Welcome to VotePA, the statewide non-partisan alliance of groups and individuals fighting for voting rights and election integrity in Pennsylvania. We were formed in early 2005 to work for fair, accurate, and accessible elections for all in the Keystone State. Our special area of expertise is in voting machines and voting systems. We believe that every voter has a right to verify that his or her vote is being recorded and counted as cast, and that elections should be transparent, meaningfully audited, and recountable. We believe in paper ballots over unverifiable electronic or internet voting.
VotePA's members belong to six different political parties, all united by our support for the right of each person to vote in free and equal elections as promised by Pennsylvania's State Constitution.?We educate our fellow citizens about?voting rights and voting systems, research and study, hold seminars and other public events, call and write to our elected officials, run for elected office ourselves, work for the candidates and political parties of our choice, serve as pollworkers, serve as pollwatchers, hold house parties, observe voting machine examinations,?inform the media,?write to our newspapers, lobby for changes in the laws to improve voting, blog, speak out, and most importantly -- WE VOTE.
Pennsylvania is a key swing state that could decide the course of our nation and its history, and we are one of the states at greatest risk for problems with our voting systems and our elections.
The right of each person to vote, and to have that vote counted accurately, is the absolute core of our democracy. Our vote is our voice in our government and way of life. When our forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence and formed the U.S. Constitution, they recognized that by voting we as citizens give our government its power.
This right to vote is sacred, purchased through the blood of many patriots over the last two hundred and thirty years. People have laid down their lives for our right to vote, both soldiers on the battlefield and ordinary citizens in places like the Pettus Bridge at Selma, Alabama.
In a time when we claim to be delivering democracy around the globe we must make certain that we uphold the most democratic values here at home. But sadly, recent elections have shown that our American right to vote may be in danger. Miscounts, lost votes, courts deciding elections rather than voters, and declining voter participation are all signs that the American electoral system is in deep trouble. ?[MORE]
Did your county have trouble with voting machines in the Election?
Many counties around the state reported problems on November 6.?Touchscreens were flipping votes, out of calibration,?power?went out, and in some?places?not enough emergency or provisional ballots were supplied.
Pennsylvania's?electronic voting machines are all at least 13 years old, or older.??These ancient touchscreen and pushbutton voting machines are wearing out. For many of?them?parts are getting hard to find. In the last Presidential Election, paperless voting machines reportedly switched votes from one candidate to the other on their screens, and there were other problems and failures. Worst of all, these paperless voting systems?cannot be audited without using their own software.?If something is corrupted in that software, we could have the wrong results -- and we'll never know.
It is time. Time to replace these old touchscreen and pushbutton dinosaurs with real paper ballots, marked by hand in most cases, with accessible assistive devices for voters who need them.