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This from the Washington Post... Empire Burlesque has noticed the charade going on in California with Bruce McPherson... The campaign of Forrest Hill has sent out a sample letter that you can send to McPherson protesting his decision:

Dear Supporter,

Yesterday our campaign sent out a newsletter encouraging you to write Secretary of State Bruce McPherson and ask him to reverse his decision to certify Diebold. Unfortunately, the email address we provided was incorrect.

The correct address is constituentaffairs@ss.ca.gov

Please take the time to email the Secretary of State's office and let them know your concern over the certification of Diebold.

Below is a sample letter you can copy into your email reader and then edit (make sure to sign you name at the bottom).

Again I apologize for the error.

- Forrest

SUBJECT: REVERSE YOUR DECISION TO CERTIFY DIEBOLD!
Dear Secretary McPherson,

I urge you to reverse your decision to certify Diebold electronic voting machines in California. Your decision to certify the Diebold Optical Scan and AccuVote TSx (touch-screens) when they don’t comply with state and federal law is a slap in the face to every Californian voter.

Just two months ago, you were "not" willing to certify Diebold voting machines unless the source code was determine to be safe by independent investigators.

You now know that when Diebold submitted the machines to testing by U.C. Berkeley security analysts they found the code did not meet minimal security standards and needed to be rewritten.

Yet you have decided to ignore their findings and put the needs of a private voting machine vendor over the right of every California citizen to know their vote is accurately counted.

As Secretary of State it is your job to ensure our voting equipment provides safeguards against tampering, otherwise public confidence in our elections will be eroded and the results of any election will remain open to question.

How can you certify Diebold machines where they don’t meet state requirements that provide an audible "read-back" for blind and visually-impaired voters? How can you subject out democracy to non-transparent systems that do not use open source code or produce a voter verified paper ballot?

How can you possible go forward with certification without inviting public comment or insisting that Diebold comply with the recommendations of the U.C. Berkeley investigators?

This is completely unaccepted!

I urge you to do the right thing and rescind your certification of the Diebold electronic voting systems. The people of California deserve a thorough, rigorous testing of all electronic voting machines before they're used in our elections ever again.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]