*in the case of the hacker group Anonymous, warning Karl Rove that he was singled out to be monitored for attempted fraud (I admit to enjoying that one the most)
Our goal was to break Americans out of self-destructive apathy, and dissuade the kind of blatant election manipulation that has led to so many "surprise upset" victories in the past.
Did our efforts protect every voter, and was every vote counted? Absolutely not. What this means is that we won a huge battle last night, but we still have a war in front of us.
Our efforts helped assure that the will of American voters was heard, particularly in the Presidential race.
Mitt Romney could not win an honest election. He did not win honestly in the primaries, where both Ron Paul and Rick Santorum were fraudulently muscled out of the running.
The truth is that Romney and Ryan's mix of far-right wing and corporatist policies are not supported by the majority of Americans. Their Ayn Rand inspired economic plans oppose the interests of all but the wealthiest 1%. Socially, their regressive policies are devastating to women, minorities, and homosexual couples and families. And as Sandy drowned the North East, millions more people understood that climate-change denial is frighteningly divorced from reality.
Meanwhile, Progressive voters took a lesson from 2010, when their turn-out was low, and the Tea Party swept into power on a wave of "surprise upset" victories (all reported by unaccountable voting machines with few eyes on the process).
Progressives turned out yesterday in landslide numbers, waiting in lines for up to 9 hours where - once again - the elections process broke down. Election Day 2012 saw malfunctions of electronic voting machines all across the country, enormous lines in Hispanic and African-American districts, and we will end up tallying millions of likely-Democratic votes lost in voter roll purges, illegally discarded ballots, electronic vote "shifting," and votes lost to GOP robo-calling and other dirty tricks. Which means that, as in 2008, it's likely that Democratic wins are much larger than officially recorded.
Millions of Progressives voted for Barack Obama, not for what he's done, but for what they hope he will find the courage to do in his second term; fight for the Progressive vision of a civil, sustainable, free and tolerant society.
Obama in many ways worked insidiously against that vision in his first term by doing the bidding of Wall Street, and expanding the cancerous reach of a global "National Security State" that continues to undermine American civil liberties and kill innocent civilians abroad.
Though the rise of a Todd "bring back the Inquisition" Akin-style Christian Dominionism may have been beat back last night, the American Progressive movement must not cheer for the advancement of a more secular "bring on the drone-strike" corporate police-state.
We have a huge task in front of us to take back democracy in America, and the Democratic party in particular, so that the Progressive cause can be advanced nationally and internationally.
The election integrity movement should regroup and further organize for a comprehensive platform of election reform:
*the end of corporate campaign financing
*the end of privatized, computerized, concealed ballot counting
*media reform that allows equal access for grassroots, third party, and independent candidates
This is a day to celebrate many victories, to question some concerning election results, to recognize the oncoming threats (like Internet voting), and to take our movement to the next level.
*************************** EVERYONE in the heroic, unsung election integrity movement deserves recognition. Many work behind the scenes and we don't know their names, but here's a list (not in any order) of those who I know have worked doggedly, some recently and others for many long years and often with no compensation (apologies to those I've overlooked, this is literally from memory, so please reprimand me and I will add you in):
Brad Friedman of the Brad Blog.org, Harvey Wasserman, Bob Fitrakis and Gerry Bello, (who also exposed the 2012 Romney/Hart ties and filed the Ohio lawsuit), Mark Crispin Miller (who also made my cover story in Harper's Magazine "How to Rig an Election" possible), Greg Palast who made his latest book Billionaires and Ballot Bandits free before the election, Richard Charnin, Sheila Parks, and Jonathan Simon, who all managed to publish important new books (Matrix of Deceit, While We Still Have Time, and Code Red) for the cause just before the election (amazing work!), Bev Harris as always for her indispensable Black Box Voting resources, Jeannie Dean (Occupy Rigged Elections activist extraordinaire!), Phylis Collier (and Jim and Ken Collier, who may still be helping from afar), Steve Freeman, Cliff Arnebeck, Senator Ben Ptashnik (who has been willing to call out the Democratic party on their silence on election rigging), Lee Camp (who helped Occupy and Election Integrity meet with brilliant humor), David Kearn, Dael Escher, Marta Steele, Simon Worrall, Dorothy Fadiman, John Ennis, Michael Collins, John Washburn (who got arrested for filming the vote count in Milwaukee), Francois Ch, Paul Lehto, Sharona Merrel, Vickie Karp, Lynn Landes, Kathleen Wynn, Joan Brunnwasser, Rob Kall, and the whole OpEdNews staff who regularly publish articles on election integrity, Truthout.org, Sally Castleman, Nancy Tobi, the entire citizen network in Wisconsin still fighting for honest elections in their state -- Jacqueline Janecke, Dennis Kerns, Sierra Nolan, Jen Miller, Jim Mueller, Mary Magnuson, Katy Reader, Rowan Viva, Marianne Moonhouse, Nirtana Goodma, Susan Shamblin, Grant Petty, Brian Bliss, Karen McKim, Darcy Gustavson,Jeremy Ryan, Barbara With (and SO many others in Wisconsin Counts! and Wisconsin Citizens for Election Integrity), Bill Bucolo, Ben and Sarah Manski and the Wisconsin Wave, everyone behind No More Stolen Elections, David Cobb, Nancy Price and the Alliance for Democracy / Move On for their leading work in clean elections, the Pima County, AZ citizen election warriors battling in the courts for so many years, Patricia Axelrod who also took it to the courts, Ion Sancho, Watch the Vote! And the entire Ron/Paul Libertarian movement for election integrity, which has been more aware of the problems in our system than any other political group, Thom Hartmann, Meria Heller, the ACLU, and Barack Obama himself, who made a cogent observation about the "need to fix" our election system in his victory speech last night. Let's hold him to it.