Green Party Presidential Candidate
Joins ?Divestiture for Democracy?

LoneStar Iconoclast   22 March 2005

WASHINGTON ? Green Party Presidential candidate David Cobb has endorsed the Velvet Revolution?s ?Divestiture for Democracy? campaign that seeks to assure accurate and fair voting procedures in future elections.
Cobb last week sent a letter to voting machine companies urging them to adopt VR?s recommendations to restore confidence in the electoral system.
The Green Party candidate told voting machine companies in his letter: ?As an American citizen and a recent presidential candidate, I want to have faith in the vote counting process. Unfortunately, with more than 50,000 documented instances of irregularities in the past election, I am unable to trust either the vote counting process or its results without an open, accountable and independent method of public verification.
?Public involvement and oversight in the voting process is essential. The integrity of our democracy demands that steps must be taken immediately to restore faith in our elections and the winners that they produce. These steps must include: having a paper ballot for each vote cast, independent analysis of voting machine software and hardware, open software source code, no contributions from voting companies to candidates for public office, no networking of machines and the public dissemination of all relevant voting data and documents.?