As of 8:00 a.m. the non-partisan group Missourians for Honest Elections has already received news of two incidents in today's election in which touch screen machines incorrectly recorded voters' intentions. These occurred at the Brentwood Community Center in St. Louis County.

There have also been several verified reports from voters in St. Louis County who had this happen to them when trying vote absentee at the St. Louis County Board of Elections in Maplewood. We have had an unsatisfactory, mixed response from the County Board of Elections concerning this matter.

In order to ensure that votes are counted correctly in this election, Missourians for Honest Elections recommends that all voters use a paper ballot at the polls today.

This ballot will be scanned by an optical scanning machine and saved as a reliable record of your vote in case of a recount.

The Secretary of State has assured us that there will be a sufficient number of paper ballots available at all polling places throughout the state today. We strongly urge voters to use them! The optically scanned paper ballot, in addition to being a more reliable voting method than the touch screen, is easy to use and reduces the chance that voters will have to reveal their choices to another person if they require assistance. This privacy issue came to our attention when a voter complained that it took him three attempts and the help of two elections officials before he was satisfied
that his vote was properly recorded.

The St. Louis County Board of Elections claims that touch screen machines are secure and reliable, but the consensus of computer scientists is that they are not. And, in the words of former Chair of the Federal Election Assistance Commission, De Forest Soaries, "We know more today about how to build a machine to take pictures of rocks on Mars than we know how to build a machine to safeguard the American right to vote."

We advise anyone who has a problem voting today to contact 866-OUR-VOTE.

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Missourians for Honest Elections (MoHE) has been in existence as an alliance of small local groups of election integrity activists since early 2005. We believe that local action is the key to changing the electoral system, and are devoted to grassroots organizing. Voting, which began, even in this country, as a privilege, has evolved into a human right and must be nurtured and protected by the citizenry.