October 6, 2004

In a sudden burst of cooperation, Maryland's State Election Board yesterday agreed to fully credential citizen poll watchers working with TrueVoteMD.org, an election integrity group advocating for a voter-verified paper audit trail for the state's paperless Diebold electronic voting system.

"We are pleased with the Board's decision and hope that this represents a new responsiveness to the serious concerns informed voters have about this troubled technology," said Linda Schade, Co-Founder of TrueVoteMd.org. "As we saw two weeks ago in PG County's special election where machines failed to boot up, Democratic candidates failed to appear on the ballot and the modem crashed while transmitting votes, it is clear these machines need to be watched closely."

TrueVoteMD has recruited hundreds of pollwatchers for its statewide monitoring effort due to numerous failures and vulnerabilities in the Diebold voting system and because the system, which does not include any paper register documenting how a citizen votes, prevents meaningful recounts or audits. Bob Ferraro, also a Co-Founder of TrueVoteMd explained, "Since the State Board has been unwilling to acknowledge -- let alone document -- problems with this discredited touch-screen voting system, citizen poll watchers must step in to fill this gap."

On August 16, 2004 TrueVoteMD.org sent a letter requesting that it be permitted to designate hundreds of TrueVoteMD members as pollwatchers. The State Board did not respond to the letter but subsequently added language to its web page to explicitly exclude non-profits and issue campaigns from the list of "groups of voters" eligible to observe elections.

When attorneys for TrueVoteMD, Daniel D. Williams and William P. Ashworth of Williams & Connolly LLP, informed the State Attorney General's Office that TrueVoteMD intended to file suit to enforce its right to designate pollwatchers, the Attorney General's office, on behalf of the State Election Board, agreed to a settlement resulting in the full credentialing of TrueVoteMd's non-partisan citizen poll watchers by the State Election Board.

TrueVote MD
www.TrueVoteMD.org · 7711 Garland Ave., Takoma Park, MD 20912 ·
301-270-6150