| RESPONSE TO THE JULY 7 SIGNING OF BILL MANDATING THAT VOTER-VERIFIED PAPER BALLOTS BE INCORPORATED IN ALL VOTING IN NEW JERSEY
On behalf of the 6,500 member and supporting households of the Princeton-based Coalition for Action, I congratulate Acting Governor Codey, Assemblyman Gusciora, and Senator Gill for their excellent leadership in passing this bill which mandates that all voters in New Jersey use systems that incorporate voter-verified paper ballots by 2008.
This is an important step toward guaranteeing one of the most sacred rights in a democracy: the right to have every vote counted accurately and in an auditable, re-countable way.
We continue to work hard in support of HR550, introduced by Rep Rush Holt that would provide the same guarantee nationally. But for now, we can be assured that by 2008, we should all have this fundamental right protected statewide in New Jersey.
The Coalition for Peace Action has spearheaded a campaign advocating such protections for the past two years. We have educated the public through literature and educational events; held rallies and lobby days; and filed a lawsuit in pursuit of this fundamental democratic protection of our voting rights.
We intend to continue to pursue this campaign. While the bill signed today is an important step, it involved compromises, as does all legislation. We will push for more rapid implementation of this right, especially through our lawsuit. There is not compelling reason that for the many elections between now and 2008, that New Jersey voters shouldn’t have this basic right guaranteed.
We will also push for random audits, to ensure that electronic voting machines and any other systems are functioning correctly. And we will push to ensure that companies provide the technology needed to comply with the new law, sooner than 2008 if at all possible. On this latter issue, we will work with county voting officials to press them to choose such machines as they modernize their voting.
So today’s bill signing is a major and important step. We will continue to work hard until every voter in New Jersey and elsewhere has their basic democratic right of ensuring that every vote is counted in a verifiable and re-countable way guaranteed, in New Jersey and across the nation.
|
