Invisible Ballots
A video on all-electronic voting
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TrueVoteMD endorsed by Maryland Common Cause, MD Sierra Club, MD Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, Baltimore Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, Southern Maryland Council for the Blind, MD Populist Party, MD Green Party, Republican Women of Anne Arundel County, Greenbelt City Council and Takoma Park City Council

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Paperless Diebold electronic voting machines in Maryland have crashed, lost votes, switched votes, and presented voters with e-ballots that were missing candidates and entire races, such as the Senate race in March 2004 and most recently in PG County's special election (9/18/04). According to the "Lessons Learned' report published by the Maryland Association of Election Officials (MAEO) in May of 2004, the Diebold system in Maryland lacks any 'disaster recovery plan in case of system failure on Election Day'. The report includes MAEO's concerns about the 2002 election during which technicans -- without ID -- accessed the Diebold machines and departed leaving no documentation of their activity. Yet Linda Lamone, who heads up Maryland's State Board of Elections, maintains that she has complete confidence in the security of the machines and dismisses the problems voiced by these local election officials (MAEO) as 'whining'!

Because of the threat these machines pose to the integrity of our election, TrueVoteMD is calling all citizens to action to defend our democracy. We have launched a statewide recruitment drive to have as many citizen poll watchers as possible to gather critical information about the crashes, errors and boot-up failures which occur with the Diebold voting system.

Countless errors occurred during the Maryland March Primary, contrary to the State Board of Elections' claims that the system ran flawlessly. This time, we want a statewide citizen effort to record problems and take all necessary action to make sure every vote is counted. Pollwatchers will make reports throughout the day to our technical and legal committees if they observe any problems.

TrueVoteMD will be conducting training sessions over the next two months to familiarize pollwatchers with all the information needed for election day, including:

MD State rules for pollwatcher behavior, rights and responsibilities
Typical problems voters have at polling precincts
Legal requirements for opening the polls, conducting the election, reporting results, and closing the polls
Information about the structure and operation of DREs

This pollwatching effort is intended as a public service. We want to support our hardworking local election officials and improve election accuracy by collecting information about problems voters experience with the system.

More information

Please sign up to be a pollwatcher. email or call Amanda Bowers 301-270-6150 with any questions or problems.

See a list of training sessions and directions to training locations

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Inside the polling place You will keep an eye on the voting process. Computer experience particularly helpful here. (Hours 6:30am-9:00pm)	Outside the polling place Help educate the public, pass out fliers, take incident reports. (Hours 6:30am-8:00pm)
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Pollwatcher Training
Pollwatcher training is strongly encouraged, however if you can't make it to training, download the pollwatcher materials, call (301-270-6150) or email questions.

Please check any special skills you would like to offer

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Technical skills (for Tech or Web Committee)
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Take Action Today to Make Sure Your Vote Counts!

1.	Find Your State Legislators
2.	Send a Letter to the House Ways & Means Committee
3.	Send a Letter to the Senate Education, Health & Environmental Affairs Committee
4.	Tell Others
5.	Send a Letter to the Editor
6.	Support Federal Election Law Reform
7.	Add a banner to your website

Breaking News

• Sept. 23, 2004 'A Massive Experiment' in Voting in The Washington Post
• Sept. 20, 2004 The Magic Voting Touch, an Editorial in The Washington Post
• Aug. 27, 2004 After Your Vote Vanishes, an Editorial in The Washington Post
• Aug. 26, 2004 Voting machine safeguards in question in The Baltimore Sun
• Aug. 25, 2004 Md. Machines Seek Vote of Confidence in The Washington Post
• How They Could Steal The Election This Time: The Nation Magazine's exhaustive examination of the potential problems with DRE voting systems, including Diebold in Maryland
• The Washington Post on TrueVote MD!
• Blackwell Halts Deployment of Diebold Voting Machines for 2004
• Gov. Ehrlich appoints new member to election board
• E-voting regulators often join other side when leaving office
• Women Voters Drop Paperless Vote Support
• The Disability Lobby and Voting New York Times editorial
•Scans of the Hack the Vote article from the April issue of Vanity Fair magazine.
•Think You Voted in Maryland? Think Again
• Takoma Park supports legislation to require modifications to new voting machines purchased by the State of Maryland to create a verifiable paper trail
• Diebold "basically had no interest in putting actual security in this system," said Paul Franceus, one of the consultants. "It's not like they did it wrong. It's like they didn't bother."
• MD Senate report finds security risks, recommends paper
• Diebold gives paper trail for FREE to San Diego County!!

More news.