Over the past two days, hundreds of citizens from across the country participated in a the I Count Lobbys Days in support of Rep. Rush Holt's Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 550). Meetings has been arrranged in 117 Congressional offices on Thursday afternoon and during the day Friday but already by mid -afternoon Thursday, Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA) agreed with activists representing Iowans for Voting Integrity that the nation needs the election safeguards that HR 550 would provide.

By the time Rep. Holt (D-NJ), and HR 550 co-sponsors Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), and Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI)  spoke at a press conference on Friday morning, the number of new co-sponsors had risen to eight. New endorsements came from Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), Rep. Tim Holden (D-PA), Rep. Steven Lynch (D-MA), and Rep. Ben Chandler (D-KY). As the final meeting was concluding at the end of Friday afternoon, the call came from Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had brought the total co-sponsorship of HR 550 to 177. On Monday, Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-PA) signed on as a co-sponsor.

After the press conference, a petition signed by over 50,000 voters form each of the 50 states was delivered to the both the majority and minority offices of the Committee on House Administration. The petition was received by Rep. Vernon Ehlers aide in the Committee Will Plaster (pictured at right with receiving the petition signatures from VoteTrustUSA executive director Joan Krawitz, VotePA's Marybeth Kuznik, Susan Pynchon and AJ Devies of Florida Fair Election Coalition, and other Lobby Days aprticipants).

The I Count Lobby Days were organized by a coalition of national organizations dedicated to transparent and verifiable elections: Electronic Frontier Froundation, True Majority, Verified Voting, VotersUnite.org, VoteTrustUSA,Common Cause, and Working Assets. The I Count Coalition wishes to express their gratitude to the remarkable activists who came to Washington DC at their own expense to voice their support for voter verified paper records, random mandatory hand counted audits, and the prohibition of undisclosed software and wireless ocmmunication devices in voting systems. 

Everyone involved in this exhilirating experience of democracy in action is also grateful to Michael Stipe of the band R.E.M. who paid for the printing of materials provided to activists and for the packets left behind for members of Congress.