EDA 's Long-term Campaign for Accountable Elections

Election Verification Polling
EDA commissioned or supported numerous exit polls and voter surveys in counties across the nation during the 2006 election to provide an independent means of evaluating the validity of official election returns generated by trade-secret software owned by private corporations.
In the absence of credible election auditing practices, these polls provide an expensive but necessary safety check on intrinsically unverifiable electronic voting results.

Election Forensic Analysis
The EDA Data Analysis Project [1] is a groundbreaking initiative to collect precinct and county election data and analyze them in conjunction with independent exit polls, public opinion polls, voter registration figures, and historical election records to identify suspect patterns indicating probable mistabulation or electronic fraud.

Media Messaging and Public Education
The 2006 election brought the unacceptable risks of electronic voting into public awareness, but much more public education and media advocacy will be needed to institute change in the U.S. electoral system. EDA is building messaging capacity to provide consistent, corrective information and issue alarms as necessary on a national scale.

Legal Action
Election Defense Alliance advocates a proactive, pre-emptive response to pervasive violations of electoral law. We are devising legal tactics and assembling a national databank of evidence to support legal intervention before, during and after elections to enforce effective security procedures and uphold the public's right to monitor electoral processes and inspect public documents without obstruction.

Support for Local Organizing
Because we recognize that all elections are local, Election Defense Alliance emphasizes electoral integrity efforts at the county and township level. We support those efforts by developing research, fundraising, and publicity capacity on a national level and channeling those resources where they can be applied most effectively.

Legislative Policy
Although we regard decentralized electoral administration and local citizen vigilance as the best prescription for election protection, EDA recognizes the present opportunity to repair damage wrought by HAVA and avert similarly misguided federal legislation now pending. We will warn against ill-advised nonsolutions, recommend effective measures to counter electronic voting dangers, and promote handcounted paper ballots and manual audits as the necessary solutions.

These and other actions are carried out by an EDA staff of volunteers who depend on your support to continue and expand these protections. Please invest in electoral legitimacy. [2]