Voting in L.A.

Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles has an important request:

Dear PDLA: From Karen Indreland, PDLA Election Protection organizer, comes an urgent request for your participation and attendance at the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, April 19th, 10 AM, 500 West Temple, LA, 90012 (#57 on the agenda). Plan to spend the day, agendas are not reliable. PDLA will ask supervisors to vote to secure the Ink-a-Vote System and Micro Tally System. Ink-a-vote is the current county voting system, where you darken in the ovals on paper ballots. PDLA will also support upgrades for audio/keypads for the blind and Second Chance voting to alert those who have under-voted (not voted for a candidate) or over-voted (voted for more than one candidate). LA County Registrar Conny McCormack is advocating the use of Ink-a-Vote System, which we support. But just as urgently and importantly we must make a public plea to block a two-year struggle to replace our existing tabulation machines (Micro Tally System) with Diebold GEMS-2. Diebold's CEO promised to deliver Ohio to Bush. We do not want to invest our millions or our faith in such a partisan company. On the question of upgrades, there is no contest. Will it be ES&S or Unisyn (Carlsbad)? Unisyn is the only company offering a print out ballot from our audio/keypad. The ES&S is a tally-only system. PDLA supports Unisyn for the upgrades. In addition we will put on record our request to remove the Touch Screen Voting machines, which do not provide a paper trail. We want the county to replace these machines with Ink-a-Vote system upgrades to meet the HAVA requirements for tabulation. If the Governor is successful in calling for a special election next year, we want to make sure we have a paper trail for all votes. Please spread the word and ask as many activists to show up so we can secure our Micro Tally System along with our Ink-a-Vote. Even if you do not testify, your attendance will be a show of support. When PDLA takes a stand against paperless machines or Diebold tabulators, you, too, can take a stand by literally standing to show your support. Although the meeting will be televised, we need the media to cover it. Please email or call with suggestions or assistance. Thank you, Karen Indreland - fashionmatrix@yahoo.com

Progressive Demorats of America.... Finally, a group of Democrats DOING SOMETHING to pick up our fallen nation. Let's give them all the support we can: vocally, financially and participatory.