifiable paper ballots. Only five states still use DREs exclusively. Tennessee lags behind, with only two counties safeguarding their elections. We must have legislation that mandates paper ballots.

What’s the answer? The simple fix is making sure all voters vote on electronic voting systems that start with a paper ballot that they mark. Throw out the DREs and replace them with optical scan voting systems. Election officials will tell us there is not time to switch to optical scan machines before the November 2008 election. In 2006,however, the counties ordered and installed completely new equipment in seven months, so there is time to make the change to optical scan systems by November.

What’s happening in the Tennessee Legislature?

In 2005, Rep. Susan Lynn and Sen. Bill Bryson introduced the first bill to mandate paper ballots. In the 2006 legislative session, we worked closely with Rep. Gary Moore and Senator Joe Haynes to craft a comprehensive bill, The Voter Confidence Act that would mandate paper ballots, post election audits, and high level security for the voting systems. After the 2006 election, legislators began to appreciate the problems with the DREs: 12 bills were introduced in 2007 that would increase voter security. All of these bills, including The Voter Confidence Act SB 1363 HB 1256, are currently being reviewed by a joint Senate-House Study Committee that will report its recommendations to the General Assembly by Feb. 2008. The next meeting will be Dec. 18.

A second examination revealing the flaws and dangers of electronic voting issues is also underway. The TN Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations -TACIR - is conducting a sweeping examination of voting and election issues. Their two interim reports, written by the staff and issued in June and September, 2007, urge the state to move to optical scan voting systems as soon as possible.

Reprinted from Gathering to Save Our Democracy (11.12.07)

Voters: Demand a verifiable voting process

Bernie Ellis — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 22:00:23 +0000

It’s not too late to take action on the issue of electronic voting machines and demand a “verifiable vote” through paper trail and/or auditing. Activist Bernie Ellis (right), who is featured in the film UnCounted:The Movie and who addressed a Clarksville audience on Friday, today offers a fledgling “action kit” for worried voters who want to register their concerns with state leaders. These words from Mr. Ellis:

This “action kit” will get you started (or moving faster) to register your concerns with our state leaders.

Here are three things YOU CAN DO NOW to help up ramp up the discussion for voter-verified paper ballots and mandatory random audits here in Tennessee. Now here are three things you can do to help us gain serious momentum:

Action Task 1. Contact the members of the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR).(They meet on December 12, so please contact them right away.) Tell them that you want them to endorse the TACIR staff report, “Trust But Verify”. You also recommend to the legislature that we move rapidly away from paperless touch-screen voting in Tennessee and toward optical scan voting systems that start and end with a voter-completed paper ballot. You also endorse the need for mandatory random audits of those paper ballots to ensure that the opscan systems also count our votes completely and accurately. Here is a sample letter:

Dear TACIR Commissioners,

I am writing to thank you, through your participation in TACIR, for your serious review and assessment of the threats, costs and other issues that paperless touch-screen voting has presented to maintaining the integrity of our elections here in Tennessee. You have heard much testimony and would doubtless hear more if there were time available for citizens to do so once again. However, the time for a decision is now upon us and we hope that TACIR will accomplish the following on December 12:

Accept and endorse the TACIR staff report, “Trust But Verify”, as an excellent summary of the many compelling reasons why we must act to restore integrity to our voting process.

Act as the influential body that you are to recommend that the Tennessee legislature consider, debate and adopt (as soon as possible) legislation which will support and assist the orderly adoption of voting systems that use or produce voter-verified paper ballots in Tennessee, to be counted on more secure and verifiable voting equipment (specifically, optical scan or similar voting systems) than we have recently installed.

Recommend that the state of Tennessee assist counties in the transformation to more secure and verifiable voting systems as soon as possible by working to provide both state funds, redirected HAVA funds (of which we still have between $15-20 million) and other means to reduce the economic impact of these state-mandated efforts to restore integrity in our voting process might have on those county governments.

Encourage the Legislative Study Committee assigned to review the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (HB 1256, Moore; SB 1363, Haynes) on December 18 to recommend that this legislation go forward as quickly as possible and that it be considered, debated and adopted by the full Legislature when it re-convenes in January.

Once again, thank you for the time and attention you have given to the issue of election integrity — and specifically more verifiable voting systems — through your work on the TACIR Board. We sincerely hope that you will support some affirming action by TACIR at the December 12 meeting that will hasten needed election reform in our state.

Thank you for your public service. Here’s hoping we can rescue our franchise and save our democracy here in Tennessee before it is too late.

(Your signature)

Here are all the available TACIR Commission emails we have. You can “cut-and-paste” this list of email addresses into your email address spot and email all of them at once. (It might be nice to “bcc” all of them so the email seems more individually directed.) :

Action Task 2: Contact the members of the Legislative Study Committee who will review the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act on December 18. Ask them to support repairing our election process by requiring voter-verified paper ballots and mandatory random audits here in Tennessee as soon as possibly, preferably 2008. Here’s a sample letter I just sent:

Dear TN Voter Confidence Act Study Committee Members:

I am writing to thank you in advance for your serious review and assessment of the threats, costs and other issues that paperless touch-screen voting has presented to restoring the integrity of our elections here in Tennessee. We hope you will use the information you receive and review on December 18 to recommend immediate action to restore the integrity of our franchiase here in Tennessee. The time for a decision is now if we are to protect our votes before November, 2008. Please do the following things:

(copy itemized list from above letter)

Thank you for your public service. You can rescue our franchise. We can’t afford another insecure election.

(your signature)

————–
These are the Legislative Study Committee members for the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act. “Cut-and-paste” them into the address box of an email and write them all at once.

Action Task 3: Contact other Tennessee officials NOW to ask them to pay attention to this issue and to act themselves, if necessary, to insure that these reforms are enacted. Here’s a preliminary list of state officials that we should be contacting in some way. I hope each of you will email your thoughts directly to some or all of these officials. In addition, you might want to mail copies of UNCOUNTED or the postcards recommending that it be watched to these same offices. I think the post-cards in particular can generate attention to these issues within these state offices.

We are asking all of these officials to do the following:

To please give serious consideration to the number of threats which our elections face and to consider what they can do to restore election integrity in our state
To do whatever they can do in their official capacity to help us replace the current non-verifiable voting systems used in most Tennessee counties (touch-screen and push-button voting machines) with verifiable voting systems that incorporate paper ballots (for example, the optical scan voting systems)
To encourage others in positions of responsibility for our elections to expedite the changes necessary to make our elections more secure and verifiable before the November, 2008 elections or as soon as possible, by whatever means available.

Bottom line

It’s not too late to restore election integrity in Tennessee, but we must act NOW. We can’t afford another insecure election in our state. Not when the solution is achievable NOW.

Please consider emailing and/or writing these officials directly. If you would like some post-cards which use the UNCOUNTED poster as the front and allows you to write your own message on the back, get in touch with me and we’ll get some of those cards to you. You can email me or call 931/682-2864.

Governor’s Office

Governor Phil Bredesen: phil.bredesen@state.tn.us
First Lady Andrea Conte: andrea.conte@state.tn.us

Governor’s Office
TN State Capital
Nashville, TN 37243-0001

TN Attorney General

Robert E. Cooper, Jr.
P.O. Box 20207
Nashville, TN 37202-0207

Department of Finance & Administration

Commissioner Dave Goetz
312 8th Ave., North, 16th Floor
Nashville, TN 37243

Administration: J. Michael Morrow mike.morrow@state.tn.us
Public Info: Lola Potter lola.potter@state.tn.us

Secretary of State

Riley Darnell: riley.darnell@state.tn.us
312 8th Ave. North, 8th Floor
Nashville, TN 37243

Elections and State Election Commission

Brook Thompson: brook.thompson@state.tn.us
312 8th Ave., North, 9th floor
Nashville, TN 37243

Department of Economic and Community Development

Commissioner Matt Kisber: matt.kisber@state.tn.us
Asst. Commissioner Paula Davis: paula.davis@state.tn.us
312 8th Ave. North, 11th floor
Nashville, TN 37243

Department of Veterans Affairs

Commissioner John Keys TN.veterans@state.tn.us
215 8th Ave. North
Nashville, TN 37243

Presidential nightmare comes at a cost

Bernie Ellis — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:16:02 +0000

Seven years ago this month, Bush stole his first election with the help of his Daddy’s Supreme Court appointees. In 2004, he accomplished that same feat with the help of his friends who owned the electronic voting machine companies.

Today, though there is no longer a single state where Bush enjoys majority support and his foreign policy failures abound, Bush still claims to have created a robust economy. Let’s look at some comparisons:

Seven years ago, you could buy a Canadian dollar for $.59 — now it costs you $1.07.
Then, you could buy a Euro for $.97 — now it costs you $1.43.
Then, you could pickup a gallon of milk for $2.87 — now the price has risen to around $4.18.
Then, a gallon of regular gas cost $1.44 — now it’s over $3.00 (and rising fast).
Then we had a balanced budget and a surplus. Since then, Bush has raised the national debt ceiling five times and we are now drowning in red ink.
Then, home foreclosures were at record lows — now they’re at record highs.
Then a barrel of oil was $36 — now it’s $97.
Today, 15% fewer Americans have health care than did back then.
Then we were at peace — now our brave young women and men are dying in two wars (and Cheney’s itchy trigger finger is aiming for a third.) We have money now for body bags and Blackwater but no money to fund health care for poor children.
Then, the dollar was the world’s preferred currency — now other countries can’t dump their dollars fast enough.

This is an economic boom? This is peace and prosperity?

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: “Are we better off today than we were seven years ago?” Not hardly. Being good at stealing elections hasn’t translated into any other skill necessary for and worthy of our great nation.

Bush’s illegitimate nightmare cannot end soon enough.

Editors Note: Price of Milk added by Clarksville Online Editorial Staff, and not the author. Year 2000 price of milk based off of chart included in http://www.ams.usda.gov/dyfmos/mib/rtlprc_rpt_2000.pdf.