Join November5.org and Create Real Change

Join November5.org, the citizen group that serves as a Congressional watchdog.

Update from Nov5:

We are off to a great start. In the 5 days since we launched November5.org, nearly 10,000 of you have signed up for this effort!

Getting our country back on track by using the leverage we can exert over Congress is an approach that naturally fits with third party and independent voters, as well as many who voted for Democrats and Republicans. Millions of us realize that we must now put our shoulders to the wheel of justice and push harder than ever.

If we all move fast to get our friends and family involved, we could have 1000 active and organized citizens in each Congressional district in 2009. To do this, we need you to encourage people to sign up today by forwarding this link: www.november5.org.

Remember to emphasize to others that what will make November5 different from many other similar efforts is that we will have no allegiance to any political party. We want to create a non-partisan mechanism to get problems solved. Action will result when members of Congress hear loud and clear from their constituents back home. This will not be about raising big money for expensive television ads during the Super Bowl. It will involve using tried and true organizing techniques – and all the local creativity we can muster – to make sure that our Representatives respond to our voices, district by district, person by person.

We want to focus on the victories – big and small – that we can achieve. Too much citizen advocacy involves sending emails or letters to Washington, D.C. We need a return to raising our voices on the ground “back home,” where Congressional elections are decided.

High on our list is a plan to pass privately-delivered, publicly-funded health care. This approach would save hundreds of billions of dollars over the current for-profit system, enough to provide coverage for every American. After all, how can you be civically active if you are worried about your health care? Many organizations do great work on this issue (see Physicians for a National Health Program), but there is a need for much more citizen muscle behind it. That’s where we’ll come in.

Other issues we are looking at include: new regulation of Wall Street, a $10 living wage, the elimination of unnecessary weapons systems that cost tens of billions, a strong drive for investment in solar, wind, and conservation – against coal and nuclear – and a federal law requiring paper ballots and establishing uniform rules for ballot access for all candidates.

Soon, we will email you with more details on how this website will enable you to organize in your district, and on how we will keep building November5 in the coming weeks.

Now, though, it all comes down to getting all of the people who agree with the basic approach of shifting our focus to Congress in 2009 signed up for November5. This is the critical building phase and we all have to do everything we can to get the word out.
Onward for Justice, 

The November5 Team Five Things You Can Do Right Now:

• Join our Facebook/MySpace Group – Click Here
• Send our website to interested friends – http://www.november5.org
• Find out who your congressperson is – http://www.house.gov
• Blog about us! – Trackback to http://www.november5.org

Download the Voter Incident Report

From MCM

Dear Mark,

Please inform your readers around the country:

When you go to the polls, take an incident report with you.  Collecting signed, dated, paper-based evidence of voter fraud, suppression, or inefficiency is the most important action

any concerned citizen can take in this “once-in-a-century election.”

This is the simplest measure any voter can take:  Stand at their own polls, watch what happens,

report evidence on the (downloadable) Incident Report, and then fax it in to the Election Defense Alliance.

The Incident Report comes with the EDA’s fax number, legal help phone numbers and guidelines

for poll monitors.

The Indient Report will be used widely in Los Angeles–the largest voting county in the

nation–by Work the Vote LA org.

One more thing: If election results go bump late in the night, it may be less of a shock if

people are educated in advance.

Votes are being flipped in West VA, Texas and Tennessee.   Here’s a timely video.

Wake Up and Save Your Country has just released Part Two of the “Turdblossom Lecture Series” to explain HOW voting machines can be preprogrammed to crash or change vote totals using proprietary software.  

Please take a look, and share this with your audience.

Thank you for your tremendous leadership during this time.

 

Sheri Leigh Myers

Vern Tuck Taylor

& The Wake Up and Save Your Country Team

http://wakeupandsaveyourcountry.com/

 Here is a cool visual of our Voters Guide.    Here is a visual of the incident report to grab attention

The Wake Up and Save Your Country Team www.wakeupandsaveyourcountry.com

New Yorkers, SAVE YOUR LEVERS! (It’s NOT too late!)

From Andi Novick:

Dear friends,

 

Thanks to all of you who have followed thru with letters to the SBoE.  We must be having some success because a pat response was prepared in order to respond to all of you, in which the SBoE erroneously stated that HAVA required we get rid of our levers. That’s not true. It is deeply disturbing that those entrusted with protecting the integrity of our elections and complying with the law don’t know how to read the law.

 

Section 301of HAVA sets forth 5 requirements that each voting system has to meet. NY has met all of them now that we have ballot marking devices (BMDs) in place. Indeed our own SBoE Commissioner Kellner testified in 2004 that: “Our lever machines satisfy all but one of [HAVA’S] standards, that there be at least one machine at each poll site that is ‘accessible for individuals with disabilities.“   http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_andi_nov_080315_open_letter_to_ny_ci.htm

The accessibility standard has now been complied with. You will see a ballot marking device in every poll site when you go to the polls next month.

 

Maybe the SBoE needs to hire Pat Lamana of the Dutchess Peace Coalition, who is not an attorney but is able to read and understand English. Here’s what she wrote back to the SBoE:

 

Please allow me to differ.  HAVA does “not” require us to give up our lever machines as long as we make provisions for individuals with disabilities, which we have already done.  We are free to use lever machines, or the good old-fashioned hand-written, hand-counted ballots which are surprisingly efficient and the most reliable form of voting.  And it’s worth using the simplest, cheapest form of technology, if that’s what will preserve our democracy!  

Thank you,
Pat Lamanna

 

 

In a nutshell-  HAVA DOES NOT BAN LEVERS.  NY is hiding behind their unconstitutional legislation.

Let me tell you what’s really going on.  Let’s say your child’s school tells her she needs a calculator.  There is a perfectly good calculator at home, but she goes out and spends $500 on a new one.  You object to your money being wasted. Her defense is, the school said we had to buy this one.  The school didn’t say that and the calculator you have at home works well (although old, its proven highly reliable). What would a responsible parent do? Tell her she can keep the calculator, even though it immediately showed itself to be unreliable (miscalculating arbitrarily) or do you tell her to return it and use the one at home.

 

NYS took about $221 million dollars under HAVA of which roughly $48 million was to replace the levers. The State knows the levers are secure and the computers aren’t, but either doesn’t want to give back the $48 million or can’t read. HAVA says, if you take the money and don’t replace the levers, give back the portion of the money that was to replace the levers.  Now what would a responsible State do? 

 

It’s our money (all taxpayer dollars). Tell the State to give it back before they kill our democracy and cost us far more money -see yesterday’s Times Herald reporting that Ulster residents’ taxes will rise 4-5% just for the 2009 elections- for the privilege of voting on unreliable new voting machines-
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081020/NEWS/810200315/-1/NEWS.
       

Write back to the SBoE now-  info@elections.state.ny.us  — Keep the pressure on.

Let them know you’re paying attention and you know they’re wrong. Tell them to give back the $48 million and keep our levers now while we are still fortunate to have the only secure voting system left in the United States. Don’t permit the forfeiture of your sovereignty because of your government’s incompetent or unconstitutional behavior. Public elections require public observability-essential for our democracy to survive.  How dare they impose secret vote counting on us.  This is the time to be outraged and constructive.  If you remain passive, you’ll be left with your outrage and your servitude.

 

And if our efforts fail to persuade the State- well that’s why we’re bringing the lawsuit to have the court declare NYS’s (not HAVA’s mind you) requirement that we replace the levers, unconstitutional.

 

– SIGN THIS PETITION –http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/save_ny_levers

 

Your name will be listed shortly after you sign, so we know if you didn’t care enough to take a few minutes to prevent your disenfranchisement. Just kidding, but seriously if you don’t care, who will? Pass this on widely.

 

thanks,

 

Re-Media Election Transparency Coalition

http://re-mediaetc.blogspot.com/

 

This is all of our responsibility. Please take the time to send copies of your letters to your:

—  local election commissioners – http://www.elections.state.ny.us/CountyBoards.html ,

 —  state representatives – www.congress.org for email addresses,

—  local media – www.congress.org – for media click on # 8 “media guide.” 

 

Let’s see if we can’t get them to respond to our letters too–Get the word out now while there’s time

CountTheBallots (CTB) Calls for ‘Citizen Audits’ on Election Day, Warns of Widespread Fraud

 

PHILADELPHIA, PA., Oct. 20 /PRNewswire/ — CountTheBallots (CTB), a Philadelphia-based voting rights group, is calling on voters nationwide to conduct ‘Citizen Audits’ at their polls on Election Day.  The purpose of a ‘citizen audit’ is to verify election results, document complaints, and demonstrate how to run a transparent election. 

The group warns that election results can be easily manipulated nationwide by the handful of corporations who control the software programs that count most votes.  Two companies, ES&S and Diebold, will count 80% of all votes.

Private companies have also been contracted by election officials in several states to maintain voter registration rolls.  The group points to the massive purging of the voters rolls in several states, as another cause for serious concern.

“Elections in America have been computerized, privatized, and outsourced to a handful of private companies,” says Lynn Landes, one of the group’s founders.  “Our voting system is virtually invisible.  It’s a behind-closed-doors affair, a breeding ground for election fraud. A citizen audit is not a substitute for a fair and transparent election.  But, right now, it’s the only game in town.”

Landes adds that the U.S. Justice Department has taken a hands-off approach to computerized election fraud.  Similarly, the news media’s exit poll, The National Election Poll (NEP), is not a reliable check against election fraud, as its management has been accused in the past of manipulating exit poll data to match official election results.

Computer fraud isn’t the group’s only concern.  In addition, 50% of voters will be voting early or by absentee ballot.  The voters in Oregon do not even go to the polls.

“Early and absentee voting gives unscrupulous election officials plenty of time to tamper with the votes, regardless of whether those votes are paper ballots or electronic tallies,” says Landes.  “We need to give poll watchers something to watch on Election Day.  Otherwise, all bets are off as to who gets to vote and whose votes get counted,” says Landes.

CountTheBallots.org supports a return to paper ballots and hand counts at the polls on Election Day.  They are opposed tovoting machines, ballot scanners, central counting facilities, early voting, and unrestricted absentee voting.

In past elections, there have been citizen groups in several states that have conducted similar audits.  CountTheBallots.org is encouraging an expansion of that movement, asking voters across the country and from all political parties to participate.
 

How do voters conduct a Citizen Audit?  It’s simple, says Landes.  All that is needed is a box with a slot on top, some pencils, information sheets, audit forms, and a report form.  A “how to” kit and all the necessary forms can be downloaded from their website. 

http://www.CountTheBallots.org

 

CONTACT: 

Lynn Landes, founder

www.CountTheBallots.org
lynnlandes@earthlink.net
215-629-3553