Take These Numbers With You When You Vote Today!
This is making the rounds at LiveJournal, and I feel it's important enough to spend a diary entry on. Copy and paste as you see fit. Please distribute this information widely.
If you have problems on election day, here, have some phone numbers (and some advice).
1-866-OUR-VOTE
ELECTION DAY VOTING RIGHTS ISSUES: Use this number at Election Protection Coalition to give to voters experiencing immediate difficulties, or to call regarding urgent voting rights issues needing response on Election Day.
1-877-SAV-VOTE
VOTER ACTION TOUCHSCREEN DRE LEGAL INCIDENTS: Use this number to reach attorneys versed in the issues common to Touchscreen DRE (Direct Record Electronic) voting machines.
Write them down or program them into your phone or PDA. Make sure you have them handy, so that you can make sure your vote counts the way you want it to. These are non-partisan groups. Anyone, with any affiliation and any voting-related problem, can call.
For assistance in Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, Hindi, Khmer and English, call the Asian American Legal Defense Fund at 800 966 5946.
I hate having to do this. I long for the days when I could be confident that my vote and your vote would be honestly and fairly recorded, and that it would count. However, since the advent of the traceless Diebold voting machine, I can't trust that that will happen any more.
So if you feel the way I do, some other strategies to try to ensure your vote gets counted, despite the machines:
- Request a paper ballot when you get to the polling place.
- Triple check to make sure that the machine records your vote correctly. Or insist on a paper ballot.
- For later, register as an absentee voter. For now, insist on a paper ballot.
- If the machines break down, insist on a paper ballot.
- Even if they don't, insist on a paper ballot.
Electrons can't be hand-counted. PAPER BALLOTS CAN. Remember that.
And please vote.