Voter Action Press Release

“Wisconsin has always been a leader in the regulation and administration of elections,” said Mike Wittenwyler, attorney for Voter Action Wisconsin. “By decertifying this equipment, Wisconsin will set a national example on the importance of election integrity. These machines are inherently prone to fraud. Until touch screen machines are replaced, the state must take steps to ensure that security procedures are followed and voter integrity preserved.”
“Wisconsin should provide meaningful accessibility, not an inferior and untrustworthy system,” said Holly Jacobson, co-director of Voter Action. “Electronic voting system breakdowns have wreaked havoc in recent state primaries, disenfranchising thousands of voters and calling into question election results. The serious security flaws inherent in electronic voting technology – confirmed in a new study by Princeton University experts last week-- underscore the need for more secure and verifiable voting systems.”
The 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was enacted with the purpose to make voting in the United States more reliable and secure for all voters. Between 2005-2006 Wisconsin certified direct record electronic (touch-screen) voting machines among others in an attempt to comply with HAVA. By the September primary election each municipality was required to obtain at least one accessible machine per polling location.
Detailed analysis of the official 2004 New Mexico general election results and a desire to provide more assurance to New Mexico voters led to Governor Richardson announced a plan to go to an all paper ballot voting system for the state that was signed into law in late February.
On February 15th 2006, Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich of Maryland joined Democratic Governor Bill Richardson in expressing his desire to make his state, like New Mexico, an all paper ballot state due the “unreliability and tremendous costs of DRE voting systems.” In a letter to the Maryland State Board of Elections, Governor Ehrlich reported cost overruns of over 1000% for maintenance of the state’s touch screen voting systems
Voter Action is a national not-for-profit advocacy group dedicated to ensuring election integrity in the U.S. Voter Action supports the right of every voter to have his or her vote recorded as intended and counted accurately. Voter Action supported a successful litigation effort in New Mexico to block the purchase and use of direct recording electronic (DRE) computerized voting systems and recently supported successful litigation in Colorado to address the inadequacies of the voting machine certification in that state. Currently, Voter Action is supporting legal actions by voters in Arizona, California, Colorado and Pennsylvania.
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