Over the next two years David traveled the country gathering stories of everyday Americans who witnessed elections being manipulated and stolen. UNCOUNTED shows people taking action to try and right the wrongs of U.S. elections -- often at great sacrifice to themselves. The film features a variety of computer, statistical, and election experts who prove how the unethical and illegal manipulation of the vote has changed the outcomes of elections on local, state, and national levels.
DVDs of UNCOUNTED are available for purchase online at www.UncountedTheMovie.com/order-the-dvd.html.
If We Don't Act Fast, State's 2008 Voting System Will Be Rife With Errors
The Tennessean
By Deborah Narrigan
October 30, 2007
The next federal election is less than 13 months away. Unless our county and
state election commissions start rolling out new voting equipment soon, voters
across the state can have no confidence that their votes for U.S. president
will be recorded and counted as they were cast.
Further, if after the electronic votes are counted, a race is found to
be razor-edge close, no meaningful recount can take place. These machines
do not allow a
recount of votes. They will simply spit out the same totals over and over
again. A meaningful recount requires that most basic of things: a ballot
— and a ballot
that can be handled, read, and yes, counted by people, not machines.
It is difficult to think of a more essential feature of a true democracy
than an accurate recording and tallying of votes.
If we believe that our election administrators, commissioners and also our
legislators (elected by us) want to uphold the principles of our democracy,
they must ensure that our votes are fully, accurately and verifiably collected
and counted. Citizens should be able to trust these well-intentioned officials,
but only if our elected officials take the steps needed to assure us that
all votes will be counted as cast.
One very simple change in our election system is desperately needed, and
is still possible before the November 2008 election: The secretary of state
or
the governor must mandate that all votes from November '08 onward will be
cast on voting equipment that begins and ends with a paper ballot, marked
by each
voter. These votes can be tallied electronically with an optical scanner
and the ballots retained in a locked box to be recounted or audited as needed.
In 35 other states, this system has been mandated by law or in a few states
including New Mexico and Florida, by decree of the governor. Federal funds
are expected to be available to cover the cost of this essential step in
states with vulnerable voting systems. Tennessee would qualify for this funding.
While
it may seem time is too short to make this change, counties had just seven
months to switch to paperless electronic machines in 2006.
The time for action is now. Tell your state representative, senator and,
yes, our governor to take charge. We deserve to vote with confidence, starting
in
13 months.
Presentation
to the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) I want to thank the TACIR commission members and staff for this chance to
address you today. It has been an interesting morning, hearing from voting
machine vendors who continue to try to sell us on the virtues of their wares;
and from Dr. Wallach, who has pointed out the many serious flaws with surrendering
our election processes to private companies using secret software on insecure
and poorly functioning equipment. Now you get ten minutes from me, representing
two grassroots election organizations, Gathering To Save Our Democracy and
Common Cause. It is fitting that my presentation comes at the end, because
the organizations I am here to represent are composed of thousands of concerned
Tennessee voters of all political parties and persuasions; and in Tennessee,
as in all functioning democracies, the voters always have the last word. Being allowed only ten minutes to address you this morning seemed like insufficient
time to cover all the important reasons why Tennessee needs to act now to correct
the serious mistakes we have made in changing our voting systems. After all,
Tennessee used to be known as a leader in the voting rights movement, the state
that insured that women’s suffrage became a reality, that helped break Jim
Crow laws and practices before the Voting Rights Act passed and that insured
that each voter’s ballot had equal weight through the landmark Supreme Court
decision, Baker v. Carr. Today, we are known as one of the eight most insecure states for election
integrity, one of the states that made the worst decisions with our HAVA funds
and that would most benefit from pending federal legislation to correct those
errors. Ten minutes didn’t seem like enough time, until I remembered that it
takes only 7-10 seconds to break into these new voting machines to tamper with
the vote-counting hardware and only 30 seconds to infect a single voting machine
with a virus that is sufficient to change the vote totals in an entire county.
From that perspective, ten minutes is an eternity. Read the entire presentation here.
By Bernie Ellis
September 27, 2007
Davidson
County Voting Machines May Be Vulnerable
July 29, 2007
We recently learned from VotersUnite.org and other national voting reform groups that the ES&S direct recording machines that will be used this week in Nashville's election may have a serious problem. This iVotronic equipment is almost the same as that used in Sarasota Florida, and we know what using those machines resulted in: thousands of lost votes.
The electronic voting machines voters will use on August 2nd may be vulnerable to a computer virus that could infect the machines, corrupt data, alter vote counts, and go undetected. The ES & S iVotronic voting machines are almost identical to the machines used in Sarasota, FL where 18,00 ballots were lost in the November 2006 federal election. A report by a Florida State University research team of computer scientists that investigated this problem identified vulnerabilities in version 8.0 software.
Read the entire press release here.
Read the University of California research team study which proves all electronic voting systems are vulnerable here.
We decided the responsible action for us was to notify the Davidson County Election Commission of what we learned. The following letter went out July 27, 2007:
Letter To The Davidson County Election Committee
From: Deborah Narrigan, Gathering To Save Our Democracy
Subject: Status of Potential Vulnerability to Virus Attack
in the ES&S iVotronic Voting Machine
As we approach Election Day we are once again raising our voices to express our serious concerns for the safety and security of the electronic voting systems now in use in Davidson County. We have discussed these concerns with you and with Ray Barrett on several occasions, but we have not yet obtained sufficient assurances that our voting process is secure and protected from unintentional or malicious attacks that are possible given the identified vulnerabilities within the ES&S iVotronic voting machine software.
Read the entire letter here.
What Is The Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR)?
The Tennessee Advisory Council on
Intergovernmental Affairs, TACIR, is in the midst of a year-long study of
the conduct of elections in TN. Their first
interim report by the TACIR Exective Director, Dr Harry Green, is titled "Trust
But Verify", and covers electronic voting. It was presented to two legislative
committees in May, 2007, and urges the state to convert as soon as possible
to equipment that uses or produces voter verifiable paper
ballots. In June the report was presented to the full 25 person Commission.
Read "Trust But Verify" here.
Comments
before the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations
(TACIR)
By Martha Wettemann
June 19, 2007
I am Martha Wettemann, a member of Common Cause Tennessee and active with the state employees association. Thank you very much for inviting us to present comments today. Having the ability to vote and having our vote count is very important. Voting is a basic right for all citizens in a democracy, and they tend to feel about their vote like they do about their money – they have zero tolerance when their vote or their money is not counted correctly.
That’s why Common Cause supports passage of legislation in Tennessee to require voter verified paper ballot systems in all Tennessee counties, and to ensure that all Tennessee voters receive equal protection under the law for their vote. We appreciate TACIR taking on this critical issue and heartily agree with Dr Green’s report and its recommendations that all voting equipment should use or produce a voter verifiable paper ballot; that random audits of all elections should take place, and that security of electronic voting equipment must be improved. See more here
A
Reliable, Verifiable Vote in 2008
By New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson
June 19, 2007
In November 2008, voters will go to the polls and choose the next president
of the United States and their representatives to Congress — or will they?
According to Common Cause, more than a third of our states still use voting
machines that do not support hand recounts and provide no auditable paper trail.
“One person, one vote” is the hallmark of America’s democracy, but to make
sure that our next president is elected by people, not by the malfunction of
an electronic voting machine, we must immediately move to a durable paper-ballot
system backed by regular audits in every state in the nation. For these reasons,
Congress should quickly pass H.R. 811, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility
Act of 2007, introduced by Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) and cosponsored by more
than 220 Democratic and Republican members of Congress. See
more here
The Voter Confidence Act of 2007
The TN legislature is considering HB1256 / SB1363, a bill that would mandate that all voting machines use or produce a paper ballot. The bill sponsors are Senator Joe Haynes and Representative Gary Moore.
What YOU can do NOW to make every Tennessee vote count: CALL OR EMAIL YOUR LEGISLATORS TODAY and tell them to vote for: HB1256 / SB1363
Make Every Vote Count!. You can find your legislators’ email address and phone number at: http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/
To read the bill click here.
Video of Post-Election
Townhall Meeting With Election Commission
December 12, 2006
Click Here To Watch (Windows Media Player)
Click Here To Watch (Apple Quick Time)
Voting System Problems and Irregularities Reported During the
November 7, 2006 Election in Tennessee
March 26, 2007
Election Day, November 7, 2006, saw a large number of voting problems reported throughout the state of Tennessee. In 2006, for the first time, Tennesseans in every county voted exclusively on electronic voting systems. In 93 of Tennessee’s 95 counties voters used direct record electronic machines (DREs), while citizens in Hamilton and Pickett counties used optical scanning systems. Overall, two types of problems occurred: long waiting times for voting and malfunctioning machines. For both types of problems, significant numbers of reports surfaced. See more here.
Paranoids may be right about hacked high-tech voting systems
The Louisville
Courier-Journal
OPED / E.J. Dionne
October
10, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Sometimes, paranoids are right. And sometimes even when paranoids are wrong, it's worth considering what they're worried about.
I speak here of all who are worried sick that those new, fancy high-tech voting systems can be hacked, fiddled with and otherwise made to record votes that aren't cast, or fail to record votes that are. See more here.
Nashville Eye: Voting machine without paper trail bodes ill for democracy
The Tennessean
By Joe Irrera
August 30, 2006
Shortly before the 2004 presidential election, a great hope of mine was dashed. After the Florida debacle of 2000, when five unelected Supreme Court justices overruled 51 million voters, I like many others had lost faith in our electoral system and felt only impartial, international observers could restore my confidence that next time every vote really would be counted. See more here.