Citizens' Initiative to Adopt Proposal for Transparent and Verifiable Elections

Government in a democracy is created to guarantee the free exercise by citizens of their unalienable right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Elections ensure that the People provide a check against the illegitimate exercise of power by government against the interests of citizens. Therefore, voting is the fundamental right that protects all other rights. Because even dictatorships hold elections, the act of voting does not guarantee the liberties of a free People. Only when citizens are involved in the conduct of elections to the maximum extent possible do elections in a democracy have meaning. The survival of democracy requires the recognition that all legitimate political power is held by the People. Our right to hold government accountable through the conduct of elections has been seriously undermined by a concerted effort to remove citizens from the process of electing our government representatives. The current crop of representatives have sold our heritage to the lowest bidder by giving property rights in the very fabric of democracy to commercial interests. Today private businesses own the right to count our votes in secret using computers that deny citizens the ability to verify that the reported results of an election truly reflect the will of the People. Independent scientific studies have proven that no computerized system can secure elections from fraud when votes are cast anonymously as they must be. In spite of these studies, election officials continue to risk the legitimacy of elections to electronic (secret) vote counting.

We, the Undersigned, conclude that our liberties are currently under attack by government officials and commercial interests that place efficiency, convenience, and profits above the democratic principles of accountability, transparency, and verifiability. In order to restore the proper role of citizens as the only group entitled to determine how elections will be conducted, and to ensure that elections reflect the intent of the voters, the Undersigned reclaim their right to count the votes in public at their precincts immediately after the close of the polls. A Proposal has been submitted to the Secretary of State to require elections officials to organize elections in a way that permits maximum participation by citizens through the historic process of hand counting tangible ballots at the precincts on Election Day. (See Psephos Spotlight at www.psephos-us.org for full proposal.)

We hereby petition the California Secretary of State to adopt the Proposal as the only method for conducting elections that guarantees the perpetuation of government of the People, by the People, and for the People.