Earlier this week, hundreds of you dedicated Kosmopolitans took the time to contact your Congressional Representatives asking them to support and pass HR 550,
The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act.
Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) has now introduced an alternative bill, HR 3910, that will further muck up our ability to have a verified vote, all the while conveniently allowing for Republican cover for vote tally manipulation, voter disenfranchisement and fraud. HR 3910 is more, cynically flawed, legislation that will lead to further voter disenfranchisement, and do nothing to increase the accountability of our elections. It has a "RealID" requirement tucked away in it as well.
LET'S NOT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT.
Contact your Rep now and let them know that HR 3910 is unacceptable, and repeat your request of their support of a very fine bill, HR 550. Details below.
From Warren Stewart, Director of Legislative Issues and Policy at
Vote Trust USA:
With the appearance of HR 3910, we really have a war on our hands. This bill, ironically and cynically introduced by Rep. Feeney (R-FL) calls for
horrific VoterID requirements AND a meaningless Voter-Verified Paper Ballot bill.
This is a disaster for democracy. If the bill passes, millions of voters will be disenfranchised AND the VVPR issue will be buried. If it fails (with every single Democrat voting against it), the Republicans can say "look we sent a VVPR bill to the floor and the Dems all voted against it."
This is the bill that the House Administration Committee will schedule for a mark-up, not 550. They think we're not paying attention (and who could blame them for thinking that?)
We are trying to change that perception. The link is the same, the email text is new and more emotional. The petition urging passage of 550 as written is unchanged.
Time to speed dial your Congress person again! We need to make a lot of noise letting them know that the useless and harmful HR 3910 is NOT FOOLING US. Let's get Rep. Tom Feeney (DC Phone: 202-225-2706, fax 202-226-6299; email: http://www.house.gov/writerep/ and snail mail: 323 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-0924) slinking back to the swamps in Florida to feed this shameful piece of legislation to the 'gators.
Link to new petition is here: http://www.congressweb.com/cweb4/index.cfm?orgcode=VTUSA&hotissue=1
From Joan Kravitz, Executive Director of Vote Trust USA (edited for space purposes below; full text is available here.
Use It or Lose It: For Democracy, the Time to Act is Now!
by Joan Krawitz, Executive Director, VoteTrustUSA
October 6, 2005
Well, it's happened exactly as we feared. Rep. Tom Feeney of Florida has introduced a bill that combines the worst of the Carter-Baker recommendations for Voter ID and meaningless VVPR. The Orwellian title of HR 3910 is Verifying the Outcome of Tomorrow's Elections Act of 2005 (VOTE for short). Its paper record requirement lets the States decide what significance the paper has - if any. The Voter ID section requires a government-issued photo ID to vote in person, or a copy of it to vote by mail, per Homeland Security (read REAL ID) guidelines.
Some activists have already commented that we need to stop the Voter ID provisions of 3910. This misses the point - everyone concerned about transparent, fair, and accurate elections must fight this entire bill with everything we have.
The only solution is a two-pronged strategy that goes on the offensive against the insupportable Feeney Bill, while urging Congress to immediately pass Rep. Rush Holt's Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005 (HR 550) AS WRITTEN.
HR 550 will ensure that the voter verified paper ballot is legally considered the official record in the event of a recount, challenge or discrepancy, and that independent audits of the voter verified paper ballots are performed to check the accuracy of the vote count. HR 550 already has the bipartisan sponsorship of 157 Members of the House of Representatives.
Please Click here NOW to send an email to make sure your voice is heard. At the same time, your name will be added to a petition, urging the passage of HR 550 as written, which will be delivered to the members of the House Administration Committee, who are responsible for both of these bills. Without so much as a means to send an email to the Committee's office, the Committee traditionally operates with little, if any, citizen input. It's time to put a stop to that!
It's up to us to make our voices heard by signing the Congressional E-Mail/ Petition, calling your Representative and the Members of the Administration Committee, and asking everyone you know to do the same.
Democracy demands it of us. We can do no less.
Let's storm the Congress on this one. Thanks, friends!