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I'm on my way to Florida to be a "roving technologist" in VerifiedVoting.org's TechWatch program - part of the Election Protection coalition. If you're curious about what we're doing, or want to help, read on...
I just got training earlier this week through a couple of conference calls, and... wow. VerifiedVoting, with the help of the EFF, has set up a nationwide database and tracking system for election incidents: the Election Incident Reporting System. All calls to the Election Protection hotline (1-866-OUR-VOTE) are being entered into this system, along with reports from Election Protection volunteers. They tested it for some primaries earlier this fall, and it's been up and running ever since, dealing with voter registration, absentee ballot, and early voting issues.
Take a look. Go to http://voteprotect.org/epc/ and click on Research/Maps. You can view maps by state and by county within state, color coded by numbers of incidents reported. Click on a county and you can see summaries of all the calls. Or, select a particular incident type to view. Have you heard about voters in Austin TX trying to vote a straight Democratic ticket and getting Bush? Well, here are machine-related incidents reported in Travis County, TX. Or, how about a map of Florida showing where people have reported voter intimidation. All of this is going to be available and updated in real time, on election day. And after the election is over, we'll have, for the first time, nationwide statistics on voting problems, with detail.
VerifiedVoting also collected a lot of information about voting equipment, which you can find at http://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/ - in many cases, you can actually find online demos and technical manuals for the voting machines used in the location you select. Such as the troublesome machines in Austin, for example.
Wanna help? ( ways to help, big and small... )
Oh, and you can also help me personally, if you know anyone in Florida who'd give me a place to stay, so I don't have to spend on a motel room :) I'm going to need to be in one of the counties that is using DRE voting machines. Especially Palm Beach, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, or Orlando.
I just got training earlier this week through a couple of conference calls, and... wow. VerifiedVoting, with the help of the EFF, has set up a nationwide database and tracking system for election incidents: the Election Incident Reporting System. All calls to the Election Protection hotline (1-866-OUR-VOTE) are being entered into this system, along with reports from Election Protection volunteers. They tested it for some primaries earlier this fall, and it's been up and running ever since, dealing with voter registration, absentee ballot, and early voting issues.
Take a look. Go to http://voteprotect.org/epc/ and click on Research/Maps. You can view maps by state and by county within state, color coded by numbers of incidents reported. Click on a county and you can see summaries of all the calls. Or, select a particular incident type to view. Have you heard about voters in Austin TX trying to vote a straight Democratic ticket and getting Bush? Well, here are machine-related incidents reported in Travis County, TX. Or, how about a map of Florida showing where people have reported voter intimidation. All of this is going to be available and updated in real time, on election day. And after the election is over, we'll have, for the first time, nationwide statistics on voting problems, with detail.
VerifiedVoting also collected a lot of information about voting equipment, which you can find at http://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/ - in many cases, you can actually find online demos and technical manuals for the voting machines used in the location you select. Such as the troublesome machines in Austin, for example.
Wanna help? ( ways to help, big and small... )
Oh, and you can also help me personally, if you know anyone in Florida who'd give me a place to stay, so I don't have to spend on a motel room :) I'm going to need to be in one of the counties that is using DRE voting machines. Especially Palm Beach, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, or Orlando.