This comes from Democratic Leadership for the 21st Century:

Friday night, June 13, DL21C, along with Screening Liberally, invite you to the first of several special screenings of the recent HBO movie, Recount, about the historic 2000 election starring Kevin Spacey, Denis Leary, Laura Dern and Tom Wilkinson.

Joining us will be Christine Jennings, a Florida Congressional candidate ( Sarasota ), who lost her 2006 election by fewer than 400 votes, prompting a machine recount and special investigation. Jennings is running again in one of the hottest Congressional races this cycle, so this is a fun opportunity to enjoy a (free!) Friday night movie and hear from a candidate who has lived through hanging chads and butterfly ballots!

Christine will be introduced by our very own State Senator Liz Krueger.

We'll be screening Recount again later this summer, but hope you can make it Friday night to meet Christine and Senator Krueger!

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DL21C, along with Screening Liberally, invite you to

A Special Movie Screening of

HBO’s Recount

Friday, June 13
7:00pm (Movie begins promptly at 7:20pm and runs 110 minutes)
DCTV Screening Room

There is a diary at the top of the recommended list on Daily Kos citing voting problems in NYC with some accusations that Hillary's people are disenfranchising black voters. A genuine red flag was raised when it was noticed that a heavily black election district in Harlem was recorded as having zero votes for Barack Obama. This is clearly unlikely and therefore genuinely raised people's concern. And it brings up several important issues regarding voting machines. But one thing this should NOT cause is accusations of fraud on the part of Clinton's campaign. From first hand experience, I can suggest that the problem was not an intentional undercount of Obama voters, but a maintenance problem with the voting machines used in NYC.

While most YouTube videos feature such riveting scenarios as a college guy dancing with his mattress, and activist friend of mine in Connecticut has created an example of how electronic voting "works."

It's on YouTube now. It's short, fun, and demonstrates clearly what will happen if we don't have actual paper ballots.

We all saw with horror as yet another Florida election was mired in uncertainty and missing votes. A whopping 18,000 votes for Congress in the FL-13 Congressional race disappeared, mostly from Democratic districts. This is an almost unprecedented undervote that raises red flags that SOMETHING went seriously wrong with that election. This is further evidence that touchscreen voting machines are just too unreliable. And many elections experts agree that the results of the election were affected by this undervote and, had those votes been properly recorded, the Democratic candidate, Christine Jennings, would have won.

But...it looks like the Florida election board had full warning there was a problem and were even offered a patch but IGNORED IT. Then they tried covering it up.

According to a letter dated August 15th (PDF from the Christine Jennings campaign) from the company that made the machines used in FL-13 to the Florida elections board, a problem had been identified that gave a slow response time on the computer, slower than what a voter would expect. The letter claims that this would not affect the integrity of the vote (covering their asses) but it is likely that this kind of delay could lead to a voter being out of sync with the computer and would be exactly the kind of thing that could lead to an unrecorded vote. If the computer takes too long to respond, and the voter has moved on, then a vote will go unrecorded. It warrants further investigation to see if the delay is the cause of the undervote.

This Wednesday, March 14, the City Council will pass Resolution 131, which calls for the adoption of a precinct-based optical scan (PBOS) voting system instead of the dreaded DREs.

There's going to be a celebratory rally and press conference on the City Hall steps that afternoon, starting at 1:00. Come early -- and wear something that goes with red tote bags.

For years we have had a do-nothing, rubber stamp Congress, with Republicans blindly following Bush and Democrats largely excluded from the process by Republican strong arm tactics...and excessive cowardice by Democrats when they WERE allowed a part in the process.

Well, November 2006 changed all that. We now have possibly the hardest working Congress of my life time. The result is a rush of excellent bills in Congress. I want to mention a few of them and urge you to write your Congress Critters and the media to express your opinion on any of these bills you have an opinion on. Most of this came to my attention at the last Democracy for NYC meeting in my neighborhood. See what you can learn if you stay involved with the grassroots?

First, there is the revived, somewhat improved Rush Holt (D-NJ) bill to ensure a paper trail for elections, introduced last year but prevented from coming to a vote by the Republican Congress. This year Holt is back with HR 811. (NOTE: It is only Feb. and they are already up to 811? Busy people!!) This bill doesn't cover everything, but it does a lot to ensure our elections are at least verifiable. Simply put, it would prevent the situation we had in FL-13 in November where there was a highly suspicious undercount of Democratic votes for Congress but no legal way to do a recount. HR 811 would help fix that.

We continue to fight the good fight against DRE machines. I have written about this enough that I doubt I have to go into too much detail. You can read some of my earlier stuff if you want more on it. Or see the DFNYC site's discussion of the issue. For me the lack of a legal recount and the fact that the National Institute of Standards and Technology is warning against DRE machines is good enough to fight them.

But here are some upcoming events in NYC where you can try out machines or testify to the Board of Elections about them:

On January 11, 2007, at 5 PM, the New York City Board of Elections will host a public demonstration of the proposed new voting machines at Fordham University, Pope Auditorium (60th Street and Columbus Avenue).

A large turnout by individual citizens and public officials will show that the public is watching! Join us in viewing the machines currently under consideration by our County Commissioners.

On January 23, 2007, at 4 PM, the NYC Board of Elections will conduct a hearing at the Board offices at 42 Broadway, 6th floor, and the public is invited to attend and comment to the Board Commissioners on the proposed new voting machines.

The fight against the worst of the electronic voting machines may be nearing a turning point. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) seems poised to recommend decertification of the direct record electronic (DRE)voting machines. NIST is a non-regulatory federal agency within the U.S. Commerce Department's Technology Administration that "promotes U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life." This probably means that their recommendation is non-binding, but would go a long way to convincing people like my city councilman, David Yassky, who has yet to sign on to City Council resolution 131, that they had better oppose DRE machines if they want to ensure a fair vote.

From Internetnews.com:

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is recommending that the 2007 version of the Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines (VVSG) decertify direct record electronic (DRE) machines.

It's an article of faith among many Progressive activists that electronic voting machines are a thing of evil, that these machines are somehow programmed to steal votes from Democrats, and that any and all Democratic election losses are directly attributable to this electronic menace. And who knows, this contention may very well be accurate.

The problem with this perception is the same as that afflicting the arguments of so-called "Intelligent Design" advocates, namely that faith-based assumptions rest on thin evidentiary reeds. Despite what is alleged to be a massive, nationwide and ongoing fraud that would constitute a federal crime, no successful court case has yet been brought, let alone litigated successfully, that would support the assertions of the Dieboldistas. Now, this may be because everyone is in on the conspiracy; but the more natural conclusion, and one more in line with Occam's Razor, is that this vast conspiracy does not exist. The test may very well be the litigation underway over the contested results in Fl-13. But as things stand today, the verified-voting crowd is setting up an argument which is essentially not falsifiable – "votes are being stolen in ways we can't see or verify", and that should, in my mind, offend the reality-based community.

My personal argument with the Dieboldistas is this: there is, as noted, a bit of a disparity between the fervor with which they advance their claims, and the underlying evidentiary record; and more importantly, by engaging in a small-bore faith-based conspiracy theory, they're discrediting and hindering a realization that should be manifest to everyone, namely that our system of elections is deeply and perhaps irredeemably flawed. I'd go further and say that the Diebold crowd, by positing fraud as the proximate cause of every problem with the electoral process, weakens the case that must be made for fixing the system itself. Ironically, they argue for fraud in exactly the same way that, as noted, advocates of "Intelligent Design" argue for their designer, as the root default cause that explains everything. Tin foil hats are fashionable across the political spectrum, it seems.

Hacking Democracy on Google Video

Ok, so our own Michael is going to kill me, for publishing this. I do want to say that verified voting is not going to be an issue in New York this election. It's the 10% of the nation who is using these machines that may get screwed, like in the battleground states of Florida and Ohio.

To me it's clear : Better to go armed with a heavy dose of skepticism and information than to go blinding trusting the current system to protect your right to vote.

If there are lawyers on the fence about whether to do pro-bono voting verification work in places like New Mexico, this should be enough reason for you to make the right decision : pack your bags and just go. A lot of elections across the country will need lawyers to contest the vote.

What do you think?