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Democracy is Not A Spectator Sport and What "WeThePatriots" Are Doing About That
By Joan Brunwasser (about the author) Page 2 of 3 page(s)
What does this group WeThePatriots propose? Parallel counts to verify the results on election night rather than post election audits; once an election is called, an audit is unlikely to trigger a reversal of the results. Putting the citizens back in charge, rather than leaving elections in the hands of the e-voting vendors. When their technicians come in, sometimes even in the midst of the voting, and tinker with machines, removing parts, exchanging parts, calibrating, adjusting, who can vouch for what they're doing? Who understands what they're doing? Where is citizen oversight and transparency?
Bev Harris personally authored the section in the "Request by Voters" to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) as it relates to election records. She and other citizen election watchdogs have made FOIA requests for election records from counties across the country. Often, the very records needed for true citizen oversight are withheld from citizens and claimed to be "proprietary information" or "trade secret information", maintained by the vendors! How can citizens truly oversee election challenges when, as in recent cases on 2006, the ballots themselves (among other documents) were considered to be the property of the vendors? In other cases, exorbitant costs are charged for the records; or, the delay in providing them prohibits any possible election challenge until after the election results have been certified.
Other crucial issues? We have uncertified, uncertifiable software and hardware that has been proven continually to break down and operate erroneously, and is susceptible to tampering and failure. Grandfather clauses, which allow the machines to be used despite all their grave problems, are a slap in the face of the voters. What is at stake here? Nothing less than representational democracy: how do you determine the will of the people if the vote-counting process is suspect?
All in favor of greater transparency, accountability and citizen oversight in our elections, please step forward. Now is the time to translate your sentiments into action. Merely nodding complacently from the sidelines is far from enough. There is a tremendous array of groups which will oppose us: the vendors, of course, who have been the clear victors here, the members of Congress who are influenced by those vendors and their lobbyists or have an incomplete understanding of what's involved and what's at stake, the Boards of Elections who fear having to start all over with another new system ahead of the rapidly approaching Presidential elections, public apathy and feelings of hopelessness. Ironically, also working against the principles of democratic elections (transparency and citizen oversight) are large civil rights organizations going down the erroneous path that finds answers for all voting issues in high cost, high-tech e-voting equipment.
We acknowledge how difficult it is to get the powers-that-be to listen, let alone respond positively to citizens' overtures. Just look at our President. He admitted to receiving "a thumpin'" in November and has he adapted his Iraq policy to reflect that? I'm afraid not.
I'm currently reading The Devil in the White City about the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, which took place in Chicago, my hometown. It is an awe-inspiring tale of colossal challenges: the ambitiousness of the vision, the shortness of time to accomplish it, the vagaries of the Chicago soil, the harshness of the winter, labor disputes, fire, torrential downpours, delays, on-site injuries and deaths, countless committees which complicated matters rather than streamlining them, massive cost overruns and a quickly worsening national economy. The project suffered from practically every calamity you can think of. Yet, somehow, this miraculous feat was accomplished, despite all odds. France was the site of the 1889 World's Fair, the brand-new Eiffel Tower causing quite a stir. Burnham and his cohorts wanted to out-Paris Paris in flair as well as attendance - and, with the help of the deceptively fragile looking, forty-six and a half ton Ferris Wheel, they did! It's really quite amazing.
We citizen patriots should take heart from this massive collaborative effort. The impossible always starts as a mere thought, a germ of an idea. A visionary articulates something and it gains momentum as people jump aboard until it reaches that critical 'tipping point' where it becomes inevitable. Right now, the luxury of time is something we simply don't have. Our future, the future of our children and even those of the citizens beyond our borders, all depend on our success at bringing about meaningful election reform now. Elections that are secure, accurate, transparent, and reflect the people's will. Anything else is a threat to the foundations of our historical democracy. We must do everything in our power to achieve this goal. Our country may not survive another questionable election and its aftermath. So, we simply can't afford to fail.
Links and What You Can Do:
Actions:
-Sign the "Request by Voters" petition now: http://www.wethepatriots.org
-Sign the Velvet Revolution petition for paper ballots now: http://www.velvetrevolution.us/Campaigns/PaperBallots/
Links to articles to bring yourself up to speed:
-"Electronic Voting & Fair Vote Counts: Annotated Bibliography of 15 Expert Reports on Voting Systems and Fair Vote Counts" by Rady Ananda http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rady_ana_070117_annotated_bibliograp.htm
-"Security Of Electronic Voting Is Condemned; Paper Systems Should Be Included, Agency Says" By Cameron W. Barr http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113001637.html
-"When Votes Disappear" by Paul Krugman, the New York Times, (about what happened in Florida's 13th Congressional District) http://www.truthout.org/cgibin/artman/exec/view.cgi/66/24064
-"E-vote systems certifier de-certified; We can't prove anything, so neither can the Feds" by Thomas C. Greene (about Ciber, Inc., the largest 'independent' e-voting machine testing lab) click here
-"Wrong Winner Chosen by Same Voting Machine Twice: Congress Seats Two Clear 'Losers'" by Michael Collins http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0701/S00173.htm
I am now hearing rumblings that Rep. Holt and his advisors are moving away from transparency and citizen oversight in their revisions to his bill. This is very disturbing. While our country has become polarized to an unprecedented degree in the last several years, one thing we all seemingly agree on is that vote counting is heading in the wrong direction. In fact, 92% want the "right to view vote counting and obtain information about vote counting" according to the August 2006 Zogby poll commissioned by election law attorney Paul Lehto. http://www.zogby.com/News/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1163
This raises an important question. If the rumblings prove correct and legislation steps away from meaningful election reform, what will we do? What are we prepared to do? While I hope and pray that legislators seize this propitious moment to get America back on track, we must be in standby mode if that proves not to be the case. Use this short window of time to think about strategies to let Congress know, in no uncertain terms, that walking away (or heading in the wrong direction) is simply unacceptable. The scuttlebutt is that the revised Holt Bill may be introduced as early as next week. Catch up on your sleep now. This is going to be a fight to the finish. If you've been hanging back waiting for the perfect moment to jump in, wait no longer!
We need every able-bodied citizen who cares about the principles our country was founded on: "government of the people, by the people, for the people".
This is a perfect opportunity to gaze backwards almost 150 years to another war and another America, also terribly fractured and divided. What came to be known as the Gettysburg Address was given by President Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the Civil War, which still had more than a year to run. His words were spoken at the dedication of a national cemetery at Gettysburg, the site of a huge battle several months before involving over 150,000 soldiers and resulting in an unprecedented number of dead and wounded. The task of collecting the wounded and burying the thousands of bodies was an overwhelming one for the 2500 residents of Gettysburg. The countryside was turned into a giant makeshift hospital and morgue for months. The ceremony that day in November, 1863, was to bring consolation to the many relatives of the dead and help the country bind its wounds. Lincoln's speech was one of five. One gifted speaker, Edward Everett, spoke for two hours. Lincoln's remarks consisted of less than three hundred words, took well under five minutes to deliver and still somehow captured the essence of that moment in time in a way that none of the other speeches did. While the Civil War was what brought them all there, Lincoln's words did not mention the battle, the two sides or the Emancipation Proclamation. Yet, with a few broad brushstrokes, he captured the essence of American democracy and the challenges that faced the American people at that moment in history.
"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
This government that Lincoln spoke of put the people squarely in the center as its reason for being and its fulcrum. This is the essence of our democracy. And, that is what we, today, are fighting for, no less. It is up to us to complete the "unfinished work" of assuring free, fair, secure, transparent elections for our people. We have before us an historic opportunity to change course and return to what the Founding Fathers had in mind. It is a sacred task that we face. Are we up to the challenge? Very soon, one way or the other, we shall see.
***
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