Anecdotal evidence is coming in fast and furious of early-voting incidences including voting machine malfunctions in Ohio, Putnam, and Jackson Counties in West Virginia and Davidson and Decatur Counties in Tennessee, as well as hidden problems with "straight ticket" voting (confirmed by Snopes) in Texas and West Virginia. A more complete list of the problems so far can be found at VotersUnite.org.

It CAN happen to you. If it does, here are a few suggestions on what to do:

1) Video Your Vote
If possible, plan ahead for any problems by bringing a video camera with you to Video the Vote. Then, spread it around (mailto:mary@uncountedthemovie.com ">send it to us and we'll help). Remember, the focus should be on gathering evidence and not telling stories. So, use video, audio, photographs, get names and phone numbers of witnesses, as well as voting machine serial numbers, names of poll workers, and document the time of day.

2) At the First Sign of a Problem, Stop*
At the first sign of a problem with your machine (or if you have any other problem listed below), stop what you are doing and ask to speak to the supervisor (skip the poll worker) at your polling location. Explain your problem. If they try and waive you off, call your main election commission number and ask to speak to the election commissioner until your problem is satisfactorily addressed. Keep in mind that many poll workers/supervisors will try and blame the voter aka "operator error." Do not leave your polling place until your problem is well-documented and addressed to your complete satisfaction and, if the problem is with the machine, that the machine is quarantined. Oh, and you get to vote.

3) File a Report. File Several Reports.
Your local polling place will have incident reports available to you. If they do not, call the main election commission for your county and ask for someone to bring one to you. Make sure that both you and the supervisor sign it. An example of a report is here (Hat tip: Wake Up and Save Your Country Voters Guide). The U.S. Election Assistance Commission also lists on their website where you can find out how to file a report in your state. Again, the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Election Protection Hotline at 1-866-Our-Vote can also help with any questions in this area.

4) Call the Election Protection Hotline
Report you incident to the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Election Protection Hotline at 1-866-Our-Vote, especially if you feel you are being bullied or your incident is not being taken seriously. The ACLU has a hotline as well at 1-877-523-2792. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Greg Palast offer suggestions as well in their comic StealYourVoteBack.org.

5) Pledge to Stand Up to Stolen Elections
Go to NoMoreStolenElections.org and pledge to not concede until every vote is counted - and counted as cast.

*Problems can include: machine problems, polling place problems (machines not set up on time), switching or closing of polling place, voters forced to vote on a provisional ballot, long lines/waits, intimidation, unusual ID demands, poll workers asking inappropriate questions, etc.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Contact: Rick Bryant
(708) 798-6000

"Going To the Polls Does Not Mean You Have The Right To Vote"

Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., said today that while the world closely watches us choose our next president, we must closely examine the process we use to elect all of our leaders. "The new Advancement Project report and the documentary Uncounted offer warnings about the fragile state of our electoral system. They support what I've been saying for years: Going to the polls -- which they're doing today in states like Michigan and Tennessee -- does NOT mean you have the right to vote.

"The AFFIRMATIVE right to vote is not in the Constitution," Jackson said. "Until we put it there we will continue to have presidents selected by the Supreme Court, partisan officials crafting rules in their favor, and voters disenfranchised by political games or plain old sloppiness. The Advancement Project report details a dizzying array of Election Day meltdowns, and in Uncounted there's evidence of how voting machines themselves can create problems. Without the constitutionally-protected right to vote, we don't have the power to make sure that every vote is counted in a complete, fair and efficient manner.

"Every Congress since 2001, I've introduced House Joint Resolution 28 (H.J. Res. 28), legislation calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting everyone the affirmative right to vote. It's time to scrap the states' rights-based system we have now, and place the right to vote alongside the constitutionally-protected right to free speech. Voting gives you the political power to protect all of your other rights. That power is the bedrock of our democracy. It should not be left to political whims, economic downturns and disenfranchising procedures," said Jackson.

(The Advancement Project report is available at www.advancementproject.org and information about Uncounted is available at www.uncountedthemovie.com .)

- 30 -

Theresa Caldwell
Deputy Communications Director
Office of Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.
202-225-0773

Remember two days ago when Congressman Dennis Kucinich read aloud 35 Articles of Impeachment against President George Bush and included two on election integrity - Article 28 , which accuses him of "tampering with free and fair elections," and Article 29, which charges him with "conspiracy to violate the Civil Rights Act of 1965? Well it turns out that Congressman Kucinich turned to two of the movement's strongest independent investigative journalists, Bob Fitrakis of FreePress.net and Brad Friedman of Bradblog.com, for help in crafting those articles.

In an article posted today at FreePress.org, co-authors Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, draw a direct line from "independent reportage on the stolen 2004 election that appeared first at www.freepress.org and in other non-corporate and internet-based media" and on the ground efforts in Ohio by "grassroots election protection activists before, during and after the 2004 voting," to the facts presented in Uncounted, and then to the articles ready by Kucinich two days ago.

Ironically, as Fitrakis and Wasserman point out, even though "these facts have finally penetrated to a proposed Congressional indictment of the nation's chief executive, they have yet to be reported in the 'mainstream" corporate-owned media.'" Even more ironically, neither have the Impeachment Articles themselves.

Fitrakis and Wasserman also send up a red flare and warn that 28 & 29 should "serve as a cautionary notice to the Obama campaign that this year's election could also be stolen." Word on the street is that the Obama campaign is already on it - pushing voter registration and get out the voter initiatives as a means to counteract the inability of our electoral system to be able to handle margins of victory so small and margins of error so big.

Does anyone know of an Election Integrity group in Nevada? What about details on what kind of system(s) they use?

Another doc:

Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections

Uncounted exposes the systemic problems inherent in our system - Jim Crow-like voter suppression, voter intimidation, under-voting, provisional balloting, the privatization of the election process, and, yes, electronic voting.

http://www.uncountedthemovie.com

It started out as a little wondering. You watched Recount on HBO and thought, "Boy, that Kevin Spacey sure is a good actor...Hey, wait a minute! Are we better off as voters now then when we were in 2000?" And this wondering is getting louder. It's now a rumbling. Listen closely and you can hear it. You can hear it in the 15-page report jointly compiled and distributed by the Lawyers Committee and the National Campaign for Fair Elections (and first brought to our attention by the astute Mark Crispin Miller), that demonstrates, based on information gathered during this year's primary elections, that our state and county and local election systems are unprepared for a heavy turnout. We're not ready. Our election systems count on a low voter turn out and continued voter apathy. We're not ready. Few problems occur in affluent areas. We're not ready. The problems are concentrated in low income, Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. We're not ready. If the race is close, "mishaps at the polls could cause another Election 2000-styled fiasco." We're not ready. Among the worse states was Pennsylvania. We're not ready.

We're not ready for November.

We're not equipped to handle a massive voter turnout.

We're not equipped to handle the small margins that caused the confusion and lawsuits in Florida in 2000.

WE. ARE. NOT. READY.