From:

No More Stolen Elections! and TrueVote.us

What's happening:

No More Stolen Elections! has been carefully monitoring the potential ballot and capacity shortages that voters will encounter when they arrive at the polls on November 4th.  TrueVote.us, one of our coalition partners, is working with us to allow you to simply go to their site and quickly send a message to the election officials of states where we already know this will be a problem.

In 2004 tens of thousands of voters were denied their right to vote in Ohio when election officials provided inadequate voting machines in African American communities.  Some people waited in line to vote for longer than 12 hours.  Many thousands of others gave up and did not vote.  This alone may have been enough to change the outcome of the 2004 election.
 
Well, it's happening again. A recent report indicated that college-age and African American precincts in Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia will not have sufficient numbers of voting machines or election staff to handle the number of voters expected on Election Day.

What you can do:

Help us to let these officials know that tens of thousands of people are watching their actions and documenting what occurs on Election Day. Even if you do not live in these states it is important for these officials to hear from you.  They need to know they will be held accountable for their actions.
 
Click and send a letter to the governor, congressional delegation (House and Senate), the secretary of state as well as election administrators where questions have been raised about the adequacy of the number of voting machines and staff. Click here to take action now.

For more information:

UPDATE:
Our efforts to call attention to these shortages are definitely getting noticed.  See the article below from the Richmond Times-Dispatch.  It's definitely exciting that a U.S. Congressman is carrying this message to voting officials along with us, as Rep. Robert Scott is described as doing in this article.

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By TYLER WHITLEY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Registrars in Virginia were bombarded with election alert e-mails yesterday afternoon that registrars say impeded their ability to do their jobs.

Richmond registrar Kirk Showalter said her office received 1,000 "spam" e-mails within two hours. This kept her staff from answering phone calls and doing their normal business, she said.

"In my opinion it impeded the election process in Virginia," said Nancy Rodrigues, Secretary of the State Board of Elections. Registrars in Fairfax County, Newport News and Richmond County had similar problems, she said.

Ironically, the group that initiated the e-mails said it was trying to help the election process.

"We were trying to remind the registrars that we are monitoring them," said Kevin Zeese, executive director of Baltimore-based TrueVote.US.

Zeese said the group singled out seven states, including Virginia, that a study by the Advancement Project said last week might have problems with a shortage of voting machines, particularly in African-American precincts, on election day.

He said TrueVote is not affiliated with the Advancement Project.

Zeese said it sent out e-mails to 10,000 supporters.

"We discovered there was a lot more interest in this that we expected," he said, in explaining the deluge of e-mailed messages. "It's good to see that there is so much interest in the democratic process," he added.

He said the group would delete the registrars' names from its mailing list last night, so there should be no such problems at registrars' offices today. He said the group did not hinder the process and said its efforts will encourage better voting procedures on Nov. 4.

He described the group as nonpartisan. Generally, in this election cycle, Republicans have been upset at what they perceive as voter fraud, while Democrats have been upset at what they perceive as voter suppression.

Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-3rd, a strong supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, mailed a letter to Showalter and registrars in Norfolk and Newport News Monday citing the Advancement Project report and expressing concern that "voting machines will be significantly less accessible in some minority communities than in majority communities."

The number of voting machines in individual precincts is determined by the number of registered voters, according to a formula in state law.

Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com.

Areas of Focus:

Democratizing Elections (Liberty Tree), Shortages at the Polls

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