Article: First Anniversary Update from Election Defense Alliance

July 4, 2007

Today, July 4, is our first anniversary! And what a very full year we've had at Election Defense Alliance (EDA)! Then again, nobody ever said that restoring honesty and integrity to America's elections would be easy.

We are taking this day to thank those who have worked with us in our first very busy year and to reach out to more concerned citizens to work with us in the year to come. We want you to continue working on the local level, as our ultimate success depends upon the vitality at the grassroots. But, by also coming together and working cooperatively, we all have more impact. EDA was founded to foster coordination, encourage the cross-pollination of ideas and strategies, promote the sharing of resources, eliminate the duplication of efforts, and together forge a more cohesive and comprehensive strategy.

Anniversaries are excellent opportunities to take stock. Because we want to keep this letter short, we urge you to visit our website to learn all we have accomplished in one short year: http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/achievements.

You can read our position papers and analyses, hear some of our radio interviews and program presentations, see some of the tools we have developed and distributed to activist groups and to elections officials, read about hearings where we have testified, and see our structure and rules of governance.

You can also read about Universal Ballot Sampling (UBS), our ground-breaking protocol for 99+% accuracy in election outcome validation, which we will be piloting in '08.

EDA is action-oriented. We are not primarily a discussion group. And we are not run from the top down. Everyone has a say in our policy decisions and our actions.

Your affiliation with Election Defense Alliance can strengthen the local-level work you do. We understand the many demands upon any activist's time and energy, and we invite you to work with EDA to the extent that you are able. The more individuals and groups working together, the stronger will be the impact that all of us will make to bring about the massive change we know is necessary.

To unlock the full power of your activism, go to http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/join.
Click on the Newsletter/E-mail subscription links on any of our webpages to receive periodic newsletters and action alerts.

To those of you considering getting involved, we can use your skills even if you have not been active or have not been involved in election work. There are many ways you can help; we've listed four at the foot of this letter.

We very much look forward to working with you.

Dan Ashby
Sally Castleman
Jonathan Simon
Election Defense Alliance co-founders

Election Defense Alliance is a sponsored project of International Humanities Center, a nonprofit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code.

* Here Are A Few Ways You Can Help:

1. Help EDA with volunteer tasks that you can do from home, e.g., data entry, desktop publishing, research by phone and web, writing.

2. Help introduce EDA to other organizations you belong to or know.

3. Forward EDA announcements to e-mail lists you have access to.

4. Join an EDA Working Group in an area of your interest.
(We have 14 to choose from. See http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/WorkingGroups.)