Democracy begins with people exercising their right to vote and ensuring that every vote is recorded and counted correctly. Unfortunately, ever since the 2000 election, it has been clear that citizens and their officials can no longer take for granted the complex systems that govern our elections, which are administered and overseen primarily by county and state officials. From the standpoint of both the technological and human dimensions, our elections are in disrepair, and it is up to us as citizens to make sure that they are fixed.

Perhaps the most dangerous threat that bores into the foundation of our democracy, causing cracks in our faith and trust, is the vast amounts of financial profits involved in the big business of selling electronic computerized vote machines. These machines, often referred to as DREs (direct recording electronic systems), are insecure and unreliable. In addition, they lack the crucial functions of voter verification of ballot choices and the capacity for independent audits and recounts.

Legions of computer security experts make the case that these machines are “black boxes,” unworthy of the ballots that are cast through them. (See the 2008 Princeton University report on the critical security and customer interface design failures of the Sequoia AVC Advantage vote machine.)  Yet with the help of huge federal subsidies and a startlingly dysfunctional approval process (see "Who Tests Voting Machines?"), unaccountable corporate vendors have peddled these inadequate and overpriced machines to local election boards across the nation.

Sadly, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Montgomery County, the three largest counties in Pennsylvania, are now saddled with these machines. Overall, 50 of our Commonwealth's 67 counties use them. Yet the election reform movement in Pennsylvania and across the nation has never been stronger.  The momentum is reversing toward  the transparent and accountable election administration worthy of a great nation.  No more electronic votes swallowed up such as those in Sarasota County, Florida in
2006. No more secret computer code for vote counting. No more conflicts
of interest in the lax certification of voting machines and an end to
the need for “blind faith” in our elections.

We, citizens of wide-ranging political affiliations and beliefs, are starting to be heard in the media, in the Congress, at the statehouse and at the county courthouse. Our non-partisan message goes beyond even election integrity.  We call for the removal of needless structural barriers to voter participation, including those in the form of antiquated and cumbersome voter registration procedures.  We call for substantive campaign finance reform, preferably, public financing of campaigns, that will finally put a stranglehold on the "cash-and-carry" politics that tears at the fabric of our democracy.  And we call for legislative redistricting reform to ensure that voters choose their congresspeople and state legislators, rather than having their legislators choose their voters through the design of gerrymandered district boundaries.  Democracy requires nothing less.