State Senator Debra Bowen for California Secretary of State
What Senator Bowen will do as Secretary of State will help fix voting problems across the country. This is the most strategic single election in the United States this year.
Senator Bowen has led the charge against the certification of the dangerous Diebold electronic voting machines -- holding hearings, taking testimony from experts, and standing up to Secretary of State McPherson's irresponsible decisions.
As Chair of the Senate Elections Committee, Senator Bowen has the experience we need to do the job. She knows the subject of elections so well she has informed a president of a testing company of the right way to do his job.
Senator Bowen will ensure that California's 55 Electoral College votes are safe from vote tampering and voter suppression.
Senator Bowen will establish effective security, audit and recount procedures that will be the model for the rest of the country.
Ever since Senator Bowen was first elected in 1992, she has been a pioneer in opening up our government to the people.
Senator Bowen has the intelligence to know what's right for California's voters, and the integrity and initiative to make sure it's done...
Bowen's Five Point Plan For Cleaning Up California Elections
Ensure that every vote is counted exactly as it was cast. That means requiring every electronic voting machine to have a paper trail that can be counted to verify the vote, and it means establishing tough auditing requirements for all voting equipment. Right now slot machines have tougher security and audit requirements than voting machines! Voting machines that don't meet strict security and accuracy standards should not be used in California.
Correct our voter registration system to ensure that every eligible voter who registers is placed on the voter rolls. As you probably have seen in the news, thousands of eligible voters who have filled out a voter registration form have not been put on the voter rolls due to the Secretary of State's poorly planned implementation of new laws.
Reform the initiative and proposition process to avoid another costly special election like we had last year. Ballot measure sponsors must be forced to disclose whether signature gatherers are being paid, and just who is paying to collect signatures to qualify for the ballot. Voters deserve to know BEFORE they sign a petition whether corporate special interests are underwriting the measure!
Improve access to information on who is contributing money in the political process, how that money is spent, and how much money is used to lobby for and against legislation. Citizens need to be able to follow the money.
Improve the election process -- and increase public participation in elections -- by reducing long lines and equipment failures at the polls -- and improve training for poll workers.
Bowen Quote
"We cannot have a legitimately constituted government that runs on trade secret software where no one can see what the voting machines are doing. So I've taken the lead in California for publicly owned software where everyone can see every line in the computer code, and to keep voting equipment that's not secure or reliable and can't be verified, from being used in our elections..." - From the video "Debra on Taking Back Our Elections"
Nobody, and no machine, should be counting
American votes in secret.
For further information, email Jim Soper at :
Jim.Soper@GMail.com
CountedAsCast.com/bowen/bowen.php
(August 1, 07)
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