So let's transport ourselves to the land of A Perfect World and suppose for a minute that all the complaints we hear about the Democratic party are suddenly resolved:

• Democrats consistently develop and articulate a policy-oriented, values-based message that reflects the larger attitudes of the progressive community;
• Certain Democrats stop pandering to the Republican moderates and, instead, harden their stance on the issues that matter;
• The Democratic "machine" becomes efficient, with well-funded research institutes and think-tanks, proper treatment and cultivation of young rising Democratic "stars" and effective message dissemination;
• Democratic media outlets pull on par with that of conservative outlets in terms of volume and saturation; and
• Insert your pet Democratic issue(s) here.

Problem solved, right?  Wrong.  One critical issue is not being properly addressed.

Follow me over the fold.

Over the past 4 weeks (according to Daily Kos' fine search utility), 75 diaries result from a search of the words "Electronic Voting".  Naturally not all of these diaries are strictly about verified voting or the potential fraud associated with voting machines.  Four of the diaries more or less specifically related to electronic voting and/or vote fraud garnered 100 or more recommendations.  Nowhere on the Most Popular Tags page to the tags "verified voting", "election fraud", "voter integrity", "voter fraud" etc. appear.  The All Tags page fares slightly better, with links to election integrity, verified voting, and voter fraud, to name a few.  Go ahead - click the links.  See the diaries that have been written and note especially how much attention those diaries received.

I'm not saying that the Daily Kos community doesn't pay attention to the issue of verified voting and vote fraud - rather, I would say it doesn't pay enough attention to it.  It is the one issue that, if ignored, could really bite us in the ass.  It is the single most important topic we can make a coordinated effort to address as the midterms approach and 2008 looms large.  It's not worth running a perfect campaign if you still can't win, right?

With little fanfare, USA Today published an article today about an analysis of e-voting machines.  A few snippets:

Most of the electronic voting machines widely adopted since the disputed 2000 presidential election "pose a real danger to the integrity of national, state and local elections," a report out Tuesday concludes.

--snip--

Among the findings:

• Using corrupt software to switch votes from one candidate to another is the easiest way to attack all three [of the most commonly purchased] systems. A would-be hacker would have to overcome many hurdles to do this, the report says, but none "is insurmountable."
• The most vulnerable voting machines use wireless components open to attack by "virtually any member of the public with some knowledge and a personal digital assistant." Only New York, Minnesota and California ban wireless components.
• Even electronic systems that use voter-verified paper records are subject to attack unless they are regularly audited.
• Most states have not implemented election procedures or countermeasures to detect software attacks.

My emphasis added.  The study was done by the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice and added that the three most popular e-voting systems will represent a staggering 80% of all voting machines to be used in the November election.  Jesus.

The good news is that legislation has been proposed to address some of these security concerns.  The bad news is that it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.  Rush Holt (D-NJ) has proposed H.R. 550, known as the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act.  From Rush Holt's re-election web page:

The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (H.R. 550) will:

• Mandate a voter-verified paper ballot for every vote cast in every federal election, nationwide; because the voter verified paper record is the only one verified by the voters themselves, rather than by the machines, it will serve as the vote of record in any case of inconsistency with electronic records;
• Protect the accessibility requirements of the Help America Vote Act for voters with disabilities;
• Require random, unannounced, hand-count audits of actual election results in every state, and in each county, for every Federal election;
• Prohibit the use of undisclosed software and wireless and concealed communications devices and internet connections in voting machines;
• Provide Federal funding to pay for implementation of voter-verified paper balloting; and
• Require full implementation by the 2006 elections

Visit Rush Holt's H.R. 550 page and sign the petition.

More stuff you can do:

• Write your Congresscritters and urge support for H.R. 550.
• Google your state's election commission on the web and write your officials to indicate that you are concerned about verified voting and voter fraud.
• If you have it, donate some money to organizations like The Verified Voting Foundation.  They have an action page with more great ideas and resources for you.  There are many of these watchdog organizations out there, too many for me to list - please add them to the comments and I'll append the diary.
• Contact your local Democratic Party office and volunteer to become an election official - feet on the ground matter!
• Write LTEs; reference available information about election fraud.
• Write the major media outlets and call political radio talk shows and talk about the issue.

Thanks to Kossacks like Steven D and others, most of us already know about the voting machine debacle in the Busby/Bilbray (CA-50) election.  But it is SO much worse than that.

You must get involved if you haven't done so already.  Read the USA Today article I linked above.  Find/publicize/visit watchdog groups for election integrity.  Tell your friends about it - tell other Kossacks about it.  Stay on it, pump it and pimp it until it can't be ignored.  

If these machines stay, we lose.  It's as simple as that.

Update [2006-6-27 18:20:22 by RenaRF]: About four minutes after I clicked "submit", Lou Dobbs did a feature on the whole issue of the study and its findings. He was appropriately outraged. No matter if you love him or hate him, you can Send a message to the show endorsing his coverage of the issue. You can also vote in the Quickvote poll which asks this question:

Do you believe that e-voting machines should be disallowed until their integrity can be assured?