City Votes on Paper Ballots, Rejects Paperless E-Voting
Considers Instant Run-Off Voting
On Tuesday November 8th, there will be local elections in the City of Takoma Park and Rockville. TrueVoteMD, the campaign for a voter verified paper audit trail in Maryland has organized citizen poll watchers to staff polling places to educate people about the problems of paperless voting and to document any performance problems which arise with the Diebold voting system. In August, 2005 the Takoma Park City Council unanimously voted to return to paper ballots. “Citizens of Takoma Park are actively involved in their community and they want transparent elections. When the city examined its options we found that paper ballots, in addition to providing a voting system people can trust, we saved the city thousands of dollars,” said Marc Elrich, Takoma Park City Councilman.
12 election judges from the community will count the votes with each vote being checked by three judges. “Takoma Park is taking the lead in protecting the integrity of voting here in Maryland by allowing voters to vote on a permanent paper record, as state law requires. Paper ballots also allow for a transparent count of the vote where candidates, political parties, voters and the media can watch the vote be counted,” said Kevin Zeese of TrueVoteMD. This November, Takoma Park will be a DRE Free Zone. TrueVoteMD was able to convince the City of Takoma Park vote in this election with a paper ballot and voters here will once again be assured that there vote was recorded with accuracy. TrueVoteMD volunteers will be out at the polling places to watch the election and talk to the public about why we have gone back to the traditional style of voting. In Rockville the votes will be done on the controversial, paperless, Diebold touch screen electronic voting system, which suffered from breakdowns during previous elections were used in the last elections (For details see http://www.truevotemd.org/Resources/Lessons_Learned.pdf). There will also be TrueVote volunteers at several locations in Rockville talking to the public and recording any problems with the election. During 2004 TrueVoteMD had Poll Watchers in 6% of the precincts statewide and recorded over 500 problems ranging from machine failure to voter disenfranchisement. |
