Dear Senator Specter,

We are convinced that we are about to lose the viability of our votes.  Bucks County Commissioners appear to have chosen electronic voting systems which neither state nor federal governments have tested even as vigorously as slot machines are tested. 

We are having severe problems with implementing the Help America Vote Act here in Pennsylvania, as are so many other states.  We are not worried about insecurity with our old lever voting machines, nor do we want to deprive handicapped people of the right to vote privately.  What we do want is to know that our votes will be properly registered, recorded and counted, in other words, provable. 

Please consider our plight.  We are being asked to buy voting machines that are definitely inadequate to the task. The GAO’s report last September states that rather clearly.   Please have someone check our research at www.coalitionforvotingintegrity.org and introduce a bill into the Senate to save us from having to replace all of our voting machines until truly adequate safeguards are in place.

PLEASE try to get us more time before our local governments must choose new voting systems, without the loss of federal funds of any kind, HAVA or otherwise.  Representatives Michael Fitzpatrick, Rush Holt, John Peterson and Allyson Schwartz  are co-sponsors of HB 4666, which would do that, but we need someone in the Senate to introduce such legislation... and to see it through.  PLEASE help us by introducing a similar bill in the Senate, preferably before February 15th, by which time we expect our commissioners to have obligated us to buy insecure machines.  (Relevant legislation has been introduced at the federal level by Rep. Rush Holt, of New Jersey, in HR 550 and at the state level by Sen. Joe Conti, in SB 977 and Rep. Dan Frankel, in HB 2000.)

THANK YOU for continuing to work for us against some really tough odds.  We changed our registrations to Republican a couple of years ago, when you were facing a problem in the primary, because we believe that you're working for all of us. 

Sincerely,

T.J. and C. Fewlass

Langhorne, Pa.