Criticism Mounts Against Holt Voting Reform Bill

HR 811, the so-called Holt bill, was originally designed to rid our voting system of thoroughly discredited electronic voting machines (DREs) and make other needed changes to assure accuracy and transparency in the voting process. However, the legislation has been negotiated and renegotiated, modified and remodified so much that many grassroots voting integrity activists are rejecting it because of complex flaws. They say the bill would do much more harm than good. Other national groups, like Common Cause and People for the American Way, are supporting it -- admitting the bill isn't perfect but taking the view that something is better than nothing as election 2008 looms. HR 811 is scheduled to be heard on the U.S. House floor this Wednesday.

Meanwhile, MoveOn.org is asking its members to weigh in on the controversy. Nancy Tobi, Legislative Coordinator of Election Defense Alliance, co-founder of Democracy for New Hampshire and Chair of the New Hampshire Fair Elections Committee, was highly critical of the Holt bill in her recent OpEdNews article, recommending that MoveOn members vote to oppose the bill. Excerpts:

... companies like Microsoft, Diebold and ES&S had problems with the early version of Holt's bill; and Holt himself not only listened to them, but obliged them, so that his "election reform" bill would now make our system even more undemocratic than it is already.

... Voting integrity activists have been telling MoveOn how we feel about the bill for a long time. It is true that last year, many activists supported the Holt Bill, but at this time every single true grassroots leadership organization opposes it. This includes BlackBoxVoting, VotersUnite, the Coalition for Voting Integrity, the NH Fair Elections Committee, and more. Within a 2-week period in the dead of winter, last December, 2006, wethepatriots.org collected nearly 2,000 signatures of citizens and organizations opposed to the bill.

... The "compromise" version could easily be called the "Microsoft Bill". This version makes secret vote counting federal law, making it a federal crime for anyone to tell the public what they find when they look at the code counting 80% of the nation's votes. And the only people allowed to look at that code are "qualified" people under very specific circumstances who sign nondisclosure agreements.

If this law had been in place in 2003, Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.ORG would be sitting in a federal prison for her act of patriotism, which exposed to the national sunshine the diabolical nature of Diebold Election System's proprietary, secret vote counting software.

Because of its complexities, the bill would also subject every state in the nation to unlimited electoral litigation challenges. Think about Florida 2000 if you want to imagine the outcomes from having the courts decide our elections for us.

Click for a list of citizen action groups and leaders opposed to the Holt bill.

Today, John Gideon of VotersUnite.org provides an update on The Brad Blog that reports even more confusion surrounding the bill:

It seems that through the writing of the bill and three complete rewrites there is a funding problem. When the bill goes to the floor there will be a bipartisan “unfunded mandate” amendment that will be allowed to be voted on and added to the bill if it passes. This amendment will require action on the bill to be held up until funding can be appropriated; in other words 2010 or 2012 or never. So everything is status quo for 2008 (DREs, no vvpat, no audits) except no one can say if the non-funding portions of the bill would also be delayed. So the protection of the vendor’s software may happen upon signature by the President. The vendors are protected while the voters get no protections.

Also, Michael Collins of OpEdNews tosses more fuel on the fire with yesterday's article entitled, "Secret Disservice: HR 811."