Contacts: Kip Humphrey, 713/956-8792
For Immediate Release Vickie Karp, 512/775-3737
Attn: Political assignments desk
Press Conference and participant interviews: begin at 10 a.m.
The Evidence IS IN!
2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ASSESSMENT HEARING
PRESENTING STARTLING ELECTION DATA CRITICAL TO OUR DEMOCRACY
NATIONAL EXPERTS GATHER IN HOUSTON, TEXAS, June 29th, 2005
WHO: Technical and professional experts, journalists, computer programmers and engineers, and statisticians from around the country will gather for a citizen-initiated hearing on election problems and corruptible voting systems. By addressing many of the problems encountered and documented during the November 2004 election that the James Baker/Jimmy Carter Commission is not scheduled to address, the Election Assessment Hearing will complement that commission's work and thus provide a more complete picture of election problems to the American public and key state government officials.
WHAT: A non-partisan evidentiary public hearing surveying critical data needed for the repair of our democratic election processes. Highly documented, empirically gathered data will be presented to a hearing panel representing quality process improvement experts and electoral process stakeholders to reveal the extent of crisis and corruption of our elections systems and processes. A committee of quality assessment and process improvement experts will then assess the evidence provided in testimony and by written submissions. The resulting quality assessment along with specific recommendations for electoral process reforms will be forwarded to the Carter-Baker Commission and the 50 Secretaries of State for their consideration prior to making purchasing decisions on voting equipment in compliance with Help American Vote Act (HAVA) deadlines.
WHY: Our electoral processes are in crisis and subject to multiple failures that breach the full faith and trust of the electorate and threaten the integrity of our system of government. Furthermore, due to deadlines associated with the Help American Vote Act (HAVA), every Secretary of State is facing decisions critical to electoral processes without the benefit of a sound nonpartisan quality assessment of problems with those processes evidenced in the last national election. Failures of election equipment, registration procedures, voter accessibility, vote processing systems, ballot accessibility, election auditing, election worker training, process transparency, election accuracy and process reliability will be addressed and examined at the Election Assessment Hearing.
WHERE: The Garden Center at Hermann Park, 1500 Hermann Drive, Houston, Texas 77004
WHEN: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29th, 2005, 8:30 am 5:30 pm
PRESENTERS: Bev Harris, Black Box Voting; Bob Fitrakis, American Free Press; Kathy Dopp, U.S. Counts Votes; Judy Alter, Election Investigator; Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips, Legal Statistician; Ted Selker, Caltcch/MIT Voting Technology Project; David Cobb, Green Party Presidential Candidate 2004; Lynn Landes, Election Investigator and Freelance Journalist; Linda Curtis, Independent Texans; Sharona Merel, National Ballot Integrity Project; David Wager, Verifiable Votes Coalition of Houston (partial list)
