To add insult and outrage to democratic injury, it is a simple legal fact that a trade secret is a form of intellectual property, and thus, the very heart of democracy being elections, and the very heart of elections being the counting of the vote, we not only have utter secrecy in vote counting, we also have corporate PROPERTY. The very heart of democracy has been rendered corporate private property, and the vendors of these electronic machines argue that all forms of property share the common characteristic of the right of exclusion of others, or the right to kick off the trespassers in other words. In 2007, in Sarasota Florida in a congressional election contest with up to 18,000 missing votes in a race decided by around 500 votes, a judge ruled that the trade secrets of the secret software would NOT yield to the need for accuracy in the election result, and no discovery of information inside the machines was allowed.
We are all supposed to uphold and defend democracy, and yet even though the heart of elections is corporate private property simply given away by our government (in fact vendors were PAID to take it, in the course of buying electronic machines), and even though we have corrupt secret vote counting on election night, we're going to keep the secret counts under the Holt Bill. And don't think of the Clinton bill and the other bills which are even worse.
Whatever you do, they seem to tell us, DO NOT THINK OF YOUR RIGHTS OR THE RIGHTS OF DEMOCRACY! Don't be an "all or nothing" type person. You might lose a friend or something.....
Because rights are really "all or nothing" type things for the most part, especially "inalienable" rights, we all need to have a gut check here.
If we keep our eyes on Congressional "realities" whereby this institution, fully 60% of the public believes is actively corrupt and accepting bribes, insists that the only realistic thing for the public to expect from congress is for congress to vote for Holt, and thus ratify that it's their own re-elections for each congressional seat will be conducted under corrupt conditions of electronic trade secrecy. Anything less than first count secrecy is a non-starter, and we are supposed to cooperate in praising the emperor's clothes on this.
On the other hand, we could take a rights approach, and KEEP OUR EYES ON THE PRIZE of those rights, instead of on bullshit statements about "realism" the source of which can not be traced. Our eyes on the prize, we realize that secret vote counting is "transparently" corrupt no matter when or where it occurs, and even if George and Martha Washington are doing it. Opscans count in secret too, it's like watching a photocopier and thinking you can count filled-in ovals at 60 page per minute scanning whizzing by, if you think otherwise.
Thus, it is not a desire to derail a bill, or a lack of realism, or any other such cause that impels us to separate from Congressional Holt momentum and to declare the reasons for this separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that people are born with certain inalienable rights involving their liberty interests, and if "the right that protects all other rights" is not one of these inalienable rights, then nothing is safe OR inalienable.
Holt is not opposed for light or transient reasons. Rather, the right to vote purchased literally with the blood of thousands, is NOT going to be dropped into a black box where it is NEVER seen again (touch screens / DREs) nor is it going to be sent through a optical scan computer-machines secret first count where there is perhaps a 1% to 3% chance that truth will ever be known by any human being or combination of human beings (including election officials), much less being known by the entire public.
Over. My. Dead. Body. I'm taking rights my seriously. Yours too. Shouldn't we all?
I wouldn't be surprised to see the above suffragette say "Get the heck away from me, or I WILL SHOOT! I don't need your "Help" for me to vote and America doesn't either!!"
Our rights are not negotiable, our Constitution is not negotiable (only amendable through extremely open, public processes). Is it somehow extreme to insist on and think about rights of voting in the voting rights movement, or are we all messed up in the head??? When it comes to rights, the "compromise" IS the violation of the right.
We are all supposed to uphold and defend democracy, and yet even though the heart of elections is corporate private property simply given away by our government (in fact vendors were PAID to take it, in the course of buying electronic machines), and even though we have corrupt secret vote counting on election night, we're going to keep the secret counts under the Holt Bill. And don't think of the Clinton bill and the other bills which are even worse.
Whatever you do, they seem to tell us, DO NOT THINK OF YOUR RIGHTS OR THE RIGHTS OF DEMOCRACY! Don't be an "all or nothing" type person. You might lose a friend or something.....
Because rights are really "all or nothing" type things for the most part, especially "inalienable" rights, we all need to have a gut check here.
On the other hand, we could take a rights approach, and KEEP OUR EYES ON THE PRIZE of those rights, instead of on bullshit statements about "realism" the source of which can not be traced. Our eyes on the prize, we realize that secret vote counting is "transparently" corrupt no matter when or where it occurs, and even if George and Martha Washington are doing it. Opscans count in secret too, it's like watching a photocopier and thinking you can count filled-in ovals at 60 page per minute scanning whizzing by, if you think otherwise.
Thus, it is not a desire to derail a bill, or a lack of realism, or any other such cause that impels us to separate from Congressional Holt momentum and to declare the reasons for this separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that people are born with certain inalienable rights involving their liberty interests, and if "the right that protects all other rights" is not one of these inalienable rights, then nothing is safe OR inalienable.
Holt is not opposed for light or transient reasons. Rather, the right to vote purchased literally with the blood of thousands, is NOT going to be dropped into a black box where it is NEVER seen again (touch screens / DREs) nor is it going to be sent through a optical scan computer-machines secret first count where there is perhaps a 1% to 3% chance that truth will ever be known by any human being or combination of human beings (including election officials), much less being known by the entire public.
Over. My. Dead. Body. I'm taking rights my seriously. Yours too. Shouldn't we all?
No American can really look squarely at Holt's secret first counts and support it, even if audits were beefed up, it doesn't pass muster. I'd like to see Cong. Holt or any other Holt supporter pry away the ballot from any suffragette that worked their whole life for the right to vote, and then tell them their Hobson choice was (1) have the ballot filled out for them and counted secretly, under touch screens, via the "Help" America vote act, OR (2) fill out the paper ballot themselves and have the ballot counted secretly on an "optical scan" machine via the "Help" America Vote Act.I'm asking, and I will risk annoying my friends to do this, that everyone consider this from a rights perspective. I submit we have no right to seek the compromise of our neighbor's rights or the rights of future elections or future generations. There is no more of a compromise on fundamental rights than there is to compromise and only be tortured on weekends, but not 7 days a week. In other words, the compromise IS the violation of those rights. For example, Condoning or tolerating torture, even at a reduced frequency, when one has an ability to do something about it is in fact an international war crime. People get prosecuted for giving other people "half" of their rights and compromising their rights.
Surely, voting and having the vote counted accurately are rights, are they not?
As an advocate for the rights of democracy, let me say that the water is warm, we have the entire American history behind us, that every successful major movement from women's suffrage to civil rights has used the Declaration of Independence and inalienable rights as their foundation, and that anybody who supports or tolerates burdening and making voting rights entirely dubious by counting those votes in secret thereby removes themselves from the democracy tent, even though the democracy tent is no large it has room for 100 or more political parties.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the above suffragette say "Get the heck away from me, or I WILL SHOOT! I don't need your "Help" for me to vote and America doesn't either!!"
Our rights are not negotiable, our Constitution is not negotiable (only amendable through extremely open, public processes). Is it somehow extreme to insist on and think about rights of voting in the voting rights movement, or are we all messed up in the head??? When it comes to rights, the "compromise" IS the violation of the right.
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