Hi all -

The BCDCC voter registration/election integrity committee met last Thursday, 3/29, at Carol & Dave's house as before. Our group consisted of Joyce & Jim Spain, Marion McNamara, Clark House, Steve Starcevich, Ron Mason, chairperson Carol Sweeney, and Dave Conklin.

We viewed a powerpoint presentation called "Illusion of Democracy" obtained from the Oregon Voter Rights Coalition, with the objective of deciding whether to ask someone from the ORVC speakers bureau to give the presentation here in Corvallis. After some discussion, we chose to ask for an ORVC speaker for the program portion of the May BCDCC meeting. Dave will contact ORVC to see if a 30 minute version of the Illusion of Democracy presentation could be arranged for the BCDCC meeting. In addition, Carol has gotten in touch with Dick Johnston regarding the suitability of the Illusion of Democracy presentation for the DemoForum or Linn-Benton Forum venues.

Dave gave an update on the status of H.R. 811 in Congress; the updated status from the Thomas Register website as of 4/1/07 is appended below.

Carol spoke about HB 3270, Rep. Mitch Greenlick's bill in the Oregon legislature pertaining to hand count verification of machine tallied election results. A consensus was reached to ask the BCDCC to endorse HB3270 in its April meeting. Clark House has written a resolution and will present it at the monthly meeting.

Steve Starcevich spoke briefly about the Progressive States Network. He subsequently e-mailed a short summary with web links, which is appended below after the HR 811 status.

We finished up the meeting by reviewing the plans for deployment of the Field HQ for voter registration. It goes out on Monday April 9th on the OSU campus, on Saturday April 14th at 2nd & Monroe near the Farmers Market, and again the following Saturday, April 21st, at the Earth Day event at the riverfront. Carol and Dave will be out of town from the 14th thru the 21st, and Joyce & Jim have volunteered to take charge of the set up and take down of the Field HQ during that period, as well as staffing the voter reg table for the 11 to 1 shift on April 14th. Marion volunteered to staff it from 8:30 to 11:30 am on April 21st, and then Steve and his wife Leigh Ann will take over for the 11:30 to
2:00 pm shift.

The next meeting of our committee is scheduled for 7 pm Wednesday April 25th at Carol & Dave's house. The agenda for that meeting will include finalizing plans for the Illusions of Democracy presentation at the May BCDCC meeting.

Cheers,
Dave

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.00811:
H.R.811
Title: To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require a voter-verified permanent paper ballot under title III of such Act, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Holt, Rush D. [NJ-12] (introduced 2/5/2007) Cosponsors (200)
Related Bills: S.559
Latest Major Action: 3/29/2007 House committee/subcommittee actions. Status: Committee Hearings Held.

ALL ACTIONS:
2/5/2007:
Referred to the House Committee on House Administration.
3/23/2007:
Referred to the Subcommittee on Elections.
3/23/2007:
Subcommittee Hearings Held.
3/29/2007:
Committee Hearings Held.

-----------------------

Progressive States Network info from Steve Starcevich

http://www.progressivestates.org/: One of this groups agenda items is promoting Clean and Fair Elections Policies (see below) at the state level.
http://www.progressivestates.org/index.php?s=search&q=vote+by+mail&submit.x=14&submit.y=11: Some great content within from The Nation magazine, American Prospect, stuff from Oregon secretaries of state Phil Kiesling and Bill Bradbury.
http://www.progressivestates.org/content/149/03162006-stateside-dispatch-universal-vote-by-mail: Many links to universal vote by mail resources, including the entire M60 initiative that officially brought Vote By Mail to Oregon.
http://www.votebymailproject.org/: Provides a list of states that allow No Excuse Absentee Balloting and states that don’t. Also, provides links to voting integrity groups in those states.
Progressive States Network:
Key Clean and Fair Elections Policies:
Lobbying Reform: While the problem of lobbyist influence is severe, many state governments have been taking steps to improve the situation by policies that:
• Enforce Disclosure: The best practices include monthly electronic filings, require lobbyists and their employees to report their compensation, an independent auditing authority, and statutory reviews and penalties for late filings of disclosure forms.
• Ban Gifts: A number of states have tried to end the most visible sleaze by banning gifts completely.
• End the Revolving Door: Addressing one of the most insidious payoffs to legislators and government officials, six states have imposed a two-year moratorium before former legislators or other government officials can become lobbyists.
Clean Elections: Fundamentally, the only serious way to end the general corruption of politics by money is to stop allowing corporate interests to fund our elections, including policies to:
• Ban "Pay to Play" Campaign Contributions: Responding to the corruption of government contracting systems, a number of states have passed laws that bar companies bidding on contracts from making campaign contributions to government officials.
• Enact Public Financing: There are variations on public financing of elections, but the most popular currently being promoted requires any candidate to collect a certain number of $5 contributions to establish the seriousness of his or her candidacy, after which the candidate receives a set amount of public financing on the condition that they accept no additional outside campaign contributions. Candidates outspent by privately financed opponents are usually entitled to a limited amount of matching funds.
Election Reforms: Many of the problems facing voters would be eliminated through simplified voting systems, including:
• Election Day Registration: In order to encourage maximum participation, a number of states allow people to combine the process of registration and voting on the same day.
• Early Voting: States that give voters the chance to vote in the weeks leading up to election day have seen increased turnout and helped voters avoid burdensome long lines at the polls.
• Vote by Mail: "No excuses" permanent absentee voting or, more comprehensively, voting by mail cuts the costs of conducting elections, encourages greater participation, and resolves many voting rights and fraud issues by allowing election officials the time to catch problems and correct them.
• National Popular Vote Reform: States are moving to create a multi-state compact to elect the President by the national popular vote, making all states matter and encouraging greater turnout for all federal and state races.
Voting Rights: The core progressive principle should be that every American should have the right to vote without intimidation or harassment, guaranteed by:
• Opposing Restrictive ID Laws: Progressives should block overly restrictive voter identification requirements that do nothing to address the real types of election fraud that occur, yet threaten the rights of eligible voters.
• Fair HAVA Implementation: Progressives must assure that the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) does not lead to voters being wrongly purged from state voting databases; when voters are forced to cast a provisional ballot, their vote should be counted in any race for which they are eligible to vote.
• Enacting Deceptive Practices Acts: Individuals who use deception or intimidation to deter voting should be subject to serious fines, criminal penalties and civil actions by aggrieved voters.
• Restoring Voting Rights to Ex-Felons: Most states restore the vote after a person's sentence is finished, some when they are released from prison, and a few never take away voting rights.