In Testimony Voters Urge Use of Paper Ballots for Audit Trail

July 8, 2004

Annapolis. Yesterday nearly 20 Maryland voters gathered to picket outside the Maryland Board of Elections monthly meeting to push the Board of Elections to investigate the well-documented security risks posed by the paperless voting systems being used in Maryland and 37 other states. The voters were part of the citizen's group Campaign for Verifiable Voting in Maryland, also known as TrueVoteMD.org.

Stan Boyd, a picketer and Democratic election judge from Montgomery County stated, "There is a growing national awareness that these paperless voting machines are a threat to our democracy. We are here to send a message directly from voters to the Board that we want a paper trail for this November's election."

The group began picketing the Board meetings last month in support of Helen Kolbe, a Howard County voter whose vote was thrown out with 100 others who voted on provisional paper ballots because they didn't trust that the new Diebold machines could be trusted to accurately count their votes. "We plan to hold monthly Vigils for Democracy through the November election," said Ms. Kolbe.

After picketing, Ms. Kolbe and four other voters testified before the Board in an ongoing effort to educate the appointed members about the facts of election failures in other states and the need to implement some kind of paper- based audit trail so recovery would be possible in the event of a system meltdown in the upcoming election. Testifiers included Joyce Thoman, Chair of the Anne Arundel Republican Women's Club and election judge for the last 24 years, including in the March 2, 2004 primary.

Linda Schade, former Green Party candidate for state legislature was also in attedance. She is the lead plaintiff in an ongoing lawsuit against the Maryland Board of Elections seeking to require a voter-verified paper audit trail. Legal complaint available at http://www.truevotemd.org/litigation_complaint.asp.

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