Report on Phantom Ballots in Allegheny County available

Now available is our report on the “phantom ballots” that were recorded in Allegheny County in the 2008 general election. PA Verified Voting helped us organize a coalition of voters to conduct the audits of the voting machine logs

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT (pdf)

We discovered that almost 16% of all precincts recorded “phantom” ballots, which means  more votes are recorded than there were voters there to cast them.  We estimate that there were about 400 phantom votes recorded total for the whole county.

This amount of phantom votes isn’t enough to have affected the outcome of the presidential election.  But, since local elections generally have a much lower turnout than a presidential election, a few hundred votes can easily make a big enough difference to sway a close race.

We think voters have a right to know their voting machines are working.  It’s going to open up a whole world of possible contested elections around here until this is fixed.  The next step would be for the county to make the audit logs for the machines available, so that the origin of the phantom ballots could be determined.  Right now the county is not releasing those.  Until they do, it’s going to be hard to address this problem.

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT (pdf)

Tags: allegheny county, audit, ballot, cast, electronic, logs, phantom ballots, pittsburgh, voter, voting machines

Check out our 2009 Voter Guide

See candidate responses for Mayor, City Council, School Board, County Council, and even the Judicial races here on our website:

http://pahotsheet.com/2009-voter-guide

We wanted to make sure we got answers from the candidates on important issues, so we collaborated with the Sierra Club Allegheny Group and Planned Parenthood of Western PA to come up with the questions for this voter guide.

Consider this one more tool in your arsenal to elect the most responsive and responsible government possible.  More voter guides are coming from groups like A+ Schools and the League of Women Voters, and we’ll link them here once they’re available, too.

And please join us for our Voter Guide Release Party, Saturday April 4th at Town Tavern on Carson Street from 9pm-Midnight.  A $5 donation gets you in for a make-your-own-taco bar with chips and salsa and also a cheese-and-veggie option, with $2 wine, beer, and well drinks.

Add in a DJ and the chance to meet and chat with some of the candidates, and you’ve got a great night and can help us with our mission to inform and turn out young voters.  (Roxanne and I are guest bartending!)

We’d love to get your feedback, so please leave a comment or send us an email with your thoughts and suggestions.

-Carly

Tags: allegheny county, candidates, city council, common pleas, commonwealth court, county council, election, judicial, local, mayor, mayoral, Pennsylvania, pittsburgh, primary, school board, superior court, supreme court, vote, voter, voter guide

541 Early Voting Petition Signatures

In less than two months, we collected 541 signatures to support early voting in PA. A big thumbs-up to everyone who signed, and a special thanks to Jessica Weingarten on the Eastern side of the state for collecting additional signatures.

Constituents’ signatures from over half of all the senate districts in PA were collected.  They were mailed off to Harrisburg today, and put in the hands of Sen. Daylin Leach of Montgomery County, who sponsored the senate version of the legislation.

“This bill would do three things. It would expand opportunities for people to vote, shorten lines on Election Day, and allow time for disputes to be resolved,” said Sen. Leach.

We here at the PA League agree that the early voting option provides a form of election protection in that there’s time to address voting machine errors, a reduction in long lines on election day, and is without the concern of absentee ballot fraud.

Anything that responsibly makes voting easier and, therefore, more likely that more people will vote, is a good thing in our book.

Considering that turnout for the last presidential election was still only about 62% of all registered voters (no even counting citizens who could register but still haven’t), our country still needs to promote voting and make it easier in order for us to truly realize a participatory democracy and have an accountable government.

Anyway, I’m proud of our work on this.  We’ll be sure to keep you informed on what happens.  The full text of SB 445 and HB 238 (intoduced by Rep. Eugene DePasquale of York County) is available online.  And it’s not too late to contact your senator or representative about this — their info can always be found here.

Yours,
Carly Dobbins-Bucklad, Director

Tags: early voting, legislation, Pennsylvania, petitions, senate, signatures, turnout

Voter Guide Release Party — Sat., April 4th

Join us upstairs at The Town Tavern on the South Side April 4th from 9pm to Midnight for our spring Voter Guide Release Party and fundraiser, where a $5 donation gets you:

* FREE food (build your own taco bar! cheese tray!  chips & salsa!) from 9pm-10pm

* $2 everything: glasses of wine, domestic bottles, well drinks

* Our primary voter guid e!

Roxanne will be guest bartending, and all day long prior to the party we’ll be tabling at Joseph Beth’s down the street where we get 20% of all purchases, so stop by and then hang out to get this political season kicked-off!

Tags: election, food, fundraiser, Party, Pennsylvania, pittsburgh, primary, release, the town tavern, vote, voter guide, Youth

Upcoming High School Voter Registration Events

If you know seniors at these high schools who aren’t registered, let them know we’re coming to them!

• Tuesday March 24th @ Montour High School
• Wednesday March 25th @ Northgate High School
• Tuesday March 31st @ Brashear Highschool
• Tuesday April 7th @ The Neighborhood Academy

It will be our first time registering new voters in Northgate and The Neighborhood Academy, so we’re pretty excited.  More dates and schools to come!

*Also, if you’d like to help register new voters before the April 20th deadline, email roxanne@paleague.com

Tags: election, engaged, high schools, pittsburgh public schools, politics, voter registration, Youth

People=Power: free workshop March 28th

SATURDAY MARCH 28th
GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING INSTITUTE: 
People = Power

The GO Institute is a program designed to train concerned citizens of the community to become more active in the political process, and to teach them how to encourage their fellow members of the community to get involved on a grassroots level.

The PA League of Young Voters Education Fund uses the expertise of people who have been active members in the community to train others in order to build power in communities that are disenfranchised and underserved.

This workshop will provide real-world insight, best practices, and guided practice about how to analyze and prepare information about your issue and the people you want to move.

Leading this Workshop:

* Roxanne Banks-Williams - Director of Education for PA League of Young Voters Education Fund

* Lou Takacs - political consultant & Policy Coordinator for the office of State Representative Chelsa Wagner

* Paradise Gray - Hip Hop Pioneer: DJ of the X Clan, founding member of One Hood, community activist

* Mac Booker - Finance Director of Patrick Dowd’s mayoral campaign and long-time political activist

SCHEDULE:
10:00am-10:30- Introductions and refreshments
10:30-11:30-Discussion: How to target the right people to reach out to in order to get your goal accomplished. (ie. Constituents, Community organizations, community leaders, and political leaders)
11:30-12:00pm- Conducting Background Research
12:00-12:15- Break
12:15-1:00- Research Exercise
1:00-1:30- LUNCH
1:30-2:00- Discussion: How to use who/what you know to build power
2:00-3:00- How to do Power Mapping

Please RSVP to roxanne@paleague.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you plan to attend; lunch is provided so your RSVP is necessary.

Pass it on:  this event is on Facebook

This training is FREE and open to the public!

Tags: free, organizing, pittsburgh, public, training, workshop, Youth

Last chance for early voting

We’re nearing our deadline to collect Early Voting petition signatures.  We’re about to box ‘em up and ship them off to the state Senate to make sure they know that their constituents want to see greater accessibility and accountability at the polls.

Combining information about the candidates with making voting easier is the recipe for the kind of informed, consistent civic participation that we’ve always hoped for.

*Click here to sign the petition and add your name to the list of supporters!*

Click here to read the proposed legislation, SB 445, introduced by Senator Daylin Leach of Montgomery County.  SB 445 was referred to the State Government committee on Feb. 24th, 2009.

The Senate State Government committee members are as follows:

McIlhinney, Charles T., Jr. , Chair (Bucks & Montgomery Counties)
Folmer, Mike, Vice Chair (Berks, Chester, Dauphin, Lancaster and Lebanon Counties)
Williams, Anthony H. , Minority Chair (Delaware and Philadelphia (part) Counties)
Scarnati, Joseph B., III, ex-officio (Cameron, Clearfield, Elk, Jefferson, Mckean, Potter, Tioga and Warren Counties)

Brubaker, Michael W. (Chester and Lancaster Counties)
Corman, Jake (Centre, Juniata, Mifflin, Perry and Union Counties)
Pippy, John (Allegheny and Washington Counties)
White, Donald C. (Armstrong, Butler, Clearfield, Indiana and Westmoreland Counties)

Dinniman, Andrew E. (Chester and Montgomery Counties)
Tartaglione, Christine M. (Philadelphia County)
Washington, Leanna M. (Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties)

Tags: early voting

League Book Fair at Joseph Beth Saturday!

Come to Joseph Beth Booksellers in the South Side Works this Saturday, March 14 for a book fair and fundraiser. When you present our coupon (which you can find here) at the register, they will donate 20% of your purchase to us! How cool is that?

They’re open between 10 AM and 10 PM, and we’ll be there tabling and giving away baked goods between 12pm and 9pm that day. So come on down after the St. Patrick’s Day parade, buy books, and help empower the youth vote at the same time.

Tags: book fair, fundraiser, joseph beth

POWERSHIFT’09: What it was

The largest lobby day in history.

That was what we were told we would be a part of on Monday when we arrived. And it was repeated more than once over the weekend, may have even become the mantra: we, over 10,000 eighteen-to-twentysomethings, would swarm the halls of our Congress to demand clean and green legislative action on climate change.

And so we did. Monday was off to a great start; there was a blizzard the night before and those of us who weren’t staying close to the Capitol had a slow time of it taking transit into the city in the morning, with at least 6 inches of snow and counting.

But we made it, and our crew in particular visited Congressman Tim Murphy and Congressman Mike Doyle’s offices to talk to their staffers in charge of energy and environmental policy. Twenty people, much less young people, showing up at a rep’s office is pretty unusual, and so we know we made a visual impact. Meanwhile, other groups who had come to Powershift from all over the country were meeting with their representatives and senators. (Proud to say, though, that Pennsylvania had the second-largest number of attendees at 600).

The conference itself offered lots of opportunity to focus on your particular interests or fill in the gaps — I attended a session that specifically spelled out things to look for in really strong legislation against climate change– and there were also movies, chances to meet and talk state-by-state, and lengthy training sessions where we role-played how to lobby a member of Congress on Monday (Mac and I volunteered to help with the training, which consisted of us pretending to be the elected member that the group was trying to lobby; this was pretty fun for me).

But what we could not have ever expected or hoped for, this particular conference also gave us: robot fights. That’s right folks, there were robot fights going on at the Powershift conference…okay, that’s not exactly true; really, the regional high school robotics competition was also taking place at the Washington Convention Center, and the we definitely made the most of our down-time checking it out.

We met some pretty awesome people in PA from all different schools and organizations that we’re looking forward to working with — we hope to have a follow-up event soon; maybe you can come and meet them, too.

-Carly

Tags: #powershift09, climate change, conference, grassroots, green, green jobs, largest, lobby, organizers, Pennsylvania, pittsburgh, policy, powershift, students for a greener pittsburgh, Washington DC, Youth, Youth Vote

Early Voting in Pennsylvania

So Pennsylvania might finally join the 31 other states in having the option to cast an early ballot for elections.

Early voting legislation recently introduced by Rep. DePasquale in the state House and parallel legislation in the state Senate by Sen. Leach seeks to make counties offer times for people to cast their ballot on at minimum the weekends and possibly some weekdays starting two weeks before an election.

The legislation would allow those whose work schedules or other commitments or constraints to make sure they can get their ballot cast.  It would also allow get-out-the-vote efforts more time to mobilize voters, and help reduce long lines and machine errors on election day from keeping voters away.

This legislation is partially necessary because the state constitution does not allow absentee ballots to be used for anything other than the specific reasons listed.  (And heck, even Iraq has early voting.)

The PA League of Young Voters is collecting petition signatures to give to the Senate committees indicating the support for this legislation.

Support Early Voting in PA

SIGN THE PETITION ONLINE

Volunteer to help with the petition drive — join our canvassing efforts or request copies of the petition to distribute yourself. Email mac@paleague.com.

Tags: absentee, disenfranchised, early voting, pa league of young voters, Pennsylvania, pittsburgh, voters, Voting