The 110th Congress will open tomorrow. The first order of business will be organization, including any challenges to whether members are seated. As you know by now, one of those questions is the results of FL-13, where touchscreen voting machines mysteriously made 18,000 votes from the Democratic part of the district disappear.
If we want to have House Democrats stand up for the integrity of elections in the most egregious case we've seen so far, we have to make ourselves heard, and this afternoon is our last chance to do so. Tomorrow they'll already be in session, and by the time they get your message whatever is going to happen may well be over.
A procedural move is planned to keep options open, but I think we should push for something stronger: declaring the FL-13 seat vacant. If nothing else we set the bit with Congress that what happened in FL-13 is simply unacceptable to voters.
What I want you to do: Contact your representative and the rest from your state, both Republican and Democrat. (If you're from a really big state like NY, just get the closest 5.)
More info and links on how to do this and what to discuss on the flip...
Here are some major points to hit:
Declare the seat vacant, and the procedures and technology used unacceptable
Florida voters will have to decide, with all the votes counted
This is about electoral integrity, not partisanship
How can we be a beacon of democracy to the world if we can't do elections right?
The decision of the judge that ES&S can conceal its source code as a "trade secret" is simply unacceptable to the public. With the older voting machines, the public is typically allowed to inspect the machines before election day to see that there has been no tampering, and for the lever machines any member of the public can inspect the vote count on the back of the machine at the end of the day. This principle of complete transparency must not be compromised.
(if you're calling a Republican) This is not a Republican or Democrat thing, as it won't tip the majority. It's about making sure American elections are clean. This could hurt Republicans down the road if we don't take a stand - just picture hillary buying a voting machine manufacturer.
Here's how to find out how to contact your Congressional delegation. I recommend a phone call, as it's quick and makes a stronger statement than email. The links below will get you to your Congresscritter's House webpage, which will have phone numbers at the bottom, or a Contact link. Typically they have numbers for the DC office as well as one in the district if you don't want the long distance charges. You can also typically send them a message from your representative's website, but it's not clear how much attention these receive. If your Representative is newly elected, you'll have to go to the Clerk's unofficial list, as right now the house.gov site still has the names of the 109th up.
House of Representatives page - select your Rep from an alphabetical pop-up, or by your ZIP code.
Find your delegation by state - select from the "Choose a State" pop-up menu.
Unofficial contact list of the 110th Congress (PDF) - phone will be listed as 5XXXX, where the full phone number is (202) 225-XXXX
Some more background info:
From Kagro X, a discussion of the procedural motion that will probably be used tomorrow.
Two very thorough diaries by joan reports on what went wrong with the ES&S machines.
The completely unacceptable decision by a Florida judge to allow the manufacture to hide its software from public scrutiny as a "trade secret." If ES&S wants to have trade secrets, I have no problem with that, but they're in the wrong business if they do.
More FL-13 diaries.
Don't get me wrong, this procedural move by Pelosi and Holt sounds like it's way better than nothing, and I'm glad they're taking it at least seriously enough that they won't completely ignore it - that's some progress I guess - but Congress can and should take stronger action to defend the electoral process. And if nothing else, it only helps us to clamor for stronger action on election integrity. And now is definitely the time.