November 25, 2008
Dear Friends:
While the ballots are still being counted, there’s no question that a record number of Californians voted in the November 2008 presidential election. At the California Voter Foundation, we helped make that possible by educating voters and securing the vote.
Now it’s time to ask for your support. Here’s the four-point case we have to make. It’s pretty impressive! Please give generously.
1. The California Online Voter Guide again provided reliable, non-partisan information to thousands of voters. More than a million visits to www.calvoter.org were logged in 2008, with over six million pages viewed. We doubled the traffic CVF had during the 2004 presidential election year.
2. It was not that long ago, back in 2003, when CVF was the only organization in the state, and one of few in the nation, to call for a voter-verified paper audit trail to back up electronic ballots. We went into the 2004 election knowing that all over the country, millions of ballots would be cast on paperless electronic voting machines that could not be verified. When it was over, cries of misconduct in Ohio, the final battleground state that tipped the presidential election, rang out across the nation.
After the 2004 election activists, computer scientists, election officials, lawyers, and good government groups all over the country worked to enact laws requiring paper ballots or voter-verified paper audit trails. The California Voter Foundation pushed for ballot security and paper trails in California not only to secure the votes here, but also because advancing election security in this bellweather state would have a ripple effect across the nation.
Before 2004, only six states required paper ballot records. In 2004, California was one of four states to enact a paper trail requirement. And then between 2005 and 2008, an additional 22 states enacted paper ballot or paper trail laws. By 2008 Ohio, Florida, and New Mexico, where past vote counts had been in dispute, had all dramatically improved ballot security. There is no doubt that the 2008 election was more secure.
3. California was also among the first states to enact a law requiring public hand-counting of a random sample of paper ballots to verify the accuracy of software ballot counts. California’s election verification law dates back to 1965 but in 2004 only a handful of states had similar laws. Now thanks in part to CVF’s leadership 24 states have enacted some kind of post-election verification to check the accuracy of vote-counting software. In 2004, few would have imagined that by the next presidential election more than half of the states would enact paper ballot requirements, and nearly half would require verification of vote-counting software. But that’s where we are, now.
We have come a very long way in a short time.
4. What new challenges lie ahead?
We escaped a bullet in 2008. If the vote had been close in a battleground state without paper ballots or verification laws, the U.S. might have faced another protracted vote-counting nightmare. California and the nation still need a voting process that is transparent, modern, reliable, accountable and efficient.
The California Voter Foundation will be focusing in the coming year on the potential for registering voters via the Internet in a secure and private manner. CVF will also play a role in the redistricting process which, after the passage of Proposition 11, will feature an independent commission to draw legislative districts.
And we are committed to working on reforms of voting and elections with local and state election officials and elected leaders to see that voting rights are enjoyed equally by all voters across California.
Please show your support for CVF as we wrap up another incredibly successful year and embark on new challenges and opportunities!
Can we count on your support? Your tax-deductible contribution will help CVF to bridge the gap between democracy and technology and keep California first-in-the-nation for accountability and integrity in elections.
Please use your credit card or send your generous donation to:
California Voter Foundation
2612 J Street, Suite 8
Sacramento, CA 95816
On behalf of the CVF board and staff, we wish you and yours a happy holiday season!
Sincerely,
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