Restoring Election Integrity
I recently joined some of my colleagues and civil rights activists in commemorating the 40th anniversary of enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a watershed moment in American history. This commemoration served as an important reminder of the brave fights that citizens have conducted to obtain and protect their right to vote.
The sacrifices of voting rights activists over the past century - like my friend Representative John Lewis, and those who bravely registered black voters in the south in the 1960s, despite violent opposition - have paved the way for the enfranchisement that we all seek. The Voting Rights Act has made progress possible, but there is still more to be done.
Application of the Voting Rights Act faces challenges in the 21st century. The 2000 and 2004 presidential elections demonstrated that disenfranchisement, though legally abolished, still exists in practice. In order to preserve influence of the Voting Rights Act, key protections of which are scheduled to expire in 2007, we must address voting irregularities that occurred in recent elections.
I take it as one of my most important responsibilities to help foster and restore citizen faith in their representative government. In Congress, I try to conduct all of my activities with an eye towards this goal. That is why it is so important to protect the integrity of the vote, the primary right by which other rights are protected.
The elected officials of this nation will never be able to foster or restore this faith if they do not take strong action to protect the integrity of every vote. Among the steps we must take to encourage participation and protect the integrity of every vote are:
* Stopping improper purging of voter rolls,
* Ensuring proactive and inclusive voter registration policies,
* Putting an end to voter intimidation and suppression,
* Ensuring uniform and fair enforcement of provisional ballot rules,
* Mitigating unmanageable lines at polling places,
* Implementing fair voter identification measures that are not subject to uneven enforcement,
* Monitoring and punishing deceptive practices like distribution of inaccurate information to voters.
Failing to accomplish such goals would serve to diminish the important rights for which so many have fought, and yes, died.
About one-third of all Americans now vote on new electronic voting machines. Such machines, while clear and easy to use, also provide no mechanism for voter verification or reliable audit, and have been proven extremely susceptible to error or tampering. Many of you who read this may have been following the progress of my legislation to require a voter-verified paper record for every vote cast (The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessability Act, H.R. 550). I believe that this legislation is critically important, as there is currently no way to verify and independently audit new electronic voting machines. Only each voter can verify the accuracy of the vote that he or she cast in the secret booth. The bill has strong bipartisan support and has benefited from the hard work and advocacy of thousands of citizens across the country.
Since 2003, I have been working to convince critics that the absence of evidence of inaccurate vote counts or intentional fraud does not mitigate the need for my legislation. In fact, the lack of evidence itself is the problem. How can we possibly be sure that the vote counts are accurate if the voter is unable to verify the ballot, and election officials have no way to conduct a recount?
Please visit my website at www.holt.house.gov to learn more about my efforts to address these shortcomings in electronic voting systems.
When I speak with students, I often ask, "What is the greatest invention in history?'' Knowing of my background in physics, they usually suggest some scientific invention. In fact, I believe the greatest invention is our system of Constitutional democracy. It has transformed not just America, but the world, demonstrating that peaceful and productive government with the consent of the governed is possible. That consent is given by the vote.
The trust that voters grant elected officials through the ballot is too sacred to allow continuation of a system that is neither verifiable nor auditable. Indeed, it jeopardizes every other right that we enjoy. Election reform that enables auditable elections and strengthens voter rights is not only overdue, it is fundamental to the health of our democracy.
Speak it! This is (or should be) a non-partisan issue. In these dispiriting times, it is a source of hope to know that there are still informed and capable politicians around who understand the importance of Constitutional democracy, and are willing to do yeoman's work to protect it.
Rep. Holt, have you considered running for president?
September 9, 2005 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is currently a Bank of America commercial on television in which they claim they process a zillion checks a day without error. Why cannot that same technology be used to ensure that every vote is properly counted?
In a democracy, our votes should be worth even more than a correctly processed check. To do less is inexcusable.
September 9, 2005 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
What you say is right, and I know we can't undo the past, but I can't stop thinking about how many people would still be alive; how many families still intact -- if the person who was actually elected in 2000 had taken office.
It doesn't give me much hope for the future. Who, exactly is going to do what your title humbly suggests? Everyone I talked to was against the voting machines without paper confirmation in the last election. The excuse that it was too complicated is belied by every ATM machine on every corner of every community in our country.
A man who knows what it is to be afraid to go to war sends others' sons and daughters into war and doesn't even lose any sleep over it. He also, apallingly, convinces enough people that he would be a better Commander-In-Chief than someone who has actually been under fire.
Did he really convince enough people, or did he fix the voting machines like he fixed the intelligence on WMD's? Many of us were worried about the voting machines, as well as other ways of illegally affecting the results.
Yet the election went on as planned, with no way to spot or evaluate fraud. All exit polls were correct except in Ohio, where a favorable showing for Kerry came to nothing.
Who can fix it? I don't know. My children are sick of hearing me rant about this and other injustices, and I'm getting tired of my own voice.
Our country has been taken over by selfish, sociopathic, warmongers who ironically hide under the banner of "family values." The rest of us just get more impotent as time goes on, and it is very discouraging.
September 9, 2005 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
"All exit polls were correct except in Ohio"
No, actually, the national exit polls showed Kerry winning nationwide through evening, and in several states including Florida.
The exit poll information, combined with widespread complaints of fraud, (including people trying to vote for Kerry and finding on review that their vote had switched), combined with the obvious means to commit fraud using these blasted machines with their proprietary software, persuaded me that the election was once again stolen. I see no reason in light of the exit polls to believe that Bush won - it was a similar situation as in the Ukraine, except there the people were less easily hoodwinked.
A group of statisticians with Ph.Ds, including Ron Baiman, analyzed the exit poll data and concluded that with 99 percent certainty, Kerry won. The "shy Republican" theory for why the exit polls were so far different from the final results doesn't hold up when the data are analyzed.
This is why all the chest-beating by Democrats annoys me. What did they do wrong? How can they change? Well, instead of moving further to the right, how about if they demand clean elections?
And more than that. How about if they raise a giant noise when elections are stolen from them...I don't buy the meme that we should accept what has happened and "move on" and fix things next time. Not when we've had two presidential elections stolen in a row. I think there should be grand jury investigations. Widespread evidence of fraud, as we saw in Ohio and Florida, should lead to demands for a revote - that's sure as heck what would happen if the roles were reversed. Just look at the Republican demands for a revote in the Washinton State governor's race - and that election was merely close, it didn't involve fraud.
And by the way, Representative Holt, instead of "election irregularities" it would be better to refer to "election fraud." If we had called a spade a spade in 2000, we might not be in the pickle we're in now. If the problem had been identified not as "old unreliable machines" but as "a Florida machine as bad as anything you ever saw in Chicago," then instead of a solution consisting of shiny new and inscrutable machines, the solution would have been shiny new orange jumpsuits and a revote.
Yes, as the GOP is fond of reminding us in regards to judicial nominations, elections have consequences. And fraudulent elections have horrible consequences. Just think if Al Gore had been president in summer of 2001. He'd have gotten those memos warning of an imminent attack on American soil and he'd have done everything possible to thwart it. The Clinton Admininstration successfully thwarted several schemes - very likely the WTC would be standing today. And think of the thousands of people who died in Iraq who would be alive today, and in New Orleans. Not to mention how much better our relations with the rest of the world would be - and what better shape our economy would be in - our environment - our national morale.
September 10, 2005 7:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Now I feel even WORSE! Yes, every word you say is true, but HOW DO WE GET IT DONE? I just don't see it happening.
September 10, 2005 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ask the Ukranians...you just don't accept a stolen election. You overturn a stolen election. You demand a revote. This is where I think even voting rights advocates like Mark Crispin Miller and Paul Krugman don't go far enough. After 2000, we tried "moving on," just trying to insure that "next time" things would be done right. Well, next time things weren't done right, and who has confidence we will ever have a fair vote again? The GOP is consolodating its power more and more.
We have a spectrum of acceptable "liberal" opinion on this subject ranging from the majority who have convinced themselves (in spite of those inner voices) that Bush "won," and that what we need is to change the Democratic Party to attract more voters - to those who feel we must work in a bipartisan way to make sure it "doesn't happen again." Those who think that's not enough, and that the "election" should be challenged every day, are never interviewed, never heard from. Rarely even on forums like this. Even when the Ohio electors were challenged in Congress, most Democrats demurred with speeches accepting that the margin of error due to vote suppression would not have been enough to change the election. They were standing up in opposition to voter disenfranchisement, they said. Obama was most disappointing - he prefaced his remarks by expressing his confidence that Bush had won. Whether he and the others were misinformed, or afraid to tell the truth, I don't know, but judging by the exit polls, the fraud was enough that it did change the election. I mean, we know there was fraud. And the exit polls are probably a pretty decent measure of how much there was, although it wouldn't catch all of it - wouldn't catch, for example, people who gave up because of the long lines and therefore never "exited."
I can understand wanting to work in a bi-partisan way, hoping that ethical Republicans would join that effort. And there are some: probably most Republicans would not approve of outright vote stealing. But the people who run the party are crooks. Machines with no paper ballots are no accident. They will fight tooth and nail to keep their rigged system in place, and they need to be exposed. They don't bargain. They can't afford to lose power. We might see some real investigations into the crimes of the last five years!
It's past time to take to the streets and demand our democracy back. After November 2000 people with "Hail to the Thief" signs followed Bush wherever he went. We need those people back as a visible sign that not everyone accepts Bush's legitimacy. We need a movement.
This is the crime which underlies all the others. These are not the leaders we elected. There's a reason they act as if they don't need our approval, don't care about what we think, and don't care about our welfare. They don't have to.Part of the problem of course has been our lily livered, clueless candidates. Kerry's campaign manager, I forget her name, was quoted shortly after the "election" as being furious about the inaccurate exit polls! Clueless! The last time, and only other time the exit polls were "wrong" was Florida, 2000 (with, I think, one exception in a state election some years ago, where the polls were off). Doesn't anyone else see a pattern here? It was gut level clear to me: in 2000 we were celebrating Gore's victory when suddenly, late in the day, ashen-faced reporters on TV started changing the state of Florida from blue back to gray. In 2004 we were celebrating Kerry's victory until late in the evening, when suddenly the election Titanic turned around and headed straight into the iceberg we thought it had skirted - anyone remember any other elections where the models changed around midnight? The New York Times afternoon edition said Kerry was ahead in the exit polls "beyond the margin of error."
Gore was radicalized in many ways after the election which he won but did not win. He's said that eventually he'll speak out about what really happened in 2000, but has yet to do so. Not sure what the man is waiting for. I think his decision at the time was just to get those uncounted ballots counted, and once he took ofice he'd investigate the Florida fraud. That would have worked if he could have gotten them counted, even though thousands were "spoiled" and could not be counted. And thousands of voters were taken off the rolls as "felons" although they had committed no crime, and they could not be counted either. But as it happened, just by chance, in spite of all those spoiled ballots, Gore would have won if all the legitimate overvotes and undervotes had just been counted. So I think he figured he didn't need to yell fraud, he'd win through the kind of normal recount you get after every close election. He didn't count on the GOP's ferocious intention to win power at all costs.
September 10, 2005 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
"This is the crime which underlies all the others. These are not the leaders we elected. There's a reason they act as if they don't need our approval, don't care about what we think, and don't care about our welfare. They don't have to."
This is what has stuck in my craw all this time... Abslutely disgusting... These guys should be in prison, not looting and ruining our nation, our democracy.
September 10, 2005 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Check out Rush Holt's Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, and encourage your local representatives to support it. It rocks!
September 10, 2005 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The always bright and lucid nascardaughter says that this should be a non-partisan issue and she's right, it should be.
I only fear that our government is run by people who won elections -- who have BEEN elected, under current rules. I guess there's some incentive right there, on the part of those in office, not to mess with a system that got them in. I can't help but fear that the rules stay the same because the elected, who won with those rules, kind of like it that way.
September 9, 2005 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
[*blushes*] thanks, destor23...
and of course you're right that the fact that our representatives were elected under the current system is a barrier to reforming it...
September 10, 2005 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know anyone who wants to use an e-machine with no paper trail so how is it that we have these machines? What do we need to do as citizens to insist on the appropriate type and number of voting machines? Do we need a state referendum? Also, Congressman Holt, I think you need to armtwist the media on the issues you brought up, such as misleading voter information. The newspapers, the radio stations and the tv stations need to offer local service bulletins telling people, for example, all voting occurs next Tuesday unless you have previously filled out an absentee ballot; no exceptions; do not believe anyone who tells you differently.
September 9, 2005 7:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't get why it's impossible to have an electronic voting machine that could give a receipt to the voter, with their votes on it, and then sends its logs to a printer that can create a printed record that could then be stored by an objective facility. I mean... Ticketmaster tracks its orders better than our e-voting machines do. The technology is there, it has to be. If i isn't, then nearly a decade of e-commerce never happened.
The techology exists to make voting near perfect at this point. I can only assume that those in charge, for some reason, oppose. And I can't assume they'd appose for a good reason.
September 9, 2005 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please, please do whatever you can to ensure that everyone in this country can have confidence in our elections. This matters so much, and when it began to slip from view fairly shortly after the 2000 debacle, I couldn't believe it.
Thanks for your efforts; keep them up.
September 9, 2005 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am honestly mystified by this problem with voting. I've been in the computer industry for 36 years and I am sure that the IBMs and Microsofts of the world could devise a system that meets the needs for security etc. NIST should be the audit agency for this on both the hardware and software side. The federal government must own and control it. If we really want it we can have it. Under no circumstance should the private sector own and or control this most important infrastructure.
Present day systems have the ability to implement impenetrable security that can be enforced throughout a network infrastructure. Why this is such a problem stems from a mistrust and misunderstanding upon the part of many people. We need to realize that this is an absolutely doable thing and get it done. The stupid pissing contest over this is a waste of time.
thepeoplechoose
September 9, 2005 10:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of the cornerstones for our freedoms as Americans is having free and transparent elections Rush. When people who want to vote aren't able to and when there is no absolute verification of election results, it goes against everything that America should stand for. Vulnerabilities in the code used for the programming of the e-voting machines coupled with no paper trail are we sure we can say our elections are transparent? I hope something is done about elections in general. This country has many more people then we did 2 plus centuries ago. I hope our methods of holding elections are changed. I feel a good starting point is to make sure everybody who wants to vote gets their chance is to extended the voting period from one day to two to three days.
Thanks for your leadership on this very important issue.
September 9, 2005 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I keep coming back to my own post and the postings of others here and I have to conclude that the only reason we don't have voting systems that are easy to use, provide a paper trail, and also peform secure audit functions on the logged transactions is because Congress won't give them to us.
Why is that? The reason is unknowable but one must admit that not doing so is peculiar. It gives rise to some absolutely valid questions that are disturbing at best. The most common questions are the printed record one and the one of security.
Many people are aware of the Ohio events where the exit polls were wrong for the first time ever in the history of exit polling. Some very smart people have studied this very carefully and maintain that such an incident is all but a statistical impossibility. Not much has come of that and you have to wonder why. I have to admit that I have a great deal of discomfort with private sector companies controlling the hardware/software end of voting equipment.
There are just too many peculiar circumstances in Washington these days not to be suspicious. One of those things is that very few, if any, of these peculiar events is looked at more closely. One can only assume that is because of the political imbalance that exists and even possibly because Republican members don't want those things reviewed because of what may be revealed.
All of this points to one thing and one thing only. Our system and our Constitutional precepts are flawed. The framers, for all their smarts, assumed that the system would be staffed by people of integrity that would always conduct themselves in an ethical fashion. That has proven false and if the framers were as smart as we give them credit for they would have done it so that the vagaries of human nature would not be a factor.
I don't know if it is possible to change this. That we need to revise what we have to make the system incorruptible is a certainty. The major problem in doing that is some people or groups would have their present Constitutional freedoms altered. The necessity for this alteration is clear and is driven by nothing other than very clear evidence of ethical infractions and equally clear conflicts of interest. We must change to eliminate the ethical conflict or suffer the consequences of a completely corrupt system of governance.
One thing is for sure. We cannot go on as we are because it isn't working. We must admit to our humanity and that there will be people that choose to manipulate the system for their own benefit. We are what we are and must protect our nation from succumbing to the realities of the human condition.
Rush, each and every member of Congress is morally and ethically, duty bound to accept this truth and do something to address it. Any inaction on your part or the part of all Congresspersons identifies that you fail to understand this and don't know squat about your own humanity, just as the framers overlooked it. The essence of this is that all our elected officials willingly give up some freedoms in the interest and service of this country. This is a small price in relative terms. Compare that sacrifice with all the Americans that ever gave their life for the same cause and I think you know that the logic of this moral imperative is inescapable. The future of democracy and of this nation rests in your hands and the hands of your peers. Save us or doom us. We have entrusted you with that choice.
thepeoplechoose
September 10, 2005 5:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
In a lot of ways, I think you're right to suspect the motives of those in charge. We're now at a point in history where people like me and probably you and probably everyone on TPMCafe, feels secure in storing their credit and debit card information at a place like Amazon.com. Will Amazon take advantage? Probably not, they make their money from repeat business, but they could have their data stolen. We store our info their anyway. We trust this online store to protect us and, so far, they've had no problem, despite what I figure must be countless attempts to get the info.
We put all sorts of personal and important information about ourselves on the Web, in places with varying degrees of security. For the most part, it hasn't been a tragedy.
If that can happen, why not voting? The technology is there to provide verifiable electronic and paper records. It can be done. Easily. With decades old technology, even and it would still be more reliable and verifiable than the piecemeal systen we use now.
So, why not? States controlling voting and having different local standards is part of it. But that's not insurmountable. We have interstate commerce, after all and we can track taxes across state lines. Seems like somebody doesn't want it. But why? I can't think of a benign reason.
September 10, 2005 5:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The framers, for all their smarts, assumed that the system would be staffed by people of integrity that would always conduct themselves in an ethical fashion. "
This is certainly not true.
Why do you suppose they put in all the checks and balances in the federal government? Why did they distribute power among the states and limit the power of the federal government? Why are there limits on what a simple majority of the voters can do?
It is precisely because they feared human nature and wanted to guard against unethical people gaining control of the entire government.
Do try to read a little history before you go on a rambling rant and make yourself look stupid.
September 10, 2005 6:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you are suggesting that we don't have runaway corruption or that the framers were successful in structuring a document that sought to avoid what I have commented upon then we know who is stupid.
thepeoplechoose
September 10, 2005 8:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
"If you are suggesting that we don't have runaway corruption or that the framers were successful in structuring a document that sought to avoid what I have commented upon then we know who is stupid."
I was rebutting your breathtakingly stupid comment that the founders "assumed that the system would be staffed by people of integrity that would always conduct themselves in an ethical fashion" which any grade school student who still studies history knows is false. We can debate how well they did, I happen to think they did a fairly good job.
September 10, 2005 9:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
We can debate how well they did, I happen to think they did a fairly good job.
Well that explains your comment. Your eyes are closed and you have a hearing impairment.
thepeoplechoose
September 10, 2005 9:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Well that explains your comment. Your eyes are closed and you have a hearing impairment."
You don't like our system of government and you want to change it. Fine, make your case for something different. That doesn't make your assertion that the founders trusted human nature any less stupid.
September 10, 2005 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
In spite of the fact you have called me stupid twice I'll respond anyway.
As can be readily seen by most people we have been witness to a plethora of ethical violations for several years. That is in spite of the best efforts of the framers of the Constitution to get it right. I like our system just fine but it happens to not work in the present circumstance. That you fail to acknowledge that is peculiar. Had the system really worked the infractions could not have occurred. The fact that individuals can commit ethical violations with impuntiy must cause us to consider alternatives that might address the obvious shortcomings.
I don't really care if you agree. If you think everything is working fine then you have every right to that opinion. Even if it is clearly unsupportable.
thepeoplechoose
September 10, 2005 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
"In spite of the fact you have called me stupid twice I'll respond anyway."
I called you out on your assertion that the founders did not fear human nature. I try not to use demeaning language when simply challenging the reasonable assertions of commenters, but when I see something breathtakingly, well, stupid, I have to call it as I see it. Since you have not defended your assertion, I assume you concede my point. Thank you. Please be more thoughtful in the future.
"As can be readily seen by most people we have been witness to a plethora of ethical violations for several years. That is in spite of the best efforts of the framers of the Constitution to get it right."
This is so infantile. We see crimes being committed every day, does that mean we that there is something fundamentally wrong with our criminal justice system? There will always be crime and there will always be unethical politicians. The key is to find a system that accommodates a certain level of crime and corruption while still allowing us the most liberty.
September 10, 2005 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
There will always be crime and there will always be unethical politicians. The key is to find a system that accommodates a certain level of crime and corruption while still allowing us the most liberty.
I don't accept your defeatist attitude. We have an obligation to try and make our public institutions better when it is observed that they aren't working in a way that best serves the nation. That is how progress happens. If what you propose was generally adopted we would still be living in caves. It is necessary that we look critically and continuously at all aspects of what we do if we ever hope to get better. Pick any human endeavor you wish and without exception you will find that change is fundamental and necessary. As you have correctly stated there have always been unethical politicians, but that does not mean that we should accept the condition or suffer the result. Our Constitution is the result of an evolutionary attempt to improve upon what came before. We need to pick up the torch and carry on with that process. The process is called learning. It is not in our nature to arbitrarily halt that process. Or if we did somebody may as well flip the switch on the sun. The result would be the same.
Your argument is empirically flawed. The certainty of change renders it so, and no amount of opposing the condition will alter it.
thepeoplechoose
September 11, 2005 3:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I don't accept your defeatist attitude."
No, my attitude is more reality based.
Just because there are corrupt politicians in our system and that people try and often succeed in gaming the system to their advantage, it does not follow that the system is fundamentally flawed. I think we have to accept that there will be a certain amount of corruption in any system of government that we could devise given human nature.
Better to focus attention on law enforcement to minimize outright fraud and media attention to expose people legally gaming the system than to rail against the system.
September 11, 2005 7:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your solution focuses on a symptom and is therefore inefficient. Better to fix the system.
Bar people for life just like on the stock exchanges and if a lawyer commits and infraction bar him or her from ever practicing law, anywhere. Make it so violating the public trust carries a penalty commensurate with the crime. The public trust is the one thing, that without, we are sunk. The violation of that trust is a crime against every citizen. At present, the real consequence and seriousness is hardly noticed. If we are to vest all the power in people we vote for and if they abuse that power the penalty has to reflect the abuse relative to that immense power. In the three branches of government there are perhaps seven or eight hundred people that wield tremendous power. We must necessarily trust them to exercise that power in lawful ways and at the same time make it untenable to abuse it. The argument should not be relative to a particular infraction but rather to the ability to harm the country or the citizenry. We trust government with the lives of 295 million people. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be enough to keep some people on the straight and narrow.
thepeoplechoose
September 11, 2005 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see any recommendations for system change in your post, only increased penalties. Sounds a lot like law enforcement to me.
Do you want to criminalize failed policy decisions, pork production, what?
September 11, 2005 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm done thinking for you. Figure it out for yourself. If you can.
thepeoplechoose
September 12, 2005 4:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I had hoped that if you were going to rant about how bad our system of government is, you might have some vague notion of how you want to change it. Helps your credibility and all that ya know.
Oh well, I tried.
September 12, 2005 6:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Two points.
1. During much of the 20th Century election fraud was standard operating proceedures in most industrialized big cities. Remember the stories of dead people voting and driving supporters from one polling place to another? So both parties have benefited at one time from the practices. Perhaps this explains the lack of interest in fixing things.
2. The real scandal with voting is not fraud, but the issue of the cost of running elections. Only those with ties to big business can raise enough money to run. Look at the number of wealthy businessmen in public office now. Reformers generally come from the working class or intellectual class, not usually rich sectors. Without some way for reformers to enter politics the interest of the rich will predominate and reforming voting is not one of them.
Restricting the source or amount of funds contributed doesn't do anything to address the high cost of TV advertising, the only means to successfuly reach the disengaged citizens.
September 10, 2005 8:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The real issue with voting is not fraud, but the issue of the cost of running elections."
Actually, both of these are equally big issues. The Nation ran an article in November of 1999 arguing that the Bush people were stealing the primary - it was primarily a big money argument, but presciently warned that we should keep an eye on the integrity of the actual voting machines.
A good argument could be made that the people's choice in 2000 was John Mcain, who would have beaten Bush in a fair race, and very likely would have gone on to beat Gore in the general. McCain wasn't my choice, I liked Gore's politics better, but Gore didn't have a charismatic enough personality, and I think McCain was the choice of the majority, and would have won in a real democracy.
Even with big money and even with their smear tactics, the Bush people were unable to beat either Gore or Kerry without resorting to real fraud, to changing people's votes. Why everyone has prefaced their remarks on this for five years with "nothing to be done about that now" has always mystified me, since, again, if the tables were turned the Pubbies would never rest until the crooks were tossed out and a new election were held. Look at California, where they managed to get a revote on a sitting governor!
If this were a real democracy like those in Europe, the people would not tolerate an in-your-face stolen presidential election and would not only work for clean elections next time, but would be gathering together in large crowds and holding nationwide strikes until the bastards were forced to step down.
September 10, 2005 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Look at California, where they managed to get a revote on a sitting governor!"
Poor analogy. That wasn't a contested election, but rather a recall of an extremely unpopular Governor.
"but would be gathering together in large crowds and holding nationwide strikes until the bastards were forced to step down"
Do you really advocate mob rule with labor unions crippling the economy if elections don't go their way?
September 10, 2005 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Do you really advocate mob rule?"
No, of course not. What a ridiculous question. I advocate democracy. I advocate people getting off their couches and demanding our democracy back. I demand responsible leadership. I demand that the president we actually elect be the one who gets the keys to the car. Not the hoodlum who steals first your hubcaps, then your car, then your country. Or in the case of New Orleans, first your country, then your city...
September 11, 2005 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
"No, of course not. What a ridiculous question"
Hmm, you could have fooled me:
"but would be gathering together in large crowds and holding nationwide strikes until the bastards were forced to step down."
This sounds like the behavior of a lynch mob, not the behavior of a civilized society that presents evidence of fraud or other grievances in a court of law and overthrows the government through peaceful elections.
September 12, 2005 6:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let Facts be submitted to a candid world...
September 14, 2005 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Only those with ties to big business can raise enough money to run"
I think you need to expand "big business" to include big labor, wealthy trial lawyers, Hollywood celebrities, George Soros and his ilk, inherited wealth (see Kennedy, Kerry, Dayton,..), and on and on. Didn't Howard Dean brag about raising gazillions on the internet?
September 10, 2005 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Reformers generally come from the working class or intellectual class, not usually rich sectors"
One our local Green Party city council worthies, oh so concerned about election reform and "getting money our of politics" is about to get his oh so compassionate butt indicted for taking money for his vote. So much for the "working class" being so morally superior.
September 10, 2005 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Robert Brown, it looks like you are trying to assert your superiority. You have only proven that you are rude and seem to want to embarrass others. You really need to think about that attitude. There are ways of disagreeing without being disagreeable.
The reason the checks and balances were put in were so they would weed out the any dishonesty. They worked well until most of the Media became profit makers who are bought by the highest bidders. If the press had not defended the voting outcome and had harped about it being dishonest, they could have pressured the politicians in 2000 and 2004 to have revoted.
The press used to be considered the watch dogs of the politicians. Now they are the lap dogs. The cost of TV coverage for politicians should be outlawed. So should the advertisements paid for by others. The taxpayers footed the bill to create sattelites for the space programs. For awhile sattelite was free, then our government gave them the right to charge for programming.
The least the Media should do, because of profitting from our money and creation, is to give a certain amount of time for free to both sides. The press should keep the politicians honest. Instead, they seem to lie and cover up for the Republicans.
How to get to honest elections from here? I don't know. A few impeachments, a building anger and a few perp walks might help.
Maybe we should pass a law that foreigners like Murdock and the Saudi Arabian owner can't own our news.
September 10, 2005 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Robert Brown, it looks like you are trying to assert your superiority. You have only proven that you are rude and seem to want to embarrass others. You really need to think about that attitude. There are ways of disagreeing without being disagreeable. "
Sorry, when I catch someone making a blatantly false statement, I am going to call them out in no uncertain terms. If they are subsequently embarrassed because they are unable to defend themselves, perhaps they will be a bit more thoughtful before blurting out the first thing that comes to mind.
September 10, 2005 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
The government did think the "checks" would have a majority of honest people. Why else would they have put them in? Every "body" had another to check them. They didn't forsee a time when they would join together and the "checks" would work for and with the "balances" .
It would not have happened with an honest Media. They couldn't forsee a Media that wouldn't inform the people and misinforms the voters.
They also didn't forsee each of our representatives being wooed and fed lies by lobbyiests, for business, that work against the middle class and poor.
September 10, 2005 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Debate on the issue of a "paper trail" invariably ends up getting bogged down in the validity of paper/pen or paper/pencil records. The real need is for an independent vote verification system; paper records are but one way of accomplishing that. In my view it's time to move the issue out of the paper quagmire by considering the possibility of alternative vote verification systems.
Here's one possibility. One could easily position a small digital camera element (readily available for well under $50) so that it could record the individual choices selected by each voter at the time the voter pushes the final "vote" button (the voting systems are invariably set up so that voter can visually inspect their choices prior to the final act of voting - thus, the voter's choices can be recorded as an image, or image set). The set-up for recording images of the voter's choice could also be arranged to capture an image of the vorter's hand as the voter press the final vote button if desired to provide another "check and balance" layer to the recorded image. The images could be sent to a digital storage medium via a path independent of the preexisting vote recording mechanism - and permanentely recorded on a digital medium such as DVDs that, for example, might be holographicly marked and numbered, and issued in advance by the federal government. A group of two or three independent officials could be required independently mark each of these storage media as they are collected and sent to a safe, separate and controlled, storage location.
That's just one approach. I'm sure there are others. We don't need paper; but we do need an independent vote verification system.
September 11, 2005 5:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
We demand vote by mail with ballots easy to fill out and difficult to change or invalidate by Republican Party officials throughout the United States of America. This will prevent Republicans from vote suppression by skin color which happened electronically and in person in the 2000 and 2004 elections.
We demand Civil servants on every state payroll keep track of voter registrations and vote counting of mail in votes in each precinct and not companies such as Choicepoint. We need to take the Republican Party out of the business of keeping track of voter registration and counting votes.
We demand States ban the secretary of state from engaging in politics especially acting as a campaign official for a presidential campaign.
To encourage the Republican congress to pass a federal law we call for a boycott of 2 big Republican contributors Wendy's restaurants of Ohio and Outback Steakhouse of Florida. Ohio and Florida, the scenes of the crimes of the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004. This boycott will entail demanding that the executives get the RNC chairman to hold a press conference acceeding to the above demands listed above and the actual enacting of the items into federal legislation directing the states to implement the above demands. People will continue to boycott these restaurants until we get honest elections by mail with paper ballots and honest voter registration systems run by civil servants. No partisan secretary of state will remove thousands of people from voter rolls or hide voting machines in order to get their presidential candidate elected by vote suppression again.
September 11, 2005 7:59 AM | Reply | Permalink