This is a must-read. Gaining transparent, verifiable voting isn't a pro-Kerry issue, of course, but a question of protecting a fundamental right of the average American. I hope all will read this important viewpoint:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1116-32.htm November 16, 2004 Corrupt before a vote was cast by Alan Gilbert Tom Zeller, Jr., âAs Fast as Blogs See Vote Fraud, Web is Proving Rumors Wrong â (New York Times, November 12, p. A1) and John Schwartz, âMostly Good Review for Electronic Votingâ (A20) make some good points about seeming anomalies in Florida. But their fundamental claim that the November 2nd election was fair is wrong. The right to vote is the most important democratic right. It mandates control over government by the people as opposed to tyranny. Does the integrity of the vote exist in the United States? If our leaders were concerned about restoring confidence in the integrity of the right to vote, they would have gone out of their way to demonstrate fairness and transparency. No reasonable person could think given the 2000 election, they automatically had integrity. But the November 2nd election was less transparent than in 2000. Officials substituted computerized voting machines which leave no paper trail to recount for comparatively accurate punch cards. Fifty million people, more than forty per cent of actual voters, used such machines. But in the Nevada primary, Dean Heller, the Secretary of State commissioned voting machines which did leave a paper trail. Solving the problem was neither expensive nor difficult. Yet needing to prove the integrity of elections, the Republicans and the voting machine makers stuck to touch screen, no paper record computers. Every ATM transaction leaves a paper trail. Gambling machines in Nevada are randomly checked. Only the most important right in a democracy is held prisoner by the false claims of politicians and manufacturers that no paper record can be provided. A year and a half ago in the House of Representatives, many Republicans as well as Democrats would have voted for a paper trail. But Dennis Hastert and Tom Delay prevented a resolution from ever getting to the floor. The Help America Vote Act envisions a paper trail only in 2006. Why was the Republican leadership determined to prevent democracy in 2004? Alone among democracies, in the United States, election officials - Secretaries of State â are partisan. Even so, one would think that the Glenda Hoods, Kenneth Blackwells and Donetta Davidsons would be concerned to do their jobs: to uphold the transparency of the right to vote. But in adopting touch screen machines with no paper record, they did the opposite. Companies such as Diebold, Electr onic Systems and Software and Sequoia Voting Systems gave 43% of the budget of the National Association of Secretaries of State (New York Times, September 12, 2004). They took the Secretaries to dinners and on cruises. Further, they provide ârevolving doorâ employment. In 2003, the California Secretary of State Bill Jones becomes a consultant to Sequoia; his assistant secretary became an employee. Former Secretaries from Florida and Georgia have signed on with ES&S and Diebold. Internationally, fair elections are understood to be administered by nonpartisan officials. Observers who had seen the use of voting machines in Venezuela â much attacked by the Bush administration â commented that they were fair and transparent compared to the United States: âThe observers said they had less access to polls [in the US] than in Kazakhstan, that the electronic voting had fewer fail-safes than in Venezuela, that the ballots were not so simple as in the Republic of Georgia and that no country had such a complex national election system.â (Thomas Crampton, âGlobal Monitors Find Faults,â International Herald Tribune, November 3, 2004). (For the rest of this article, go to url shown at top of page.) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/XgSolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ----- / o o \ ===OO=====OO============================================= (4)Portals (2)News Wikis (2)Conferences - No BuSHIT! Start here: http://pnews.org/ (On Internet since 1982) http://pnews.org/PhpWiki/ (West Coast News Wiki) http://g0lem.net/PhpWiki/ (East Coast News Wiki) ========================================================= FIGHT THE RIGHT! ================== Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rhetoric-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
