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Eleven months & 8 days out -- one person can make a difference

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This is my final voting rights appeal to all of you: And my last mass email on any subject. If you want to remain on what will be the next phase of my writing world (which should be an interesting turn of events), please respond to this email and tell me so. If not, it's been great typing at all y'all (and hearing back from many) for the past few minutes.

Enjoy your Garden. Bernie
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“One person can make a difference. Everyone should try.” (John F. Kennedy)

Good late morning to all of you, on this warm and windy start to spring. I have spent the last hour planting my first tomato plants in the Garden (half Early Girls, half Better Boys) and have another hour of that to look forward to today. Those tomatoes accompany the 30+ varieties of spring vegetables already thriving, some in the ground for more than a month now and some of which made up my meal last evening. It is clear that I have had time on my hands these past few months and (thankfully) I have this Garden to show for it. I hope any of you within a drive of my farm will accept this invitation to help me harvest this bountiful monstrosity as it unfurls.

This part I am doing today in the Garden – this is the part I like best. Starting things. Fortunately, when what needs to be done is very important, there are others who have also been there (always) pushing and pulling in the same right direction. Thanks to a determined handful of those election integrity devotees here in Tennessee who have kept this issue moving forward, we are on the cusp of democracy-restoring reform here in Tennessee. The forces of deceit, delay and disinterest that have opposed verifiable elections have not gone away – BUT they are certainly on the retreat.

NOW, more than perhaps ever before, your voice will mean something for Tennessee. If you speak up in the next week, your voice will be amplified by the growing call to our legislature to move the TN Voter Confidence Act forward NOW. At this moment, this call from voters across Tennessee and across the nation is strongly bipartisan, broad-based and basic in its request:

*Let our votes count in Tennessee in ’08. *

What follows shortly is an email action alert that is being sent to our core election integrity supporters here in Tennessee. Some of you are among that group, but many more of you are not. That is why I am writing to all of you myself, one last time.

Please take 30 minutes (or less, … or more) to voice your support to replace our non-verifiable touch-screen voting machines in Tennessee with paper ballot-based voting systems in time for the November election. To help you do that, I am sending you the latest call to action from Gathering To Save Our Democracy (www.votesafetn.org), and I am appending on that action call a few more steps you can take if you believe as strongly as I do that free, fair and verifiable elections matter in this country.

No matter your political persuasion, please email some or all of the Tennessee leaders whose email links are provided below. Tell them you support anything they can do to move the TN Voter Confidence Act (HB 1256; SB 1363) forward to immediate passage. (If you copy-and-paste the grouped email addresses into the address line of your message and "blind-copy" all the recipients, you need only write one message to reach each entire group.)

Now I must finish planting the first tomatoes and preparing for a drive to Knoxville this afternoon. Tomorrow, when my Garden is enjoying a 70% chance of rain here in the holler, I will join a few of you again to watch and discuss “UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections”, this time with the TN Federation of Democratic Women, U. Tennessee faculty and students and others.
(The free Knoxville showing is Saturday, April 19th, 3-5 p.m. at the Crown Plaza Hotel (Cumberland Room). Come and/or let your Knoxville friends know about it.)

If you live in Tennessee, your voice has to be heard NOW for free, fair and verifiable elections. .

If you live elsewhere, let TN's leaders know that secure elections here matter where you live too.
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From Gathering To Save Our Democracy (4/18/08):

We’re so close—so close to achieving verifiable elections! We finally have the money, and we DO have time to switch to paper ballots for this year’s general election (just like Iowa is doing, and other states have done, in the same amount of time that we have). All the pieces are in place. What we need now is to get the paper ballot bill, the Voter Confidence Act, out of committee and onto the floor of the legislature to be voted into law.

Currently, the bill is in the House Budget Subcommittee, where the Chairman wants to keep it until the end of April, at least. There is no reason for the bill to remain in subcommittee waiting for the state budget to pass—all the money we need is already available—federal money. But time is short—we don’t want to wait that long to get the ball rolling. We need your help again!

Time is short, but we can do it! You can bank on this; your emails have and will make the difference! The flood of emails you have sent to our legislators over the past several months have successfully moved the paper ballot bill, first, out of a committee where it had been stuck for a year and then, out of subcommittees in the Senate and the House. We’ve asked for your help before, and we are very close to the finish line! Please write today; our Legislators will HEAR you! Thank you so much! We can do it!

*What you can do right now:

*-- *Please email the House Budget Subcommittee members* and ask them to act now, and pass the bill (H.B. 1256), so it will go to the full Finance Committee. If any of the members is your Representative, please mention that, and include your address.
House Budget Subcommittee members:

rep.harry.tindell@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.joe.armstrong@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.lois.deberry@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.craig.fitzhugh@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.mike.harrison@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.steve.mcdaniel@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.gary.odom@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.doug.overbey@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.randy.rinks@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.dennis.roach@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.johnny.shaw@legislature.state.tn.us

-- *Please email members of the Senate Finance Committee* today and tell them to support the Voter Confidence Act (S.B. 1363). Tell them we want paper ballots by this November! If any of the members is your Senator, please mention that, and include your address.
Senate Finance Committee members:

sen.randy.mcnally@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.douglas.henry@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.tim.burchett@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.diane.black@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.raymond.finney@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.joe.haynes@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.rosalind.kurita@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.jim.kyle@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.mark.norris@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.bo.watson@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.john.wilder@legislature.state.tn.us

*For Extra Credit: Here are some other Tennessee leaders who need to hear from you:

*Let Your Own TN Legislators Know How You Feel: *

House Bill 1256 still has to be brought to the floor of our House of Representatives and Senate for a vote. Please Email or call your own state House representative, even if they are not on the above committees. Tell them to support HB 1256. Email or call your state Senator and tell them to support their version of the bill: SB 1363.

And... that it must take effect for November 2008. Let them know that you strongly support paper ballots that can be read electronically and can also be manually audited or recounted. Ask them to speak up for free, fair and verifiable elections – to let our votes count in ‘08. Ask them – as your elected voice in government – to support the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act, insuring that every Tennessean is allowed vote on verifiable paper ballots in beginning THIS election.

If you don’t know who your state Representative and Senator are, go to www.vote-smart.org. You can enter your zip code at that web-site and get a page listing all your representatives. (The web-site asks for a nine digit zip-code. If you only know five digits, just enter “-0000" and it will give you the correct information.

*Let the House/Senate sponsors of the TN Voter Confidence Act Know How You Feel:

Write our bill's two main sponsors *(Representative Gary Moore and Senator Joe Haynes)*. Tell them how much you appreciate what they've done so far. Tell them to keep pushing hard to implement the bill immediately so our votes can count in Tennessee in '08.

rep.gary.moore@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.joe.haynes@legislature.state.tn.us

*Let Other Key Tennessee Leaders Know How You Feel:

Email, or call Tennessee’s Governor, as well as our House and Senate leaders. Tell them that securing our elections by November 2008 is something that must be done. Governor Bredesen, House Speaker Naifeh and Senate Speaker Ramsey need to know that almost 40 other states have already figured out – voting on insecure equipment is no longer acceptable. Urge them to please use their power and influence in compelling our state election officials to begin implementing a plan, changing from paperless touch-screens to optically scanned paper ballots NOW – we have the funding and we still have the time.

*Governor Phil Bredesen*
Phil.Bredesen@state.tn.us
Phone: (615) 741-2001
Fax: (615) 532-9711

*Lieutenant Governor & Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey*
lt.gov.ron.ramsey@legislature.state.tn.us
Phone: (615) 741-4524
Fax: (615) 253-0197

*House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh*
rep.jimmy.naifeh@legislature.state.tn.us
Phone: (615) 741-3774
Fax: (615) 741-0944

We have made important strides recently and we need to keep building the momentum for reform NOW.It is certainly not too late to restore election integrity in Tennessee, but we must act NOW.
We can't afford another insecure election in our state. Not when the solution is achievable NOW.

Let our votes count in 2008.

THANKS FOR YOUR HELP! Peace out. Bernie

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