50 States Sued to Block Computerized Vote Counting

Federal Court to be Asked to Delay Primaries
On October 2nd we posted an article in which we announced that the Clean Election Lawsuit was being expanded to all fifty states. We said we were in the process of filing an amended complaint to name all of the nation’s chief election officials as defendants.

We also announced that we were looking for up to three volunteers from each state to become plaintiffs and/or friends of the lawsuit. The response was very strong. We thank each and every one of the 610 people who responded to this call for action.

Plaintiffs from every state brought the suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York and maintain that current election practices, including the widespread use of computerized voting machines, are unconstitutional because they are ripe for fraud and error and effectively hide the physical vote counting process from the public, effectively denying citizens their legally protected Right to cast an effective vote.

The lawsuit seeks an Order from the Court prohibiting the use of all voting machines and to force election officials to instead utilize paper ballots and to count and total all votes by hand, always in full view of the public.

The lawsuit, called the NCEL, National Clean Elections Lawsuit, follows documented vote machine failures during August's Iowa Straw Poll, persisting claims questioning the integrity of the 2004 presidential election, and the official de-certification in August of virtually every major electronic voting system by the California Secretary of State based upon several comprehensive academic studies documenting the systems' significant vulnerabilities to software "hacking" and vote fraud.

Since October 2, 2007, here is what we have accomplished:

We have divided the country into eleven Circuits, matching the geographic boundaries of the eleven federal Circuit Courts. Eleven citizen “Circuit Leaders” were chosen. They interviewed many of the volunteers, coming up with a list of three or four potential plaintiffs from each state. Fifty citizen “State Leaders” were chosen as lead plaintiffs.

Numerous conference calls were held among the state and Circuit leaders and, at times, with all plaintiffs. A draft of the amended complaint was emailed to all potential plaintiffs for their review and comment.

Eventually, the amended complaint was finalized and approved by 150 named plaintiffs. In total, 84 state officers and election officials are named as defendants, many in their private, as well as official capacity.

On November 1st the Amended Summons and Amended Complaint, signed by 150 plaintiffs, were filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York.

Click here to read the Amended Complaint.

On Saturday, November 3rd, 50 cartons containing the requisite number of sets of legal documents were rushed to the state leaders for service on all defendants. All 50 Governors, all 50 Attorneys General and all 84 chief election officials in the 50 states are currently in the process of being served with the National Clean Election Lawsuit. Those in Alaska, Missouri and a few other states were served yesterday. Many are being served today. By tomorrow evening, service should have been completed.

Press Releases are being distributed regarding this important lawsuit involving the election practices of every state in the Union.

Click here to view the New York press release.

Click here to view the general national press release.

We will post another update once we confirm all defendants in the lawsuit have been served. Reactions by those being served has been interesting to say the least.

Finally, as noted, we intend to file a motion in a few days, asking the Court to delay the 2008 primaries and caucuses until the important constitutional issues raised by this lawsuit are finally determined.

We urge everyone to consider a donation to help finance WTP's National Clean Elections federal lawsuit.

From We The People Foundation

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