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THE NATION SPEAKS
For the voting integrity grassroots, and for many new to the dilemma of voters rights, the “VOICE OF THE VOTERS” radio broadcast has become that GO TO radio venue where the latest news are debuted and dissected by the best minds in the struggle to save Americas voting integrity.
The January 30 broadcast airing on WNJC1360 in the Philadelphia Pennsylvania listening market, and on the web at wwwdotwnjc1360dotcom, was a two hour special, where the show airing just prior to VoV, “American Voices” hosted by the author, shared its earlier time slot with VoV allowing for a multitude of callers from all over the United States to share information conveying the urgency of the national condition.
After a brief on air introduction by the author, Voice of the Voters program host Mary Ann Gould welcomed well known political blogger and voting activist Brad Friedman to the program. Brad commented that the Los Angeles Times produced a 2800 word voting issues article that lacked the input of even one voting integrity activist. So much for investigative journalism. He also conveyed his overall sense that there is demonstrable progress being made with much more awareness of the voting integrity problems within the general population, and that the many victories within the grassroots have had an impact. “We’re winning, he said, but a long way from having won it”.
Following Brad Friedman was Susan Pynchon with updates on New Hampshire and Florida. When speaking of the voting in the New Hampshire primary ,“She never dreamed that she would see what she saw” was her opening exclamation . “There is solid evidence that leads to believe a connection to organized crime” was her startling follow up(more on that at a later date). Her observation that, “the state has abdicated its responsibilities and given it to a private company” was conveyed with a sense of deep frustration. When asked by Mary Ann about the biggest lesson learned in New Hampshire, Susan said, “Chain of custody, where any number of things can go on”. Yup, New Hampshire has issues.
And the hits just kept on coming. If “Voice of the Voters” were a top forty pop music program, the callers would all have been vying for top ten positioning, and it would be a continuous juggling of positions as each state and county vied for the top spot. Following Brad Friedman and Susan Pynchon were voices from Virginia, Colorado, Washington State , Pennsylvania, Ohio…it was as if the entire country had gotten inline to call in and share their circumstance with the Voice of the Voters knowledgeable audience, however, there was only two hours to utilize and much was left for another program. The commonality of the messages was that all of the states are knee deep in legal battles, ego wars, stupidity contests, and legislative boondoggles.
Special note is given to the extraordinary circumstance in Ohio where “election officials are boycotting Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s recommendations”, and “the SOS has not held election officials responsible” said Paddy Shaffer. Ms. Shaffer was beside herself when relating the frustrating conditions in Ohio, “We need some help” was her desperate plea. The listeners were able to share in her frustration when she mentioned that “pre-chosen random” (talk about your oxymoron’s) audits were on the schedule for the November 2008 election. Paddy, you are not alone, the deck is being stacked in all fifty states.
Ohio’s eastern neighbor is in no less dire straits. Pennsylvania may wind up being the new Florida, only without the opportunity for hanging chads. Pennsylvania is purely electronic, and it has Voice of the Voters host Mary Ann Gould on the edge of her seat, if not on her last nerve. She issued a plea for all Pennsylvania residents to call Governor Ed Rendell and demand that he “insure voter marked paper ballots for the November 2008 election”. Pennsylvania is the cyber state. Once the voter enters their votes into the magical black box, that vote lives only as a dubious magnetic address within a dubious machines memory. Whatever the computer decides to spew forth will be blindly accepted as gospel by Pennsylvania’s election officials.
The first hour ended with both hosts content in that much information was shared in a short period of time. It was an intense hour.
The second hour was no less informative and lead off with the Associate
Legislative Director of the National Association of Counties, Alysoun McLaughlin. Ms. McLaughlin agreed that there was an “important dialogue on Voice of the Voters”. She said that part of the problem is that, “as many 2-3-4 different voting systems have been used over the last decade in many counties nationwide”. “Rural counties and small towns are in incredible difficult positions” she said. They are “reliant on state help, or “vendor” help” said McLaughlin. She also said that “HAVA made election officials nervous about new technologies”, but when asked by Mary Ann about NACO’s opinion of DRE’s, her reply was that NACO is “agnostic” about voting technologies. Fence sitting aside, she then said that “if she were responsible for developing a system of voting that it would probably be a recipe or collection of different systems to accommodate the needs of different circumstance”.
After getting an ear full from NACO’s representative, long time friend of Voice of the Voters, John Gideon joined the fray. “Pennsylvania is going to become an integral part in deciding the next President” said John. He related how the authors home county of Bucks, is that county about which they are most concerned. To that end, myself, Lori Rosolowsky, and others from Bucks County will be attending the Bucks County commissioners meeting on February 6, and an update of that meeting will be part of the Voice of the Voters program that same evening.
And it was one of those Bucks County Commissioners that was the final guest on the broadcast. Bucks County’s Diane Marseglia provided insight into the state of affairs within that very important Pennsylvania County. Commissioner Marseglia gets it. She understands and fears that “Florida can happen here in Pennsylvania” and is working towards a prevention of that ugly potential. Commissioner Marseglia wants DRE’s replaced, and has drafted a letter in support of Rush Holt’s HR5036 and is now waiting for her fellow commissioners to sign on board. How long that wait may be is the question of the hour. While she is “not sure if it’s too late yet” as it relates to being able to implement a voter marked paper ballot system for the November 2008 election, she is sure about the reality that the clock is ticking.
If there is near term hope in Pennsylvania and other states whose backs are against the wall, it will be because of the grassroots working hand in hand with open minded and forward looking executives such as Bucks Counties Diane Marseglia. The struggle for voting integrity is a marathon event, and the hard work up to this point has been the conditioning training that will provide the mental stamina needed in order to run strong till the end. The hard reality with the course that we are running is that it is all up hill, and the hills become more frequent and steeper nearing the finish line. Determining the finish line is another aspect that complicates the struggle as the length of the course is changing during the race. The finish line continues to move farther away all the time. As a rule of thumb we have used the November 2008 election as a drop dead point in time where the democratic process lives or dies, but, the reality is that unless we have a miraculous total victory by then, the struggle will continue on for as long as it takes. Lets stay in peak condition.
Authors note: Having listened to the calls streaming in from all across the nation, a crystal clear message emerged. That message being that there is a screaming need to get EVERYONE on the same page. There are so many different voting systems being utilized and contested in every nook and cranny of every county in all fifty states, that the only word that seems applicable to describe it all is, chaos.
We are swept up treating the symptoms of the epidemic and not attempting to isolate and cure the root cause. And in the race to treat the symptoms, we too lose sight of the guiding star, which is of course Transparency. When assessing the viability of a voting system, the final judgment must foremost consider the transparency of the process.
No matter what process is ultimately chosen, there will never be perfection, thus, arguments against the need for a national standardized voting process falls on deaf ears when such is presented to the author as a reason to not optimize the system. The value of standardization is seen in countless aspects of society and industry. Had we not standardized the time zones back in the late 19th century, the coordination of events would have remained much like our modern voting dilemma, one of chaos. If cockpits in commercial jets did not have standardized flight decks that allows for flight deck crews to move from one same type aircraft to another of the same type and find all of the instruments and switches in the same place, then safety would be compromised. And standardization in the military allows for large numbers of people to interact amongst many systems with all being on the same page behaviorally and logistically. And the most compelling American example is the document that keeps us more or less on the same sheet of paper as a struggling democracy, the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Standardization is not the enemy, it is a pathway from chaos.
Arguments against a standardized voting process that suggest that adopting a bad process would be very destructive are patently obvious. A system that is transparent to the average literate English speaking registered voter cannot be argued against. Keep It Simple Stupid should be the voting integrity mantra. Keep it Transparent Stupid should be the equal sibling.
Clearly, our leadership have lost their way. They are blinded , deafened and desensitized to the importance of their charge. They are so busy justifying their investments of time, energy, money and emotion, that they have lost sight of the guiding star, TRANSPARENCY. Transparency needs to be the standard from which none of us may deviate. When keeping the requirement of transparency as your first priority, the utility of the multitudes of systems which are creating the national chaos is instantly revealed as unacceptable. More than unacceptable, their use as certified mechanisms for recording and reporting the individual votes of American citizens becomes unthinkable.
