This just in from our friends at the EFF:

We need your help. California voters who are worried about electronic voting machines have an option to vote on paper this year. We worked very hard to get this from the Secretary of State and it was a major victory -- he was sued over it and won in federal court.

Now we've learned that several of the larger counties (including Alameda, Santa Clara and Riverside) have instructed their pollworkers that they cannot tell voters about this choice. They must steer voters to the insecure machines and can only offer paper if a voter affirmatively chooses it.

Needless to say, this is outrageous. To try to raise voter awareness of the choice (and hopefully shame the registrars of voters to change their minds), we've thrown together a website:

http://www.paperorplastic2004.org

Please take a look and send the link on to your friends, family and other voters in the 11 affected counties (the list is on the website). We have very little time to get the word out, and I'm hoping that we can spread this far and wide and hopefully even provoke a little media coverage as well.