The passage of this resolution by the county-wide Bucks County Association of Township Officials and so many municipalities reflects the strong grassroots support for voter-verified paper ballots in all areas of the county.

::::::::

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
BUCKS COUNTY ASSOCIATION OF TOWNSHIP OFFICIALS BACK VOTER VERIFIED PAPER BALLOTS

Lower Southampton Township Also Joins the Struggle

Contact information:

Mary Ann Gould

votingintegrity@aol.com

(c) 215.588.5818

(h) 215.357.5206

Doylestown - The Bucks County Association of Township Officials at its meeting on February 18th, passed a resolution supporting the immediate passage of Senate Bill 977 (Senator Conti, R., sponsor) and House Bill 2000 ( Representative Frankel, D., sponsor), which call for Voter-Verified Paper Records and mandatory random audits. The resolution also asks the Bucks County Commissioners to choose a voting system that is based on a Voter Verified Paper Ballot.

Due to the problems with electronic voting systems in the 2004, documented by the Government Accountability Office 's Report , issued in September, 2005, many voters have lost confidence in electronic voting systems. The GAO report concluded that "while Federal efforts to improve the security and reliability of Electronic Voting Systems are under way, key activities need to be completed." And "[u]ntil these efforts are completed, there is a risk that many state and local jurisdictions will rely on voting systems that were not developed, acquired, tested, operated or managed in accordance with rigorous security and reliability standards - potentially affecting the reliability of future elections and voter confidence in the accuracy of the vote count."

In a related story, on Wednesday, February 22, Lower Southampton Township became the nineteenth municipality in Bucks County to adopt a resolution in support of the mandated use of voter-verified paper ballots in Pennsylvania. The Lower Southampton Township Council adopted Resolution 2006-5 unanimously after taking several weeks to consider the proposal made by township resident Connie Fewlass.

Supervisor Mark Hopkins said that he is "very well convinced that we need to have voting machines with verifiable and recordable paper ballots." Supervisor Connie Birrane also spoke in support of the resolution.

The passage of this resolution by the county-wide Bucks County Association of Township Officials and so many municipalities reflects the strong grassroots support for voter-verified paper ballots in all areas of the county. The resolution has also been endorsed by seven former Bucks County Commissioners from both the Republican and Democratic Parties showing the non-partisan support for this issue as well.

Coalition for Voting Integrity

Submitter: Joan Brunwasser

Submitters Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Submitters Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.