Contra Costa Democratic Party

When Secretary of State Debra Bowen was attacked this week, we fought back.

On Tuesday, we asked you to write a letter to your newspaper to Stand up for Debra Bowen. Over 450 of you responded, and your letters were published in the LA Times, SF Chronicle, Sac Bee and other newspapers throughout the state. But the attacks continue.

Now it’s time to send a message of support directly to Debra Bowen telling her how grateful we are that she’s courageously standing up for us against corporations who sell hackable voting machines.

So show Debra Bowen some love by putting your name on our petition, and we’ll deliver this message of appreciation to her on Valentine’s Day:

“Thank you for the courage you have shown in standing up to the electronic voting machine corporations to make sure that our elections are secure and that each one of our votes is counted accurately.

“We know that you have bravely fought to protect the integrity of our votes, and we want you to know that you’re not standing alone. Don’t back down. We’re proud of you and we’re standing behind you!”

www.cadem.org/petition

Here’s some background. Last summer, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced that she was decertifying Diebold and Sequoia’s electronic voting machines throughout California because they failed to meet the minimum security requirements necessary to protect our votes. The Sac Bee told this story:

[Debra Bowen] said the touch-screen machines should be taken out of commission — with limited use for voters with disabilities — after her teams of University of California, Berkeley, and UC Davis computer scientists hacked into electronic voting machines and changed results on models used by 43 of California’s 58 counties.

“Throughout the history of this country, we’ve had people trying to steal elections,” Bowen said in an interview a few weeks later. “It’s like Willie Sutton being asked: ‘Why do you rob banks?’ Because that’s where the money is. Well, elections are where the power is. So we have to make the assumption that there may be … some person who wishes to change the outcome.

“The implications of that are so extraordinary we ought to design things so that it’s not possible.”

Debra Bowen put her political career on the line to stand up for fairness and to ensure that all of our votes would count. As a result of her brave decision, Bowen has received non-stop criticism from Republicans and other Diebold apologists.

In fact, her predecessor, Republican Bruce McPherson, claimed that Bowen is “‘leading a premeditated campaign against voting machines in a political pitch to conspiracy theorists.’

Just last week, a Riverside County Supervisor leveled this charge against Bowen: “This was a shoot-from-the hip political maneuver to help her gain name recognition. This is purely a waste of taxpayer money.”

This is your chance to send a message that you support election integrity. Stand up for Debra Bowen and applaud the bold and courageous actions she’s taken to protect the vote of each and every Californian; and on February 14th we’ll deliver your message of encouragement to her office.

This Valentine’s Day, let’s make sure Debra Bowen knows that she’s not standing alone.

Sincerely,

Senator Art Torres (Ret.)
Chairman

P.S. If the links above don’t work for you, just go to www.cadem.org/petition to sign the petition