Our local election integrity group is working on messaging for an upcoming protest. Here's a fun diversion, to demonstrate that we're all still human.

King County Washington plans to adopt mail ballot tracking. This adds a unique barcode to your ballot which is linked to your voter id. This is unconstitutional and illegal. Activists Tim White and Allan Rosato have already sued San Juan County, the first jurisdiction in the country using mail ballot tracking.

White and Rosato will be speaking in Seattle WA Tuesday May 1st at 7:00pm. See the full announcement below the fold.

We've been discussing mail ballot tracking and unique barcodes on WashBlog: How Your Vote Can Be Tracked to you: San Juan County Ballot Tracking

Rick Perlstein of The American Prospect just posted Look Back in Anger detailing two strategies used this last election cycle: robo-calling and phone jamming.

I'm curious if there are technical tools and approaches to help combat these techniques. Like having spam filters for our email.

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Even with pro-bono help, election integrity activism is very expensive. Please join me in giving Voter Action money. (Thank you.)

Press releases follows...

On Tuesday Aug 29th, 2006, King County Elections Services began their "logic & accuracy testing" of the new Diebold AccuVote TSx touchscreen voting machines. King County now has 507 (?) of these machines. There will be one at each poll site.

If you want to see what the fuss is about, the L&A testing stretches 10 days long. It begins at 8:30am each day at the Elections Distribution Center 1215 Fir St, Seattle. I encourage people to poke their heads in and see what's what. It's a cool facility and it's good to get a feel for what's going on.

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Check here for local listings. In Seattle, NOW airs on KCTS 9 Fri 9/1 8:00pm, Sun 9/3 11:30am, and Tues 9/5 2;30am.

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I love FlexCar's idea of vehicle sharing. I want to see them, or something very similar, succeed. Below is my modest, low-cost, incentive-based proposal for how to expand FlexCar far and wide.

Alan and I "met" via the Yahoo Group "election integrity and reform". Some believe the group's purpose is to discuss and promote Holt's HR 550. Others use our strength in numbers to promote and support each other's election integrity diaries on dailyKos. Either way, it's all good.

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I headed down to the Annex building for my poll inspector training yesterday. Overall, it was a good experience.

There's roughly 4,800 poll worker positions in King County. According to our trainers, as of 1 or 2 weeks ago, they were 1,000 people short.

Everyone, step up and be a poll worker. Call 206-296-VOTE, email pollworker@metrokc.gov, or use this online form. If you care about democracy, want to learn more about our elections, or enjoy sitting around gabbing with your neighbors, then this is the job for you.

Below, I relate the experience, with extra emphasis on what I learned and observed about the new Diebold AccuVote TSx electronic voting touchscreen machines.

We need some of that kind of mojo here in Washington State. The machines here, provided by Diebold and Hart/Intercivic, were definitely improperly certified.

Press release follows...

So here's my strategy, to date, unrefined.

I swiped my strategy straight from Bernie Ellis. Until I attended his workshop, I couldn't figure out how to get started.  I'm very grateful to Bernie and appreciate his leadership.

dailyKos user horsewithnoname called bullshit on my opposition.  I replied that we're still researching and that I'll post our work as able.  This is just a quick note, to share some stuff I've found thus far.  (I'll post our "complete" work later.)

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Today's email from GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman (wikipedia, dkospedia, SourceWatch) introduced MyGOP and the opportunity to get a special edition Republican iPod.

See below...

(cross-posted to WashBlog)

Below is my list of election reform proposals, in brief.  I've been updating it as I learn more.

Kick it -->

For doing a good job, my boss is punishing us with a trip to Las Vegas.  (Yea, team building.  Just the way I want to spend my time off.)  

It'd be May 18, 19, and 20.  I was thinking I'd visit with anyone local who is working on election reform.

The rehash of Republican wrongs is unnecessary.  Long on criticism and short on advice, the list of Democratic failures and shortcomings is familiar to regular dailyKos readers.  For a book claiming to be about netroots, the topic gets very little coverage.  Readers hoping to learn about people-powered politics will have to continue searching.

More follows...

This doc is a work in progress.  I'm trying to distill all the reasons we (WCFE) oppose the use of electronic voting and counting equipment into something that is concise and understandable.  I'd really appreciate feedback.

Originally posted to WashBlog.