Article: Action Alert! Verified Voting's Election Transparency Project

Please forward this message to anyone who might be interested
(but not after 11/8/06):

Dear friends,

I'm writing to ask for your help in gathering critical information on
this November's election. It's not too late to get involved.
Verified Voting's Election Transparency Project offers a number of
questionnaires that you can take and use to gather crucial information
on our voting process. Our goal is to secure trustworthy elections in
the U.S. To do that, we need as many witnesses present for as many
steps in the electoral process as possible.

What you can do RIGHT NOW:

Even if you are involved in other citizen observation and monitoring
efforts, please take a moment to complete an Election Transparency
Scorecard for your state and county (or local voting jurisdiction).
The information gathered in these scorecards will help assess the
level of openness and "observability" in our electoral process. This
information will provide much needed context for a greater
understanding -- and more in-depth analysis of -- incidents that occur
in early voting and on Election Day.

You can download the state version of the Election Transparency
Scorecard at

http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/downloads/ETScorecardState.pdf.

The local (county) version of the Election Transparency Scorecard is
available at

http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/downloads/ETScorecardLocal.pdf.

If you plan to complete state or local Election Transparency
Scorecards, please e-mail observer@verifiedvoting.org to let us know
which state and/or county you're covering. We'll be posting a list of
covered jurisdictions.

If you live in an area that already has voter-verified paper records
(VVPR's) that are manually audited after each Election Day, call your
elections department now to let them know that you'll be observing the
auditing process (more below). To find out whether your state
requires VVPR's and manual audits, check here:
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/audits.

What you can do on ELECTION DAY:

When you go to vote, take our Voting Process Accessibility
Questionnaire with you and use it to collect information on the level
of access to the electoral process for voters with disabilities.

The Voting Process Accessibility Questionnaire is available at
https://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6401.

At the end of Election Day, pick a precinct and use our Poll Closing /
Ballot Accounting Questionnaire to gather the number of voters who
signed in at that precinct and the number of votes actually cast. The
discrepancies that often occur are sometimes a very good sign of a
problem that might not otherwise be uncovered, especially in
jurisdictions with paperless electronic voting.

The Poll Closing / Ballot Accounting Questionnaire is available at
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/downloads/PollClosingEDay.pdf.

What you can do AFTER ELECTION DAY:

If you live in an area that will be manually auditing voter-verified
paper records prior to certification of the election results, please
download our Auditing Observation Questionnaire and observe as much as
you can of the auditing process. While we know that manual auditing
is crucial to making sure our electoral process is functioning
properly, we also need to make sure the audits themselves are taking
place in the best possible manner. The information you gather will be
used to make recommendations for best practices in routine manual
auditing for future elections.

The Auditing Observation Questionnaire for audits by precinct is available
at
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/downloads/AuditQ-Precinct.pdf.

The Auditing Observation Questionnaire for audits by machine is available at
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/downloads/AuditQ-Machine.pdf.

What to do with your COMPLETED QUESTIONNAIRES:

Once you've completed your questionnaires, you can easily submit your
information via our web site at
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6409.

Alternatively, you can mail them to us at Verified Voting, 1550 Bryant
St., Suite 855, San Francisco, CA 94103 or fax them to us at
940-403-2255.

Please sign up via our web site to let us know if you're taking part.
The evidence you gather will be the springboard for future reform.
We're counting on you.

Don't hesitate to contact us at 415-487-2255 or
observer@verifiedvoting.org with any
questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

David L. Dill
Founder of the Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org

Visit the Verified Voting Foundation
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org

1550 Bryant St., Suite 855
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-487-2255 work
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/