EDA 's Long-Term Campaign to Restore Election Integrity

Tags:

EDA works to defend the vote not only at election time, but full-time, year-round. We understand that restoring transparency and public accountability to the electoral process is a major social policy change that will require long-term, sustained commitment.

Election Verification Polling

EDA has conducted and commissioned numerous independent exit polls and voter surveys in counties across the nation during the 2006 midterm and 2008 presidential election cycles, providing an independent means of evaluating the validity of official election returns generated by trade-secret software owned by private corporations. In the absence of direct citizen observation of the vote-counting, or credible election auditing practices, these polls provide a valid means for independently assessing the veracity of intrinsically unverifiable electronic voting results. We continue to refine these methods and will, with your volunteer participation and funding support, continue to conduct exit polls and voter surveys in strategically selected locations in forthcoming elections.

Election Forensic Analysis

In computerized elections, citizens are denied access to the very evidence --ballots marked by voters-- necessary to confirm or deny the validity of officially reported election results. EDA has developed methods for independently assessing reported election results by comparing official precinct and county election returns to historical election baseline data, voter registration figures, pre-election tracking polls, and independently commissioned exit polls on election day. This multifactor analysis comparing reported election results to independently verifiable external measures can identify suspect patterns and internal contradictions in the election results indicating probability of accidental mistabulation or deliberate fraud to a very high degree of statistical certainty.

Media Messaging and Public Education

The unacceptable risks of computerized voting are rising into public awareness, but much more public education and advocacy will be needed to institute change in the U.S. electoral system. EDA is building media messaging capacity to provide consistent, corrective information and to issue alarms as necessary on a national scale.

Legal Action

Election Defense Alliance advocates a proactive, pre-emptive response to pervasive breaches in election security and obstruction of the public's right to know. We are devising legal tactics and assembling evidence to support legal intervention before, during, and after elections to enforce effective security procedures and uphold the public's right to monitor electoral processes and inspect public documents without obstruction.

Support for Local Organizing

Because we recognize that all elections are local, Election Defense Alliance emphasizes electoral integrity action at the level of local electoral jurisdiction. We support those efforts by developing research, fundraising, and publicity capacity on a national level and then channeling those resources where they can be applied most effectively: at the county and township level where elections are conducted.

Legislative Policy

Although we regard decentralized electoral administration and local citizen vigilance as the best prescription for election protection, EDA recognizes the present opportunity to repair damage wrought by HAVA (the Help America Vote Act of 2002) and avert similarly misguided and harmful federal legislation now and in the future. We will warn against ill-advised nonsolutions, recommend effective measures to counter electronic voting dangers, and promote handcounted paper ballots and manual audits as the solutions necessary to restore electoral integrity.