The American election system has increasingly been turned over to private corporations operating under trade secrets protections and Fourth Amendment privacy rights. Repeated court decisions have held that computer voting machines and the software that record, count and report election results cannot be inspected by independent experts or public election officials. This is unacceptable.

No computerized election system used in the past, or currently being installed, has ever met minimum government information technology security standards. This is unacceptable.

The election machine industry, which produces computerized voting equipment is essentially unregulated and lacks mandatory security standards. This is unacceptable.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) established the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to recommend voting machine standards and guidelines to the states (although the states are not required to abide by them). However, such standards have not been generated in time, before HAVA-compelled state purchases of new voting equipment, with billions of citizen tax dollars, have gone forward.  Therefore, states have been forced to buy "in the blind," hard-pressed by HAVA deadlines, despite the absence of adequate guidelines. This is unacceptable.

The current generation of computerized voting systems are highly vulnerable to undetectable manipulation by hackers, insiders, partisan supporters, foreign governments and terrorists. This is unacceptable.

Essential paper ballots, which provide a critical record of votes cast, should circumstances necessitate a ballot audit or recount, are being eliminated in many jurisdictions. This is unacceptable.

There are no uniform, statistically valid audit standards to verify the integrity of election data, contrary to the accepted procedures of both business and government worldwide. This is unacceptable.

Election officials are increasingly reliant on costly, often partisan, contractors and temporary employees to manage the complexities of electronic elections. This is unacceptable.

Laws barring voter intimidation and vote suppression are seldom enforced, despite compelling evidence. This is unacceptable.