-Caveat Lector-
RadTimes # 103 November, 2000
An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities.
"We're living in rad times!"
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Contents:
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--Revote or Revolt?
--Florida AIM calls on UN, OAS to monitor recounts, revote
--Many of state's voting machines old, unreliable
--This election is an epiphany for many voters
--Electoral fraud in Florida? Socialist campaign responds
Linked stories:
*IRS raids cypherpunk's house
*Political stalemate delights Wall Street
*America's election mess undercuts international nagging
*The heartland shrugged
*Cybercrime Treaty Draft: Take 23
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Begin stories:
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Revote or Revolt?
FREE RADICAL: chronicle of the new unrest - Issue #12
by L.A. KAUFFMAN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <www.free-radical.org>
Wait a minute: Weren't *we* the people who were supposed
to push the American system into a crisis of legitimacy?
By "we" I mean those small but feisty pockets of U.S.
society dedicated to rabble-rousing, trouble-making, and
fundamental change. For a shut-it-down radical like me,
the election mess in the United States has been altogether
too surreal, coming at the end of a raucous year of
politics in the street.
I'm one of those who believe that our political process is
thoroughly corrupted by moneyed interests and that the two
major parties often differ only in which corporate masters
they serve. The heated battle underway between Democrats
and Republicans strikes me as wildly out of proportion to
their actual political disagreements - a classic example
of what Freud famously called the narcissism of small
differences.
Yet still I find myself drawn into the vote-counting
drama, as if an accurate tally would constitute a
democratic outcome, in an election between two plutocrats
hand-picked by ruling elites. I cheer the African-American
students from Florida A&M University who took over the
state capitol building for nearly 24 hours to protest the
voting irregularities. I'm moved by the stories of
Holocaust survivors weeping at the realization that they
voted for Holocaust-denier Pat Buchanan. I'm stirred by
accounts of protest rallies in Florida whose fervor echoes
the black voting rights struggle of the 1950s and early
1960s. And I realize that - despite having voted for Ralph
Nader, with zero regrets - I really do dislike Bush more
than I dislike Gore.
Over the weekend, I walked over to a hastily organized
protest in Times Square, one of many taking place around
the country. Promoted almost entirely on the Internet, it
had a very homespun and spontaneous flavor. Nobody had yet
created buttons or t-shirts. The signs were nearly all
hand-lettered. The crowd had clearly not been mobilized
either by the Democratic Party machine or any of the usual
protest organizers (labor unions, advocacy groups, college
organizations, whatever).
The protesters, who numbered perhaps 700 at their peak,
came up with chants full of faith in the basic political
process:
"No fuzzy ballots"
"Will of the people"
"Every vote counts"
"This is about democracy"
The signs were in a similar vein:
"Let Grandma's Vote Count"
"No Jim Crow Voting"
"Isn't this a Democracy?"
But that ultimate question - is the United States in fact
a democracy? - was something that no one was really
asking. And that virtually no one is discussing during the
topsy-turvy process of battling over the vote.
That evening, I went to a screening of "This Is What
Democracy Looks Like," a remarkable new documentary on
last year's Seattle WTO protests, which takes its name
from the most famous of the chants coined there on the
streets.
It was on the third day of the protests that I first heard
that chant. Having successfully disrupted the WTO's
meetings through a nonviolent blockade, we had variously
been tear gassed, pepper sprayed, shot at with rubber
bullets, deafened with concussion grenades, beaten,
arrested, and chased. Martial law had been declared, and
all of downtown Seattle had been decreed a "no protest
zone," where it was illegal even to carry a sign opposing
the WTO.
Thousands of people - including many Seattle residents who
had not originally joined the protests, but who were
outraged by the complete decimation of civil liberties -
decided to defy the ban on public assembly and began to
march through the city. Our numbers swelled as we crossed
downtown and then headed uphill toward the jail where
those arrested for protesting on the previous day were
being held. As the enormous and defiant crowd neared a
spot where I had seen the police viciously gas seated,
nonviolent protesters two days before, the chant went up -
"This is what democracy looks like" - and moved me almost
to tears.
For what this brave and extraordinary crowd was saying -
echoed by every crowd that has since taken to the streets
for global justice - was that real democracy is not
confined to the voting booth or the halls of government.
Democracy is when those without power join together to
hold the powerful accountable; when people refuse to have
basic decisions about their lives taken out of their
hands. Democracy is loud, often unruly, and always public.
The outcome of this election certainly matters. But it's
dwarfed in importance by a great many other fights taking
place through direct and collective action: for campaign
finance reform; against racial profiling and police
brutality; against corporate domination and the
privatization of public goods; and so on ad infinitum. For
democracy will not win, no matter who goes to the White
House.
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Florida AIM calls on UN, OAS to monitor recounts, revote
Mon, 13 Nov 2000
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT
Sheridan Murphy Florida AIM State Executive Director or
Mark Madrid, Florida AIM State Information Director at
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Saint Petersburg, FL- The American Indian Movement of Florida (Florida AIM)
is the state chapter of the international Indigenous peoples human, civil,
treaty and sovereignty rights movement.
Florida AIM is critically concerned, although not surprised, about
allegations that Chicano, Indigenous, African and Haitian peoples were
intimidated, profiled, and harassed as they attempted to exercise their
alleged right to vote in supposedly democratic elections that occurred in
Florida and throughout the United States of America on November 7, 2000.
Florida AIM recognizes that historically America has only afforded the
illusion of civil rights, democracy and freedom to the Indigenous peoples of
the Western Hemisphere and the African and Chicano (a) peoples. However, as a
rights organization we can not ignore violations of our friends and relatives
civil rights, let alone such flagrant, insidious, and blatant violations of
African, Haitian, Indigenous and other peoples civil rights.
Florida AIM therefore has filed requests with the United Nations, and
Organization of American States asking both neutral entities to investigate
the rampant allegations of racial profiling, intimidation, and efforts to
prevent Indigenous, African, Haitian and other people from exercising their
legal right to vote in the November 7th election. No matter how illusory the
reality, the fact remains that such a right has been guaranteed to those
people and should be afforded to them. We further call upon the UN and OAS to
demand a nationwide reelection based on the denial of tens of thousands of
peoples rights and the violations of tens of thousands more. We call upon
both the United Nation and OAS to provide international monitors and
observers to insure the process is, for a change, legitimate and proper.
Florida AIM entirely agree's with the sentiment of former AIM National
Chairman John Trudell who at the Native American Music Awards stated "I've
always anticipated that Bush was going to be the next President, democracy is
still about exploitation. Its not what has it done for us [as Native people],
its what it has done to us." Therefore, while normally as an organization
dedicated towards the sovereign rights of Indigenous peoples, we would not
comment on an election in what is essentially a foreign country-a colonial
settler state imposed upon us, but foreign nonetheless. However, the clear,
unambiguous, and open nature of these racist assaults upon the stated
illusory voting rights of African, Indigenous, and other peoples must be
challenged, and exposed showing the world and the people within America that
only the illusion of freedom, democracy, and justice exist within the United
States of America.
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Many of state's voting machines old, unreliable
<http://www.starnews.com/news/politics/articles/ballot1113.html>
On Election Day, some required repair or replacement; cost is the top
obstacle to upgrades.
By John Fritze
Indianapolis Star
November 13, 2000
More than half of Indiana's voters cast their ballots on antiquated systems
that are susceptible to breakdown and can delay the release of official
results.
In fact, nearly 40 percent of registered Hoosiers vote with a punch-card
system on Election Day, similar to the one used in Palm Beach County, Fla.,
according to the Indiana Election Division.
As the outcome of this year's presidential race may hang on the legitimacy
of that ballot, some are questioning why decades-old voting systems haven't
been updated and made uniform from county to county and state to state.
"Unfortunately, until Tuesday, the nation had never really been exposed to
the integrity of their vote," said Jim Ries, president of MicroVote, an
Indianapolis company that sells high-tech, computerized ballot systems in
10 states, including Indiana.
But as officials in Marion County discovered this year, when they began
looking for ways to replace their 942 lever-style machines, the short-term
expense of advancing democracy can be prohibitive.
On the recommendation of a task-force review conducted earlier this year,
Marion County election officials are testing two prototype optical-scan
machines that could be in place in a couple of years.
The machines, already used by about 5 percent of Hoosiers voters, require
citizens to fill in bubbles in a paper ballotmuch like a lottery cardand
feed that ballot into a computer scanner.
The main advantage to the scanner unit is speed, but it also allows
election officials to review the paper ballots if necessary and would
likely reduce the number of last-minute repairs the lever machines now require.
"I'm very excited about it," said David Woo, an administrator with the
county election board and the city's lever-machine guru. "You just won't
see lines on Election Day any more."
Six lever machines failed last Tuesday, Woo said. They were fixed or
replaced with other units in about 30 minutes.
The biggest problem with switching to a newer technology is cost. The
price tag of the optical units could run anywhere from $5 million to $7
million in Indianapolis, forcing election officials to find funds in next
year's budget.
"They're not cheap," said Dudley Cruea, the Republican chairman of the
Indiana Election Commission. "Counties don't want to spend the money
replacing a system that's not broke."
Meanwhile, voters in 42 Indiana counties cast their ballot on a punch card,
although the controversial "butterfly" format used in Florida apparently
didn't make its way into Indiana.
While counties are wrangling with ways to replace those systems, the state
Election Commission is struggling in its role to certify the new machines.
State law requires any alteration to a machine, however minute, to be
tested by an independent company, adding to the cost.
There are five types of voting systems used in the United States today, all
with varying success:
� Paper ballots, first tried in a statewide
election in New York in
1889, still were being used by 1.7 percent of U.S. voters more than a
century later. Although they are the least expensive, paper ballots take
longer to count and are easily lost.
� Lever machines, used in Marion and nine other
Indiana counties, were introduced in 1892 and, by the mid-1960s, were
installed in every major city in the country. Widely considered one of the
more accurate methods of voting, the ballots can be confusing. The
machines, no longer in production, are beginning to wear and are expensive
to fix.
� Punch cards, first tried in Georgia in the
1960s, are used by 37 percent of voters nationally and about 38 percent of
registered voters in Indiana. The punch cards, now under scrutiny in
Florida, can be difficult to understand and take long to recount.
� Optical scanners, like the kind under review
in Indianapolis, are costly, but fastsome immediately upload tallies to a
central computer, allowing officials to quickly determine the winner. Five
percent of Indiana voters used the scanners in the 1998 election, and state
officials said the number didn't change much this year.
� Direct Recording Electronic machines, the most
recent addition in the industry, employ a variety of interfaces, including
liquid crystal display touch screens, and let voters recast their choice if
they make a mistake. Extremely costly at first, and intimidating to some
voters, the machines also create instant tallies and are gaining in popularity.
Thirty-four percent of registered voters in Indiana used DREs in 1998.
"You can change your vote a half-dozen times and it doesn't matter," said
Lake County resident John Adkinson, 58, who used one of the newer DRE
machines last week. "I'd really hate to go back to the paper ballot."
Other states have tried even more pioneering options.
Oregon, for example, moved to a mail voting system two years ago. The state
sends ballots to its 1.9 million registered voters and residents have about
two weeks to return them. Of course, Oregon still was counting its returns
days after other states had declared the winner.
In Arizona, Democrats held the first on-line presidential primary in the
country this year, drawing an additional 40,000 voters. Although the
primary counted, it was not sanctioned by the state.
Republican Party state chairman Mike McDaniel has said he thought on-line
voting could be the best way to improve slipping turnout figures.
"That's going to change everything," McDaniel said.
But until computer scientists find a way to thwart fraud, most experts
agree that nationwide Internet voting is a long way off.
"Some day down the road that is going to be the way voting is going to go,
especially if we want to get more people involved," Cruea, the state
election commissioner, said.
But Ries, whose company produced the computerized machines used in Lake
County and other parts of the state, said some have been slow to accept the
idea of any new voting system.
"Our biggest marketing obstacle is tradition," said Ries, adding that a
recount the size of the ones being conducted in Florida would take all of
two hours on the computerized machines.
----
Contact John Fritze at (317) 327-4362 or via e-mail at
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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This election is an epiphany for many voters
"Jon Roland" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
November 12, 2000
As this is written, the outcome of the 2000 election is still uncertain, but
one result seems clear no matter which man takes office: The confidence
in the integrity of the election process has been shaken for millions of
voters, in much the way confidence was shaken in the aftermath of the
JFK assassination and the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals.
Suddenly conspiracy theories that would have previously been dismissed out
of hand are gaining credibility with middle Americans. People are saying
that those militia activists may have been right all along, and they are
buying weapons and ammunition. There has been a sudden surge of
militia recruitment across the nation.
Suddenly, there is tremendous interest in previous reports of vote fraud.
Thousands of people are visiting our online edition of _Votescam_ at
<http://www.constitution.org/vote/votescam__.htm> or purchasing the book from
<http://www.votescam.com/> . Even organizations like ABC News, which would
previously only have ordered the book through a low-level staffer for
delivery to his home, is openly having the book delivered to their offices.
They can no longer deny knowledge of the allegations it contains.
I have been getting press interviews on the subject, and so have many other
election reformers. Suddenly the topic is hot. Very hot.
We need to take advantage of this situation to do a number of things:
1 - Recruit alarmed citizens into activist groups. Once they come to
meetings, they can be educated about other kinds of corruption and abuse
of power. Initially, the groups don't need an agenda, like a militia or a
Libertarian Party committee. That can emerge later. The important thing
is to get them involved while they are in the mood.
2 - Educate existing activists about corruption and abuse that they might
previously have dismissed. Especially major party activists. Work to shift
their planks from government benefits to constitutional compliance.
3 - Urge the adoption of paper ballots and the elimination of punch card
ballots and voting machines, like those manufactured by Shoup, which can be
easily rigged.
4 - Urge positive identification of voters and their qualifications to vote,
so that no vote belonging to one person can ever be cast by someone else or
under the undue influence of someone else. Set up arrangements so that
voters who are out of town on election day can vote at the polling places of
other states or counties where positive identification can be done.
5 - Urge people generally to inform themselves on the candidates and the
issues so that the candidates or proponents don't have to spend enormous
amounts of money just for name recognition and image. Money will corrupt
elections and referenda as long as money can make the difference in the
outcome. When it no longer can, because people inform themselves without
much money being spent, the corrupting influence of money will largely
disappear.
6 - Urge people to stop voting their pocketbooks. That is nothing more than
selling their votes to the candidate or proposition that promises them some
financial benefit, and morally it is no different from an officeholder
selling his vote to a special interest, or shaking them down for more money
with the threat of adverse legislation. People need to start voting for what
is best for the country, and that will more often than not mean voting
against their financial interests insofar as those interests are affected
by government.
7 - Urge people to study the Constitution and learn to understand the ways
it is being violated, and why it is important to return to strict
compliance.
--Jon
Constitution Society, 1731 Howe Av #370, Sacramento, CA 95825
916/568-1022, 916/450-7941VM Date: 11/12/00 Time: 11:59:45
<http://www.constitution.org/> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Electoral fraud in Florida? Socialist campaign responds
The following statement was released November 9 by the Socialist
Workers 2000 Campaign, James Harris for President and Margaret Trowe
for Vice President.
Election results announced November 8 reported that Socialist Workers
candidate James Harris received 10,477 votes in the state of Florida,
one of 13 states and the District of Columbia where the ticket of
Harris and running mate Margaret Trowe were on the ballot. Several
hours later the reported vote total had dropped to 589. According to
press accounts, Harris had been credited with 9,888 votes in Volusia
County, but county election officials later told media sources the
initial report was in error.
"Our campaign has asked Florida officials for an explanation of these
events," Harris said. "The initial large vote total from Volusia
County, if press accounts are correct, was clearly not credible.
"Vote fraud is not an unusual occurrence in capitalist politics in
the United States and elsewhere," he noted.
"From the standpoint of working people, however, the real fraud, the
real scandal, lies elsewhere. Tens of millions of workers and farmers
are politically disenfranchised because they do not have the
opportunity to hear about the working-class alternative to the
Democrats and Republicans and the capitalist two-party system as a
whole. And many of them agree with much the socialist candidates
stand for and would be attracted to our campaign if they knew about
it.
"Undemocratic laws keep workers parties from gaining ballot access in
most states," Harris said. "Presidential 'debates' bar any party that
represents working people. There has been a virtual media blackout of
the Socialist Workers campaign, our championing of the struggles by
workers and farmers resisting the attacks of the employers and their
government, and why a revolutionary movement needs to be built to
fight for a government of workers and farmers."
Harris pointed out that when Farrell Dobbs ran for president on the
Socialist Workers Party ticket in 1948, his speech accepting the
party's nomination was broadcast nationwide over radio by the Mutual
Broadcasting System, ABC, and other networks. "But today any
semblance of what used to be called 'equal time' or coverage under
the 'fairness doctrine' has been taken back by the courts,
legislatures, and so-called regulatory agencies, with broad
bipartisan backing," Harris said.
Harris, a garment worker and union member from Atlanta,
said, "Margaret Trowe and I have received a tremendous response and
serious interest across the country on strike picket lines, at
actions against police brutality and in defense of immigrant rights,
and at protests by farmers defending their land and right to their
livelihood. We have discussed with thousands of working people the
need to oppose the U.S. economic war against Cuba and why the Cuban
socialist revolution stands in the interests of workers and farmers
around the world. We have joined protests with others in recent weeks
to demand that Israel withdraw from the Arab territories it occupied
in 1967 and to advance the fight for a democratic, secular Palestine.
Many working people and youth have wanted to continue discussions
about why we should extend a hand of solidarity to workers and
farmers worldwide and oppose Washington's military interventions from
Yugoslavia to Iraq, from Korea to Colombia.
Workers and farmers in this country, the socialist candidate pointed
out, have had to battle disenfranchisement for more than two
centuries--from the fight against property qualifications and chattel
slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries, to the movement for women's
suffrage, to the mass struggle against "poll taxes" and "literacy
tests" throughout the Jim Crow South, to manipulation of voter rolls
today. In Florida, 31 percent of all Black men could not cast a
ballot in this election--or in any election for the rest of their
lives--due to laws that bar voting by anyone convicted of a felony.
The total number of people affected by similar laws nationwide is 4.2
million.
"The tiny handful of propertied families who rule this country know
the potential power and capacities of working people. They hope to
keep the political arena restricted to parties that defend capitalism
and within a 'lesser evil' framework. That is why they refuse to
cover our campaign," Harris said.
"Against these odds we have sought to set an example for thousands
across this country of a fighting, working-class, and revolutionary
alternative. No matter who is declared winner in the elections,
workers and farmers--both here at home and abroad--will need to
deepen our resistance, the fight for independent working-class
organization, and our mutual solidarity in face of a continued
bipartisan offensive against our rights, social gains, standard of
living, and conditions on the job and off.
"That is the struggle the Socialist Workers Party commits itself to
in the weeks and months ahead."
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Linked stories:
********************
IRS raids cypherpunk's house
<http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40102,00.html>
Jim Bell, the cypherpunk known for creating a system for
anonymously offering cash rewards for assassinating government
officials, played host to an IRS raid that he's been predicting
since his release from prison. The raid was apparently in
response to his gathering information on federal agents who
have been watching him. (11/13/00)
********************
Political stalemate delights Wall Street
<http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/11/13/fp17s1-csm.shtml>
Wall Street financial wizzes are delighted by the prospect
of a paralyzed federal government. They believe that prosperity
thrives when government is crippled. (11/13/00)
********************
America's election mess undercuts international nagging
<http://www.antiwar.com/goldstein/g111300.html>
The battle in the United States over the "real" winner
of the White House undercuts America's claim of righteousness
in intervening internationally over political woes. (11/13/00)
********************
The heartland shrugged
<http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/ostrowski7.html>
With electoral college divisions in the 2000 election looking
an awful lot like the north-south divisions in 1860, James
Ostrowski suggests that, if Gore wins in the end, Bush partisans
should take a page from "Atlas Shrugged" and go on strike.
(11/13/00)
********************
Cybercrime Treaty Draft: Take
23 <http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40134,00.html?tw=wn20001113>
An international council assigned to establish a cybercrime treaty
merrily went through 22 drafts before confidently posting the proposal
on a website. Outrage ensued, and now it's back to the drawing board.
********************
=====================================================
"Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control."
-Jim Dodge
======================================================
"Communications without intelligence is noise;
intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
-Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
======================================================
"It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society."
-J. Krishnamurti
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