March 29, 2007

To: U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration
Re: Amending HR. 811, Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act
From: Judy Alter, Director of Protect California Ballots

Dear Committee Members:

Please amend HR. 811.

1. Make the EAC a Legislative Branch Commission, not an Executive Branch Commission where the president could cancel elections.

2. Make audits meaningful by requiring election officials to hand count entire contests if any anomalies are found. Conduct these audits at the precincts to prevent the FIRST COUNT from remaining inaccurate.

3. Consider outlawing DREs: direct electronic recording devices, because:

DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS REQUIRE THAT VOTES GET COUNTED IN PUBLIC.

NO COUNT DONE ON SOFTWARE IS PUBLIC.

PLEASE KEEP OUR ELECTIONS DEMOCRATIC!

Software that is “proprietary” for counting votes is absurd. Counting votes only requires ADDITION. Addition is not secret, proprietary.

4. The newly required equipment in this bill is a huge and unreasonable unfunded mandate for states and counties.

Protect California Ballots is an organization of over 500 volunteers in 16 counties in California. We advocate hand counted paper ballots, counted at the precinct. Paper ballots cost one tenth what these electronic machines (touch-screens and scanners) cost. We are strongly against privatized elections, elections for profit. We want to see and know that the votes on our ballots are counted accurately. This bill does not allow us to have confidence in the accuracy of the vote count.

Yours sincerely,

Judy Alter
Director of Protect California Ballots
Member of California Election Protection Network
Member at large of Election Defense Alliance
Part of Recount New Mexico
Emeritus UCLA Professor of Dance and Dance Education