The Election Assistance Commission has urged all voters to check to make sure they are registered to vote. This is something you should do and urge everyone you know to do. You can register on-line by clicking here. The Obama campaign has set up a web page that allows you to check your registration online. If you are having problems with registration contact Election Protection at 1-866-OUR-VOTE (687-8683).
Bev Harris of Black Box Voting has put out a tool kit that can provide you everything you need to know to be an effective voter integrity activist. We cannot count on other people to protect our democracy, we need to do it ourselves. You can get the took kit by clicking here. The kit will tell you how we can take back our elections, educate our communities, work with the media, pressure public officials, get public record documents, monitor the testing of voting machines, monitor the voting and the vote count, watch the chain of custody of ballots and audit the election and even file a lawsuit. Thousands of eyes watching makes election theft more difficult.
There are many problems in American democracy – influence of big business money, ballot laws that make independent and third party runs difficult, debates limited to two parties, voting systems that push voters to vote for the lesser evil rather than the greater good, manipulated voting districts to protect incumbents, elections being administered by partisan election officials, to name a few among problems U.S. elections face. But, if we are unable to get these two basic things right – registering voters and counting the vote accurately – then not much else matters because the democracy is a farce and a fraud on the most basic fundamentals.
This year the proportion of voters using touchscreen voting systems – the least reliable system available – is expected to fall to 36 percent in November, down from a high of 44 percent in 2006. In addition, more voters are expected to use paper ballots in 2008 than did back in 2000. Now a majority of voters in the country will vote on paper ballots. Thus, there will be a voting record that will allow for a meaningful audit or recount in many states and counties.
But more work needs to be done. You need to play a role. Democracy is not a spectator sport, but one in which voters must participate – and not by merely voting – but by working to move the United States toward the ideal of the greatest representative democracy on Earth – an ideal that we have nowhere near achieved.
Links:
The incidents described in this article are available at www.TrueVote.US. You can donate to support our efforts at: https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1331/t/6410/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=1425.
To see a breakdown of what kind of voting systems a particular state or country will be using visit www.VerifiedVoting.org. For information on the lawsuit in Ohio against Premier Elections Systems visit www.RoveCyberGate.com.
National Organizations:
True Vote, www.TrueVote.US
Black Box Voting, www.blackboxvoting.org
Velvet Revolution, http://www.velvetrevolution.us
Verified Voting, www.verifiedvoting.org
Voters Unite, www.votersunite.org
Vote Trust USA, www.votetrustusa.org (with links to local groups throughout the country).
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