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Americans for Voter Reform is truly a grass roots organization. Citizens form all parties have come together to focus on a single issue, reforming the election process in America. We want to see fundamental changes in two areas. First, cleanup and maintain our voter roles with efficiency and integrity. Second, standardize all voting equipment nationwide and establish simple yet firm procedures for all elections.  We do not want to add to the current laws state by state or county by county, we want one law nationwide to govern the process of voter registration and the casting and counting of ballots. We do not want to address the type of primary elections, the electoral college process or other election issues. Below is a short summary of what type of changes we are proposing.

This list is by no means complete nor written in stone. The approach is the same used in the credit card industry and military security systems.

• Assume that criminals will do everything they can to defeat the system.
• Assume that people will make mistakes, so you need to notify them of their mistakes during the voting process and help them correct the mistakes before the vote is cast. (under voting and over voting)
• Assume that government officials will try to find a way to abuse their power.

We do not want the Federal government to

• Dictate the type of election the states use. I.E. primary type, party notification rules, FTPT, or other methods of the elections. These are States rights. State should decide these issues and so the equipment provided by the federal government should accommodate the requirements of the state election
• Federal government will not man the local equipment
• No one should have the ability to know who you voted for without you giving them the information from your ballot receipt.

The system should be designed and built with the safeguards to protect against these assumptions. Basically believe no one, trust no one, depend on no one, but offend no one and refuse no one. The goal of our proposal is to put the power of the ballot back into the hands of the individual voter and not in the hands for the volunteers or any government body. The problem with funding federal mandates would be removed for State and local governments. At the same time the cost savings on one national system would offset the cost of implementing and maintaining the system. There are still issues to solve. What about voters in nursing homes or other who find it difficult to go to store let alone the polls? AFVR invites every American to help us prefect the list of requirements for the best voting system possible because as Americans we deserve the best and shouldn’t settle for less.

 

The proposed changes are in two parts.

 

1. Voter Registration

Your right to vote is not given to you by any state. It is a right of your United States citizenship. Your residence only serves to provide you with the choices of whom you can vote for, but not your right to vote. We want the federal government to provide and pay for the means of verifying the voter rolls. This is a network to verify voter rolls through out the year and also to record simply when someone has voted. The voter would come to the election worker to check in as they do today, before being allowed to go into the voting booth. If the voter is already registered then only steps 2 and 3 would be required.  Once the voter is confirmed, then they would be given a standard reusable green key to allow them activate the voting booth screen and cast their ballot. Once they finish voting they would deposit the key with the ballot. The key would fall though the scanner box and be collected and reused for other voters. There would only be two of three for these keys for each booth. They will only work in the one precinct location and have no voter data on them. It is simple a hardware match key.

If the voter has not already registered then steps 1 2 and 3 could be done at the time of voting. If the voter could not be confirmed by the system they would have to cast a provisional ballot. They would get a provisional reusable red key.  The only difference between the standard key and a provisional key is the color, and that it will tell the booth to add a provisional marker on the ballot so that the scanner will not except it. This provisional key will also not be accepted by the scanner box as was the standard key. This forces the ballot and key to be returned to the election worker for processing. There would only be one or two provisional keys at each location.

Options 4 and 5 do not apply to the election day activities.

1. Allow all voters registrations to be run against State and Federal felony records, immigration records, other state voter rolls, Death records and other relevant government databases. 
2. Verify ID
3. Record that the person has voted so they can not vote more than once.
4. Allow all voters registrations to be updated through Drivers license offices, welfare offices and social security offices
5. Provide access to the individual voter to his or her voter registration information when requested with their personal pin and other safe guard info. Similar to your credit card info.  Future info would include, where and when to vote. Who is on the ballot you will be using. Past info would only show if you voted.  But not who you voted for.

2. The voting booth and related equipment. 

The following is just one of the proposed ballot systems. We have many variations documented but have selected this as our example for the website. The ballot booth and the central optical scanner deposit box would be standardized nationwide. We do not want the federal government to run every election. But we do want the federal government to pay for equipment. The local election boards have always run the elections and always will. We just want the federal government to provide one type of equipment for all states. This equipment would guard against local groups manipulating the election outside the rules.  It would also record the actions of those running the local elections to be used to troubleshot problem. Most importantly it would standardize the accounting of all ballots and balance them against the number of registered voters at the time of the election. The system should also make it easier to train local volunteers to run their own elections. This equipment will not change the method or style of election each state uses. It would create the ballot according to State format, then generate the paper copies as stated below and allow a systematic, highly accountable vote counting process.

 

1. The states would not pre print ballots. The voter would be the only one who could print their own ballot. This gives each voter complete control over their own ballot and prevents any government, Local, State or Federal, from producing ballots without a voter. The voter would compare their ballot on the screen and on  paper before submitting their vote.
2. There are 3 recorded counts for each ballot and all must agree. All come from the electronic ballot booth that prints the ballot and the voters receipt.  First, the printed ballot that is put into the scanner (like current scanners used today). This would be used for recounts by the government and be the official ballot. Second an electronic document saved without voter identity but does have a serial # which the voter could provide from their receipt if they want to see if their vote was recorded correctly. Third, the voter’s receipt it’s self, if the voter chooses to save their receipt it could also be used to replace a lost official ballot for a recount. The official ballot and receipt would share the same serial # as the electronic document. The number of ballots would always have to equal the number of persons whom were recorded as having voted by the registration system.
3. All the documents would be scanner perfect. No hand marks on them. There would always be a no vote option added for each position. So the voter can vote for a candidate or say they don’t like either and select no vote for that office. This is where the government has started this Voter intent stuff to justify editing your ballot. The voter would still have the option to write in a candidate just like they sign for their credit card during purchases that is common today.
4. At least one booth at each polling location would be connected real-time to the national network. It would have access to all ballots nation wide. This will allow voters to vote where ever there is a polling station setup. Polling stations outside the US, in our foreign embassies, conciliates, and military ships and remote government installations, would all have real-time connections to get the correct ballot for the remote absentee voter.

 

If you think these are good ideas and that we are headed in the right direction, please click here to create an account and get your free information packet you can help make it a reality.

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