Election Integrity Rides Again
Chair, Election Integrity Committee
The Election Integrity Committee is preparing its campaign for the LWVUS Convention which takes place from June 11-15 in Atlanta. Our three delegates—Amy Anderson, George Riley, and Beverly Bean—are committed to educating the delegates on the problems with our current election systems. Our strategy includes:
- An update of the national position on the Citizens Right to Vote and
- Adding the principle of transparency to the SARA resolution, passed in 2004, which calls for systems which are secure, accurate, recountable and accessible.
The LWVUS has been remiss in its response to the problems created by the HAVA legislation in 2002, which led to the funding of electronic voting systems. Numerous government and university studies have shown the inadequacies of electronic voting systems. These machines have an extensive history of errors, malfunctions, and inaccuracies and are susceptible to hacking and fraud. Electronic voting systems force all tabulations to be performed in secret under the proprietary rules of the vendors.
The LWVUS membership has only addressed these issues via non-binding resolutions at Convention. The national board finally appointed a task force on election auditing—which published a report in 2009 calling for better auditing methods and more transparency—but it never confronted the inherent problems of touch screen voting machines which continue to be used in numerous states. Without a durable, original, voter-marked paper ballot, there is really nothing to audit. Most states do not require audits and thus have no way to insure the accuracy of the vote tabulations.
The nominating committee candidate for LWVUS President is from the LWV of Georgia, which is a bastion of support for its touch screen machines. This is our last, best effort to get LWVUS to confront the existing problems and take a stand for transparency and public access in voting.
