I received this email from California state senator debra bowen; though, it's been sitting in my inbox unread for a while. I don't know if it has been diaried here already but I think it's important enough for an encore. This is scary shit and we need to get it out there as much as possible.
From Senator Debra Bowen, candidate for Secretary of
State in CA
I just learned of an alarming development in our fight
for fair and transparent elections: The current
Secretary of State, Bruce McPherson, launched a
statewide voter registration database system last year
that will disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters
in California.
More than 14,000 new voter registration and
re-registration applications just from Los Angeles
County were recently invalidated under this new
stringent set of regulations -- and other counties are
seeing similar results.
.
it's looking like florida all over again...
More on the flip:
This is a 43% rejection rate! In fact, virtually all
of these applications would have been accepted before
Secretary McPherson rolled out his new statewide voter
registration database. Typically rejection rates are
1-2%. This is outrageous.
And these applications were rejected for trivial
matters -- a name or driver's license number not
perfectly matching what was on file in the statewide
database, for example. Or even technical system
errors that prevented valid applications from being
accepted.
We're talking about thousands of eligible voters, many
of whom have been registered for years, being thrown
off the voter rolls. Unless they correct these
trivial errors with their local registrar, these
fellow citizens won't receive sample ballots in the
mail, notifying them of their polling place. They
won't receive absentee ballots. In other words, it
will be much more difficult for them to get their
legitimate vote counted.
If eligible voters are prevented from registering to
vote, I view that as a huge problem for our democracy
-- I'm sorry Secretary McPherson doesn't see it that
way. We are aggressively looking into this serious
issue -- and we'll keep you posted on what we find.
If you have any personal stories to share about this,
or if you just want to add to the discussion, please
join the conversation on the Bowen Blog!
Our fight against the certification of Diebold
electronic voting machines also continues. Last
Tuesday, Voter Action filed suit in San Francisco
Superior Court on behalf of voters in 18 counties,
protesting Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's
decision to certify Diebold electronic voting machines
for use in the June primary elections.
I applaud Voter Action's decision to file this
important lawsuit. Now Secretary McPherson's judgment
is in the spotlight, and he'll have to explain why he
believes he has the power to ignore the law when it
comes to certifying voting equipment in California.
In the meantime, I'm continuing my series of public
hearings in the Senate on our entire elections
process, including the testing and certification of
voting machines.
But regardless of how these hearings and lawsuits turn
out, the bottom line is this: we deserve better from
our Secretary of State. What we've seen here over the
past months is an absolute failure of leadership.
After all, we've known about the "Help America Vote
Act" and the June 6th primary elections for a long
time. But the Secretary of State simply failed to
look ahead and plan adequately. Now he's in a bind,
so he's cutting corners and making bad decisions that
hurt the integrity of our elections system.
We need a Secretary of State who can lead. So we're
going to continue to work as hard as we can to make
our elections as safe and transparent as possible over
the coming months.
I hope I can count on your support and your vote to
bring change and real leadership to the Secretary of
State's office. That's the best way we'll be able to
fix the mistakes, misjudgments, and mismanagement that
we've seen from Secretary McPherson.
Please keep tabs on all of the latest developments by
checking in frequently and joining the discussion on
the Bowen Blog.
Thanks for your continued help and support!
Sincerely,
Debra Bowen
California State Senator
the republicans are going
all out to steal California. I've said it before and I'll say it again - if they are successful it will be game/set/match/all-hail-our-robot-overlords