News from Defend the Vote

“A GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATION”

by Sharon Meroni, ©2013, Defend the Vote

(Dec. 10, 2013) — We all know the elections in Illinois are bad, but who would have guessed that the election equipment in Chicago and Suburban Cook County hasn’t been legally certified? Hindsight is 20/20, but I don’t think any of us could have predicted Defend the Vote’s recent discoveries.

The New Year is nearly here, and along with 2014 comes two extremely important elections. There is much work to do to prepare! Did you know that about 28% of the vote is done through early voting in Illinois? Defend the Vote’s research has uncovered a dangerous practice in Chicago and Suburban Cook County; they don’t properly secure the memory devices that record the early vote! Even worse, we discovered last week that the Illinois State Board of Elections does not check the computer logs, so there is essentially no one checking the integrity of 28% of the vote in Illinois! Further, thanks to recent changes in the laws governing the provisional votein Illinois, your vote is more at risk than ever before!

Left unchecked, the Illinois government has no incentive to assure we have honest elections; and it seems Illinois’ politicians have used their power as incumbents to further erode the integrity of our vote.

Defend the Vote is not going to let that happen. Our grassroots organization funds and conducts game changing research on your vote with the sole objective to assure that our elections are honest, transparent, and fair; but we need your help!

We are working to raise $100,000 before the end of the year. These funds will allow us to move forward with Argonne National Laboratory’s vulnerability assessment for the 2014 elections, as well as continue our work to get the illegal voting machines out of our precincts. We are truly a grassroots organization, and this is an amazing opportunity to help make a real difference in Illinois’ elections.

We can only fix Illinois’ elections by working together. Please help us raise $100,000 by December 31st and change Illinois’ elections for the better by making a donation now?

Sharon Meroni,
Executive Director, Defend the Vote