This is a very important concern because tens of thousands of voters have been in the past, and continue to have potential to be, unable to vote using a regular ballot due to inaccurate automatic purges of electronic voter registration rolls.
U.S. citizens should check the status of your voter registration at least a month prior to the November election. All U.S. states are required by federal law to use electronic voter registration rolls now.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 9:08 AM
Subject: [LWVTopics] Digest Number 2925
1a. Re: NYTimes begins the prediction of election problems in November Posted by: Barbara Simons
Date: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:30 am ((PDT))
I also am very concerned about large scale voter disenfranchisement, because people's names have been stripped from the statewide computerized voter registration databases, also discussed in the article. While I think that some members of Congress supported the statewide databases because they thought that such a system would make it less likely for people's names to be incorrectly removed from the voting rolls, in fact the opposite is true. The introduction of computers into the process significantly increases the opportunity for widespread disenfranchisement of legitimate voters.
Therefore, voters, especially new voters, should be encouraged to check that their names are on the voting rolls. They should do so enough in advance that there will be time to get their names back onto the voting rolls, if necessary. It would also be good if organizations, such as local LWVs and other election integrity groups, could coordinate collection of information from people whose names are incorrectly missing from the voting rolls. That way, it might be possible to detect a problem (i.e. if large numbers of people living in a certain area complain) enough in advance to perhaps get them fixed - or at a minimum to put out an alert.
Election officials should also be urged to create strong meaningful levels of security to minimize the possibility of names being incorrectly deleted, either because of mistakes or malfeasance.
Barbara Simons, Los Altos/Moutain
P.S. Please feel free to forward this.
Judy Bertelsen wrote: The article linked below predits that our November elections will be strained with all the new voters. It is shameful and stunningly short sighted that Congress didn't pass paper ballot funding legislation.
We will need to work state by state to shore up the election process, especially in areas where many new voters can be expected to register. We need to be registering people as early as possible and informing voters of the process and their rights.
http://tinyurl.com/6nb4jb
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/us/21voting.html?hp
Kathy Dopp
The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author
Kathy Dopp's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a
Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in
exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at
P.O. Box 680192
Park City, UT 84068
phone 435-658-4657
http://utahcountvotes.org
http://electionmathematics.org
http://electionarchive.org
History of Confidence Election Auditing Development & Overview of
Election Auditing Fundamentals
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf
Voters Have Reason to Worry
http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf
"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body
and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day," wrote
Thomas Jefferson in 1816
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=voter+registration
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=voting+rolls
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=disenfranchisement
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=voter+registration
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=voter+registration
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=voter+registration
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Kathy+Dopp
