Dear Friends,
Protecting Your Vote
In a democracy, nothing is more valuable than your vote. Some recent troubling developments only highlight why it’s necessary to take additional measures to safeguard the franchise.
Last week, I visited Princeton University’s computer science lab to watch a team led by Dr. Edward Felten do exactly what all of us have feared possible: successfully hack an electronic voting machine. They did it in under a minute. We should count ourselves lucky that it was a mock election.
For several years, I’ve had a bill to address this problem—The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005 (H.R. 550)—and it now has 212 bipartisan co-sponsors, nearly half the Members of the House. It would require all voting machines to produce a voter-verified paper audit trail, and would create national standards for randomized audits. A hearing on the bill and the issues surrounding it finally is scheduled for September 28—the day before Congress’ targeted adjournment.
New Jersey Environmental Leaders Visit Washington
On September 14, I hosted environmental leaders from across New Jersey for a dialogue with key Congressional, executive branch, and nonprofit leaders about the challenges our nation and our communities face in trying to protect the environment and preserve open space. Attendees heard presentations on the environment, climate change, ocean acidification, brownfields, and Congressional environmental policy.
A central point of our environmental stewardship must be greater use of alternative sources of energy. Last year, I introduced the School Building Enhancement Act (H.R. 4350), which would help schools by installing innovative technologies like solar panels to improve their energy efficiency. By increasing energy efficiency and making use of renewable energy resources, we can reduce environmental harm, improve our global security, and create new jobs and economic opportunity.
Responding to Genocide in Darfur
According to United Nations and U.S. officials, the situation in Darfur is the worst humanitarian and human rights crisis in the world now. Two million Sudanese are internally displaced, more than 100,000 are in exile, and 200,000 civilians have been killed. This week, I joined 85 of my colleagues in writing a letter to President Bush urging him to appoint a Special Envoy to Sudan, and I also supported a Congressional resolution calling for the same action. I was honored to receive an “A” rating from the Genocide Intervention Network for my work on this issue, but as a nation, our work is only beginning. Too often, crises in Africa are buried in the back of newspapers or only a get a 30-second sound bite on the evening news. No nation as great as ours should be standing idly by in the face of this slaughter and misery.
Sincerely,
Rush Holt
Member of Congress
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