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Government (2713) Voting Integrity (2505) Voting Technology (1749) Voting Machines (1334) Voting (1287) Voting Laws Federal HAVA (1171) Voting Reform (935) Corporations Voting Machine (455) Election-Voting Issues News (262)
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A republic is a form of government maintained by a state or country whose sovereignty is based on consent of the governed and whose governance is based on popular representation. Rule of law is an essential feature of a republic. The American Republic lives or dies on the ability of the people to control the government. The Framers of the Constitution gave control of our elections (the lockbox of the Republic) to the individual States and not to the United States, to ensure that the dispersed power of citizens as represented by their state governments could check and balance the centralized power of the federal government. The general public, and most particularly many in the election integrity movement, are blissfully unaware of the dangers posed to our American Republic by a little known entity called the Election Assistance Commission. This White House Agency was slipped into the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in a late night, behind closed doors meeting, by the architects of that law: Congressman Bob Ney (now a convicted criminal), Congressman Steny Hoyer, Senator Mitch McConnell, and Senator Chris Dodd (now a presidential candidate). We can only guess at their motivations for creating an Executive agency composed of four White House appointees with the power to control the nation’s elections. Whatever prompted the HAVA architects to do this – against their own legal counsel’s advice – they certainly didn’t consult the wisdom of the Founders. Founding father Alexander Hamilton:
The architects of HAVA are not alone in their disdain for the wisdom of the founders. Several contemporary Congressional and Senatorial leaders are furiously trying to pass legislation to expand the powers of the Election Assistance Commission. The most infamous of the proposed bills are HR811 (the "Holt Bill") in the House, and SB1487 (the "Feinstein Bill") in the Senate. Congressman Rush Holt, in a July 2007 "town meeting" with constituents:
The historical imperative to resist granting control over our elections to the federal government might convince subscribers to Mr. Holt's articulated goal of the error of their ways. Common sense alone belies the utter absurdity of handing control of the electoral mechanism itself to those who will subsequently be elected by it. And handing control to the White House is beyond absurdity. Unfortunately, most American citizens don't even know this coups d'etat has occurred, and is being irrevocably cemented into place. They are unaware that the very foundation of the American Republic is being ripped out and replaced with an entirely new system of governance. Free, fair, and open public elections controlled by The People are being replaced with costly, high tech, complex, opaque, computerized, corporately-owned electoral theatre controlled by the White House, the Legislature, and the Judiciary. Even many election integrity activists fail to understand the fundamental problem with the EAC. They say, if only the "right" people were appointed to the Commission, all would be well.
Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people: Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers Nancy Tobi is cofounder, former Chair, website editor for Democracy for New Hampshire (DFNH), and Chair of the NH Fair Elections Committee. Nancy is the author of numerous articles on election integrity, including "The Gifts of HAVA: Time to Ask for a Refund," "What's Wrong with the Holt Bill," "We're Counting the Votes: An Election Preparedness Kit," and "Hands-on Elections: An Information Handbook for Running Real Elections, Using Real Paper Ballots, Counted by Real People". Her article about election reform fallacies is included in the April 2008 book "Losers Take All" edited by Mark Crispin Miller. Nancy believes in the principles embodied in our Constitution, and that groups like Election Defense Alliance and DFNH can play a unique role by empowering ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
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