Why Vote in Local Elections?

It's even more important to vote in a local election than in a Presidential election. Here's why:
City, county, and state officials and judges often impact your life in ways that are much more immediate and easier to see and feel (in your daily life and in your pocketbook) than officials you elect to federal offices.
Because so few people vote in a local election, your vote has much more clout in a local election than it does in a Presidential election.
So be sure to get out and vote on November 3. The rights you save, may be your own.

Voting Reality in 2009

Many current electronic voting machines in the U.S., particularly DRE touchscreens, are still appallingly vulnerable to vote tampering and machine malfunction. Many of these machines also lack a paper trail. If they malfunction or if vote tampering is suspected, there will be no paper ballot that can be checked to verify the result.
Unfortunately, if you do not yet have a paper ballot of some sort, you are probably going to have to live with this problem until after the November election. (To learn what you can do to change this in the longer term, see #10 below.)
In the meantime, there are still a number of actions it is vital that you take NOW to make sure your vote counts in November 2009.

How to Make Sure Your Vote Counts in 2009
janet jai
www.vision-and-values.com

1. Check NOW to be sure you are registered to vote even if you have been voting all your life with no problems.
  Here's why.
New state-wide voter databases are being set up, and they are comparing voter registration information with other files such as social security, motor vehicle registration, etc. Each of these systems requires data entry, and if someone makes a typo, a perfectly eligible voter can be eliminated from voter rolls because something doesn't match.
Also, some states are requiring that data match exactly so that if in one place you use your middle initial and in another place you don't, you may find your voter registration disqualified even if you are perfectly eligible to vote.
All of that is why you need to check your voter registration NOW. If there is a problem, you need time to correct it.
  Here's how to check.
A) Call your local/County Department of Elections and ask them to check to make sure you are registered. Write down the date and time of your call and the name of the person you speak with. Bring this information with you to the polls just in case.
B) In many states, you can also find out if you are registered by going to your state's Secretary of State website. It is good to confirm what you have been told by your local/County elections department in this way. However, don't make this a substitute for doing A) above. On Election Day, it is your local/County poll list that will be used to determine whether or not you are registered and can vote.

2. If you vote on a touchscreen voting machine, demand that your polling place have emergency paper ballots that can be used when machines malfunction (and hopefully even when lines are too long).
The people to call about this issue are your State Secretary of State or State Board of Elections AND your local/county Department of Elections. Note: Emergency paper ballots are not the same as provisional ballots. Emergency paper ballots are regular ballots that are counted immediately like voting machine ballots.

3. Know where your polling place is.
Many people are disenfranchised simply because they vote or try to vote at the wrong polling place (that can even be the wrong table if one polling place has different tables for different precincts). You should be able to find your polling place online at your state's Secretary of State website or your County Department of Elections website. You can also find out through the League of Women Voters website, www.vote411.org. If not, call your local/County Department of Elections and ask. (If there is more than one set of tables at your poll, ask a poll worker which table is your precinct before you line up.)

4. Learn what your county and state require re Voter ID, and be sure to have it with you. If you have government-issued photo ID, bring it with you to the polls just in case.
Sometimes poll workers don't know the kind of ID that is required so it's best to have ID that is most likely to be acceptable to anyone anywhere.

5. Know your rights when you go to vote.
A) If voting machines at your polling place have broken down or failed to start up, request an emergency paper ballot to vote. You should not have to "go away and come back later" - many working people can't do that.
B) If you registered to vote but your name does not show up on the list of registered voters, ask poll workers to check supplemental voting lists and/or call their county board of elections. Remember, no matter what, you have the right to ask for and receive a provisional ballot to cast your vote.
C) Be sure to have the 1-866-OURVOTE hotline number with you at the polls so that you can call for help if your voting rights are being denied.

6. Get all the candidate information you can before you vote so that you can elect candidates you really want in office.
While you can get a lot of information (not all of it reliable) about Presidential candidates, it can be much harder to find out about other candidates running for office. Here are some websites that are trying to provide you with extensive non-biased candidate information:
 www.vote411.org/candidateinfo.php (League of Women Voters)
 www.vote-smart.org (a bipartisan group of volunteers who compile information about candidates' voting records, etc.)
There are many other sources for candidate information, but most have a political bias. That's not necessarily bad, but always determine whether your information source is trustworthy. That goes for all media.

7. Check out one or more of the election integrity websites listed near the bottom of this page and sign up for their e-mail newsletters/alerts.
Their e-mails can keep you informed of changes that could put your vote at risk and what you need to do to protect your vote.
Also, consider giving 10% of what you donate to a candidate to one of the election integrity organizations that are working hard to insure that every eligible citizen can cast her/his vote and that all of our votes will be counted correctly.

8. Become a poll worker or poll watcher.
There is a critical poll worker shortage in the U.S., and volunteers are needed in most areas. Contact your County/local Department of Elections. If you can't work a full day as a poll worker, election integrity groups would welcome you as a poll watcher for a few hours.
Even if you can't do either, be watchful in your polling place. Is someone being denied her/his right to vote? Call the national Election Protection hotline, 1-866-OURVOTE, and ask for help.
And remember to be kind and courteous to the poll workers at your polling place. These people work a loooonnnnng day in support of democracy. And people you treat nicely are more likely to help you resolve any problems you might encounter.

9. Vote! And get as many of your family members and friends to vote as possible.
Make it a social event! Go out for dinner or a cup of coffee afterward. One of the reasons fewer people vote is because voting has become less of a social/group experience.
It is again important this year that your candidate win by a landslide or at least a large majority. There have been too many elections recently in which the real winner was in doubt. If a candidate is elected by a large majority, it is exceedingly difficult for any machine malfunctions or vote tampering to change the final result.
And you can make that landslide happen for your candidate. Vote and get your friends to vote too. It's all about democracy!

10. Start working NOW to insure that in 2010 all votes are cast on a voter-verified paper ballot that can be recounted.
Most decisions about voting equipment, voter ID, voter registration laws, etc. are determined months and years before Election Day. I urge you to call your Congressperson NOW in support of H.R. 2894, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2009, authored by Rush Holt, NJ, U.S. House. It calls for voter-verified paper ballots and random audits of all election results.



VOTE, and protect the vote. The vote is democracy.

To learn more about voting reform issues, invite jai to speak.
jai is available to speak to groups nationwide about voting issues. You may contact her at jai@vision-and-values.com. jai particularly welcomes opportunities to speak about voting issues to interested groups in Allegheny County and Pennsylvania.

For vital and regularly updated information about voting reform issues, consult the following Web sites:

www.electionline.org
www.brennancenter.org
www.verifiedvoting.org
www.voteraction.org
www.votetrustusa.org
www.commoncause.org

For more about PA voting reform issues, visit  www.votepa.us.

You may also want to purchase:
Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting by Steve Rosenfeld.
This is an inexpensive book published by alternet.org for the November 2008 election. I read the initial draft and found it full of great information about each state's voting rules, voter ID laws, new voting machines, what to do if you've moved, etc. You can purchase it at alternet.org.

For additional information about the problems found with current voting technology, consult the following reports:

The Everest Report on voting machines conducted by the office of Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, www.sos.state.oh.us.

The Top-to-Bottom Review of voting machines conducted by the office of California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, www.sos.ca.gov.

The Machinery of Democracy: Protecting Elections in an Electronic World by the Brennan Center Task Force on Voting System Security at the Brennan Center for Justice, NYU School of Law, www.brennancenter.org. This report was thoroughly peer reviewed by NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology), and many NIST scientists contributed significantly to what is in the report.

Malfunction and Malfeasance, A Report on the Electronic Voting Machine Debacle by Common Cause, www.commoncause.org.

Voting Best Practices

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