Donna Frye to speak! | |
Make Every Vote Count!
by Miriam Raftery | |
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Donna Frye, a strong environmentalist and current San Diego City Councilmember who ran as a write-in candidate in San Diego's mayoral race. However, the Registrar of Voters refused to count more than 3,000 ballots that had Frye’s name clearly written in because the “bubbles” – used to make it easier for machine tabulation – were not filled in. We are honored to have Frye serve as Grand Marshal of the Children's Earth Day Parade at EarthFair on May 1st. After the parade, please join us at the Sun Stage at noon, where Frye and others will speak on the importance of election reform to ensure that all votes are counted – regardless of the machines used. Uncounted bubble ballots are just one symptom of election problems that need fixing. The same Diebold central vote tabulating system used to tally votes in San Diego has been hacked by a chimpanzee! Beverly Harris of Black Box Voting proved on video that the chimp could actually change votes to “rig” election results! This startling footage recently aired on a local San Diego TV station. Paperless voting machines provide no way to audit or find proof of fraudyet some of our elected officials are pushing to allow paperless voting machines in our elections. Several voting machine companies have executives convicted of bribing public officials – and there is strong evidence that machines in several states were tampered with in the last election. Mathematicians have calculated that the odds of so many discrepancies between exit polls and actual outcomes occurring by chance are 250 million to one! Corporate interests, allied with those holding political power, have powerful motivations for suppressing “green” votes. Rigged voting machines can be used to steal votes in primary elections as well as general elections, so people in all political parties risk having their votes stolen. Those now in power nationally are dismantling environmental protections while ignoring global warming and the need for clean alternative energy sources. At the state level, our Governor’s environmental rating has been downgraded to an “F” by the League of Conservation Voters. Locally, San Diego’s City government is facing corruption scandals and law enforcement investigations. Do we really want to trust the politicians currently in power to count our votes accurately, on voting machines that have been proven to be easy to hack and rig? There are also problems with voter suppression. Ohio voters waited in line up to 11 hours to vote. Here in San Diego, some SDSU students waited four hours to cast their votes. Lawmakers at every level have now introduced bills that could further erode our rights to have our votes counted. The City Council’s Rules Committee’s answer to unbubbled write-ins is not to require the votes be counted, but to eliminate write-ins in the general election! Fortunately, there are also some positive proposals in Congress and the California Legislature to improve our voting system – including a bill to require that unbubbled ballots be counted for write-in candidates, such as Donna Frye. It’s urgent for each of us to actively support REAL election reform. Our Democracy is at stake. Come join Donna Frye and V.O.T.E.R.R. on May 1st to learn how you can help join the citizen’s movement to make every vote count. |
oin Donna Frye and V.O.T.E.R.R. (Voices for Open and Truthful Election Results & Reform) at 