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Can you spell DEEP TROUBLE?

By James Strait  Posted by James Strait (about the submitter)       (Page 2 of 2 pages) Become a premium member to see this article and all articles as one long page.   No comments
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“On January 4th the State Board submitted a bi-partisan plan for a ballot marking device to be accessible to any voter who wants or needs them in the 2008 election…and also calls for complete replacement of lever machines by 2009” revealed Mr. Kellner. He also said that on the same day of the broadcast that the Board had “submitted that step by step plan for replacement machines for the 2009 elections”.

Can I just take this moment to confess that if I hear or read the word machine one more time as it relates to voting that I am going to scream?! Yeah, I know…you do not have to listen too hard to hear it…can you hear me?

Okay, the screaming has subsided, temporarily, but I will now painfully reveal that Mr. Kellner went on to say that there are (4-7) machines on a list to be considered as viable replacements for the lever machines. 
Regardless of how many there are, they have between now and the 23rd to “identify problem machines”.

Okay, I can simplify this process for you Mr. Elections Commissioner…if it’s a machine…it’s a problem!

After they isolate the lesser of the machines, they will create a list of “preferred machines in ranked order by mid February” said the matter of fact bureaucrat. He followed with the news that “by the first week of March orders will be submitted for the chosen ballot marking machines”, with full certification being accomplished by August. Damn, that cart before the horse thing again. Would it not be smart to certify BEFORE investing the money in purchases?

Is it ALL OVER IN NEW YORK STATE? Although I know that the voting integrity grassroots will soldier on, the outlook in New York is bleak.

Mr.Kellner went on to mention other voting machine manufactures as getting into the mix…names like Vonti and Liberty (how oxymoronic is that name?), and Dominion Voting Systems producing what in Mr. Kellners mind is the “most sophisticated device that he’s seen”?!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Sophisticated? As in esoteric? As in anything BUT transparent to the average literate English speaking American voter? Can you hear me screaming?

In fairness, Doug Kellner points out that he and the Board are compelled to comply with federal law. Yes, that is a limiting element in the equation…HAVA be damned! To further depress the listener he went on to mention, almost in passing (or was that me passing out upon hearing it?) about “internet and radio hook ups” and “escrowed source codes”…my head spins.

Lordy Lordy Lordy…what a mell of a hess we have gotten ourselves in to. Mr. Kellners final demoralizing question/observation was, “where is the statute that would allow us to approve paper ballots”? If you scream in outer space do you make any noise?

Thankfully, the program ended with Voice of the Voters friend, John Gideon’s weekly voting integrity update. John in his usual understating manner said that, “Really been hell busy”!
After his brief explanation about the Supreme Court hearing the voter ID question in Indiana, and his telling us that “ES&S is getting rich off the tax payers of this country”. John went on to make the most telling statement of the entire program, “The election integrity community does not seem to agree on much”!

Unfortunately that is an old story accurately applied to a modern circumstance. It reveals the nature of our species, and it also foretells the cause of death when the post mortem is performed on any failed voting integrity efforts.

The January 9th broadcast of Voice of the Voters may have been the most revealing of them all. We are up against fellow countrymen and women who are compelled to apply the letter of the law, resigned to accept the inevitability of a dark (non transparent) future, and we as a collection of “like minded” grassroots organizations are drawing and quartering our own efforts. Maddeningly, we are them, only different.

The clock is ticking and we, the voting integrity grassroots, had better coalesce into a sword point of blunt force change, or the Deibolds of the world are our future. A dark future that is painful to contemplate, and too destructive to allow to happen.

So the call is going out to every member of the voting integrity movement. Converge into one momentous effort that has a possibility to succeed, or, become a collection of independent historical foot notes.

Let us not have as our represented legacy the slogan, Procrastinate Now.

This article and others by the author, along with pod casts and transcripts of Voice of the Voters broadcasts are available.

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James Strait Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Host of "American Voices" radio-Wednesdays 7-8PM Eastern & Co-Host of popular "Strait & Kall"radio programming- Thursdays 8-9PM Eastern, airing on WNJC1360 in the Philadelphia Pennsylvania radio market(live internet stream (more...)
 
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