Summary of VoV 12 5 07, including follow-up on previous article and interview of Rob Kall.

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4 December 2007: VoV, A Kall for the Grail, That the People Prevail

Mary Ann Gould’s Voice of the Voters first celebrated the grassroots victory of New Jersey’s S. 507 on Monday, the voices that asserted themselves at the committee meeting when they realized no one planned to call on them. Kall on them? The next guest was opednews.com’s owner Rob Kall, whose page attracts 25 million hits a month, including half a million new visitors.

The New Jersey bill is meant as a precedent for the nation as Kall said his Web page has affected change.

And so the powerhouse of an evening began with a conversation with two guests from last week, New Jersey State Senator Nia Gill and Renee Steinhagen, Executive Director of the NJ Appleseed Public Interest Law Center. They were joined by “regular citizen” Frances Martin.

First conversing with Steinhagen, Mary Ann said that S. 507 could impact the nation; her guest explained that the bill introduced the statistical audit, based on the number of votes and the margin of victory involved. Nineteen out of the twenty-one counties in New Jersey have DREs, Sequoia Advantage machines, and none have paper trails except for Warren County. Only provisional ballots are hand-counted, said Steinhagen.

The hearing was successful in part, she continued, because of the barrage of phone calls to Governor Corzine after Mary Ann’s show, which included that call to arms from “we the people.” And so the attorney general, who wanted a capped statistical audit paid for by the candidate, withdrew his demand—also a moratorium on attaching printers onto the Sequoias to make them voter verifiable. Instead, if the bill succeeds, 100 percent audits will be conducted if necessary.

Senator Gill and Frances Martin next shared the mike. Gill detailed all of the grassroots organizations present, which included the Coalition for Peace Action. Stephanie Harris is now on their board, the gentlewoman farmer who played Rosa Parks by objecting strenuously when she was told at the polls that her vote may not have been counted by the Sequoia she used. She was obliged to attempt her vote four times before being told this.

Gill said that she was surprised at the turnout and how uninformed some of the municipal officials were, not knowing, for instance, that a law had been passed mandating voter-verifiable paper trails throughout New Jersey. The Sequoias had been purchased with the provision that they be retrofitted with printers. She gave “99 percent of the credit” to the citizens who attended the hearing with her.

She said that the activists provided the others present with a historical perspective on the issue, explaining the separate litigation in process that has accomplished so much. They were so compelling that another senator changed his vote and said “nay” to granting an extension on retrofitting the Sequoias. Gill said this exemplified how strongly the grassroots can affect events, and that she was privileged to be part of the effort.

"You’re singing my song," said Mary Ann. “Let’s celebrate!”

Now the effort must be directed at 507’s Assembly counterpart. The bill goes to the appropriations committee on Monday. Gill compared all the work to the Montgomery (Alabama) bus boycott. She said that passage of the two bills could impact election 2008.

Mary Ann said that election authority and computer scientist Rebecca Mercuri said that the Sequoias there don’t even comply with 2005 certification standards. The deadline for installing printers on the machines is now June 3, which will not be too late for the next election.

The senator said that ultimately the governor, not the attorney general should be held accountable for this.

At this point Frances, whom the senator had called “too modest,” said that there were so many elections between now and June and Sequoia has specified that it requires sixteen weeks to attach the printers to their machines. We must look to the use of paper. In California both DREs and optical scanners have been decertified.

A champion of optical scanners, Mary Ann pointed out that they are much easier to install than retrofitting printers.

Gill said that she wants the two bills signed in before January 1. A full senate vote will occur around December 17.

And what can we do to help? Write to assemblymen, Reed Gusciora, one of the leaders, in particular, specifying A 27-230 as the bill in question. The names and numbers of all the New Jersey assemblymen can be found at njleg.state.nj.us. Our message should be that the assembly bill should reflect the senate bill exactly and that no waiver should be granted. Gill is asking black and Latino caucuses for assistance also.

And don’t forget to phone Corzine, wherever you live, at 609-292-6000. The governor has been involved in national politics and is the most powerful governor in the nation with his line-item veto. As chair of Clinton’s campaign in New Jersey, he could certainly affect the outcome in 2008.

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Next on the agenda, Rob Kall, described by Mary Ann as a founding member of CVI as well as “outspoken, savvy, tells it as it is,” was morose as he diagnosed what’s wrong with this country: it’s running on 230-year-old machinery, stuck with the Electoral College, while newer democracies elsewhere, less weighed down, have evolved better systems.

Well, California is working to dilute the power of the college—bravo—and also dilute the Democrats’ chance for a 2008 victory.

span class=SpellE>Kall said that he had just run an article on the necessity to get rid of the two political parties, which are not, in fact, provided for in the Constitution. Grimly he added that the grassroots can affect institutions at their level but not those higher up.

Some say that we should start from scratch altogether, said Mary Ann.

Legislators should serve only one term, said Kall. Then he turned the mindset to mythology, the holy grail specifically, one of the “newest myths.” It involves suffering of all subjects because their king has been wounded; there is no vegetation, no fertility (this is a pre-Christian motif). The knight in shining armor can come along and ask the right of two questions: What is the grail? or Whom does the grail serve?

In this case, the hero asks neither question. The bad situation in the kingdom persists or worsens. The hero fights wars and protects the women and, after twenty years, finally asks the right question and life immediately improves.

The myth, of course, is subject to many interpretations; consider Odysseus’s twenty-year voyage, an allegorical process of maturing that may be applicable here also.

The same problem applies to today’s media, said Kall. They won’t ask the right questions.

The ultimate root of the term question, said Mary Ann, means “carving a path to follow.”

Kall said that in modern terms the two questions add up to “Where’s the money?” It’s with those who have power and influence and are, as a result, utterly corrupt.

Looking back again to myth (which preceded sci fi), Kall said that the birth of science fiction in the late nineteenth century inspired humans to create monsters—computers take over the world, kill, enslave, alter the environment to suit their needs, just as the corporatists are doing here with our ecology and their bloodthirsty greed.

Mary Ann hesitantly reminded Kall that the founding fathers warned about granting banks and corporations too much power—remembering how the Boston Tea Party trashed the East India Trading Company.

And then the inevitable “What can be done?”

Kall invoked Mary Ann’s principle that this country is at war with itself; the people don’t realize that their new religion is consumerism, which is killing democracy.

Corporations should not have human rights; this requirement did not exist for the first one hundred years of U.S. history. Corporations manipulate so much with money because as “individuals” they can sling it around where they want to. We can legislate against this. We must look to our legislators, who must be asked hard questions. But the debates are sponsored by the media, who are in turn controlled by the corporatists.

The issue involves Democrats more than Republicans, said Kall. It is small businesses, not large corporations, that are innovative and employ the most people. Corporations violate our laws with impunity; their decisions are financial rather than ethical/moral.

Said Mary Ann, government decisions don’t have to consider people but can focus on corporations because, as individuals, they have property rights; incorporation, moreover, allows them the power to threaten litigation.

As far as election 2008 is concerned, continued Kall, Congress has failed miserably to pass legislation that protects the vote. The primaries will inevitably be corrupt. He recently wrote an op ed asserting that we’re already in the post-election era. People no longer believe in elections because of the abuse, though Venezuela’s recent election went well.

Mary Ann countered this by attributing the denial of further powers to Chávez to the CIA’s perpetual presence in Venezuela. If Chávez continues his power grab, the US will invade. She “doesn’t trust that election.”

Kall invoked the “shock doctrine” of the United States turning Venezuela over to the Neoconservatives, who are the ones who really belong in Guantánamo.

Asked if there is any hope, Kall pointed to the Internet, where alternative media are still active; his own Web site functions as a medium of change. Impeachment is imperative. Pelosi, in her failure to implement it, is an accessory to the crime. Consider the recent finding that there are no nuclear activities in Iran.

Bush and Cheney, if impeached, would invoke executive privilege before resigning, said Kall. Bush could turn history on its head by replacing himself with a black or a woman. Bush’s manipulative mythology is all about rejecting women and promoting machismo with masochistic exhortations like “Bring ‘em on!”

“There is still hope in ‘we the people,”” insisted Mary Ann on the heals of the S. 507 progress.

Who can live without hope?

Authors Website: http://www.wordsunltd.com

Authors Bio:

Marta Steele is an author/editor/blogger who has been writing for Opednews.com since 2006. She is also author of the 2012 book "Grassroots, Geeks, Pros, and Pols: The Election Integrity Movement's Nonstop Battle to Win Back the People's Vote, 2000-2008" (Columbus, Free Press) and a member of the Election Integrity movement since 2001. Her original website, WordsUnLtd.com, first entered the blogosphere in 2003. She recently became a senior editor for Opednews.com. She has in the past taught college and worked as a full-time as well as freelance reporter. She has been a peace and election integrity activist since 1999. Her undergraduate and graduate educational background are in Spanish, classical philology, and historical and comparative linguistics. Her biography is most recently listed in "Who's Who in America" 2019 and in 2018 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Who's Who.