Please donate to Voters Unite.

[Eric J in MN]

"Voters Unite" provides news about election issues to activists througout America.

They support paper ballots.

A list of their accomplishments is at:
http://www.votersunite.org/AboutVotersUnite-Org.htm

They are having their first fundraiser.

The donation link is on the right of:
www.votersunite.org

[Zan_of_Texas]

1. The need is urgent!

They need to raise about $10K to support their work.

With over 60,000 DUers, this should be a piece of cake. We ALL care about the results of elections, and we ALL care that they be honest, and our representatives are those who we truly chose. We ALL care that those spending our tax dollars are those we selected, not fakes.

The Voters Unite team has worked full-time for a year, asking for nothing in return. The website alone with its amazing archives is worth this support.

Come on, DUers! We raised $50K for Andy. He needed it, and we need him.

Voters Unite needs it, and we need them just as badly. They are a crucial linchpin in the vote integrity movement.

CRUCIAL!

Voters Unite.org is one of the smartest, most unassuming, hardest-working, fairest, most effective groups on voting integrity I know of. We need them working!

If the money doesn't come in, I'm afraid their expertise could be lost to the movement. This is a case of them providing services for a year to the country at no cost, and now they must have some financial support coming back to them.

I know some of you have donated. Even $10 would be wonderful. I just sent $50, which is more than a month's entertainment budget for me.

Here is the mail-out they sent a few days ago.


From Voters Unite, May 15, 2005

We sincerely appreciate the donations that many of you have made during our fund-raising campaign. Unfortunately, we have only reached 20% of our goal and there are only six days left. BUT ... if each of you receiving this email donates $12.73, we will reach our goal. {UPDATE: NOW ONE-THIRD REACHED}

To donate online or to find our mailing address, go to: http://www.votersunite.org/donate.asp


In case you'd like to know what your money will be used for, we've appended a description of what we do. Please pass this email around to anyone you think might like to see our services continue.


Thanks,

~The VotersUnite.Org Team

John Gideon and Ellen Theisen



VotersUnite is a national non-partisan organization dedicated to fair and accurate elections. It focuses on distributing well-researched information on electronic voting and related issues to elections officials, elected officials, the media, and the public; as well as providing activists with information they need to work toward transparent elections in their communities.

VotersUnite.Org has been in existence for about 14 months, supported only by the principals and a few online donations. During that time, we have become recognized as leading experts and an invaluable resource – evidenced most powerfully by the Government Accountability Office's recent request for help finding documentation for their investigation into the 2004 election.


To date, our efforts have been dedicated exclusively toward working for election integrity in the United States, and this is the first time we have actively done any fund raising.

(See http://www.votersunite.org/donate.asp for online and snail mail methods of donating.)

However, we are at a crossroads and our future is uncertain. It is crucial that we raise $15,000 by May 21 to see us through the third quarter of 2005. Small donations are trickling in, but if we don't meet our goal, we will be forced to reevaluate our ability to continue.

Because we have been working on this issue for years and have made personal connections with hundreds of people in the movement, VotersUnite.Org has become a central node in a loose national network of activists. One of our most valuable functions is that we point people to the sources they need when they need them. This is why many people contact us with their questions and their discoveries. A few examples of our daily activities:

¨ Connecting an Oregon activist with a Wisconsin man who has written ballot testing guidelines that the Oregon group needs.


¨ Setting up a conference call between Palm Beach activists and a computer expert from California to discuss the materials required to audit a Palm Beach election.


¨ Examining public records requested in Arkansas with an activist from that state who is finding many election discrepancies.


¨ Providing key information to a candidate for City Council in a large Texas city to help justify an investigation into the suspect results reported by paperless e-voting machines in the May 2005 election.


We have also:

¨ Authored "Myth Breakers: Facts About Electronic Elections," which has become a staple in the voting integrity community. The document has been used by attorneys as testimony in lawsuits and by the Ohio state legislators working for voter-verified paper ballots in their state.


¨ Tracked issues from the 2004 election in an online "problem log," which was referenced in Representative Conyers' letter requesting the GAO to investigate the election. (VotersUnite.Org continues to track new 2004-election issues as they are revealed.)

¨ Testified before committees of both the Washington state legislature and the California legislature and were among the many Washington activists instrumental in the recent enactment of a voter-verified paper record bill in Washington state.

¨ Researched and analyzed reference information used to promote and justify the recount effort in New Mexico (which was defeated by the State Elections Board). Assisted with language for the New Mexico voter verified paper ballot bill that has passed through the legislature and was signed into law by Governor Richardson.


The ongoing services VotersUnite provides to the voting integrity community include:

¨ Producing handouts, flyers, and other informational materials, which are used by activists to inform themselves and their county and state officials. In addition to providing original materials, the VotersUnite.Org website has become a well-known repository for news articles, research documents and reports written by others, and even the lawsuit filed against Sequoia and Snohomish County, WA.

¨ Providing the "Daily Voting News" which is free to subscribers, giving a summary of the day's voting-related news articles to voting activists, elections officials, elected officials, media, attorneys, university professors, computer scientists and other interested parties. Many subscribers forward the daily email to their news groups and private lists.

¨ Writing articles on emerging information, such as the voting system standards work currently in progress. Some of these papers can be found at VoterTrustUSA (http://www.votetrustusa.org/), Lynn Landes' blog (http://www.ecotalk.org/NIST-EAC.htm) and The Dissident Voice (http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May05/Gideon0505.htm)

VotersUnite.Org is presently working with Michele Mulder, Representative Rush Holt’s aide, on the upcoming Lobby Days activities in Washington, DC. We were also recently invited to testify before the Elections Assistance Commission in Washington DC regarding the new 2005 voting systems qualification standards.

Please help us to continue our mission-critical work, assisting other organizations in their quest to ensure verifiable elections.

You can donate online or find our mailing address here: http://www.votersunite.org/donate.asp.

As you may be aware, we are not a 501 non-profit. We chose not to be so we didn't have any restrictions on what work we could do. If you prefer, we can arrange for a means for you to donate the money thru a 501(C)(3).

[Eric J in MN]

2. Good point (nt)

nt

[Moderator]

3. Locking, Fund-raising must be approved by the Administrators n/t