Many citizens believe that our electoral system is in dire need of an overhaul from unreliable electronic voting machines and millions of uncounted ballots to partisan secretaries of state and 10-hour waits at the polls. To build a more just, secure and robust democracy, the all women organization CODEPINK is calling for support of a 10-point Voter Bill of Rights.

Among the reforms cited are the need for a uniformly devised paper trail for touch-screen voting machines, disallowing partisan secretaries of state from making rulings affecting the election outcome, making election day a national holiday, uniformly allowing election day registrations, insuring that every vote is counted and everyone is allowed to vote, eliminating private campaign contributions, insuring third party candidates right to debate and eliminating the electoral college.

The voter bill of rights also supports instant runoff voting that allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference (first, second, third choice). With this system, if no candidate gets a majority of first choices, a runoff count can be conducted without the need for a second election. IRV, the group claims, gives voters the opportunity to vote for those candidates they like the most without worrying that their vote will help candidates they like least, and that it has been used successfully around the world: Ireland uses IRV to elect its president, Australia to elect its House of Representatives, and San Francisco to elect its major city offices such as mayor.

To download the bill of rights for printing, signing and sending to your local Congressional representative, click here.

CODEPINK is a grass roots peace and social justice movement initiated by approximately 100 women on November 2002. According to the organization, the name CODEPINK "plays on the Bush Administration's color-coded homeland security advisory system." but is "based on compassion and a feisty call for women and men to 'wage peace.'"

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