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I consider it the most important vote I have ever cast, so I want to tell you about it.
I voted by absentee ballot*, in the desperate hope that my vote will be counted, and that, if suspicious results are discovered by citizens monitoring these new, highly insecure and hackable electronic voting systems, or if suspicions prompt a rare recount, my paper ballot will help investigators determine what happened. I don't expect the "system" to give a damn whether my vote or anyone else's is counted or not.
That's how bad things are--I can only hope that my vote will be counted, even an absentee ballot (a paper ballot) which will nonetheless be scanned by computers and fed into central electronic tabulators that are run on 'TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations. Money has changed hands--lots of money--to create this condition of NON-TRANSPARENT elections and utter disregard for the public and for the most fundamental principle of democracy.
Bowen is a strong advocate of open government; she is a legislative expert on electronic voting and other electronic systems (the first state legislator to have a web site and email address); she is a strong critic of electronic voting systems, and held state legislative hearings on open source code, and on Schwarz Sec of State appointee Bruce McPherson's recent illegal and sneaky re-certification of the worst of Diebold's election theft machines (the touchscreens). The Sacramento Bee, in endorsing Bowen in the primary said, "some of Bowen's campaign statements ...seem a little too paranoid about electronic voting." This is hilarious coming from this corrupt corporate news rag--but even they could not deny that she is hugely qualified for the job (far and away more qualified than her Dem primary opponent Deborah Ortiz, who, in addition to poor qualifications for this particular job, doesn't have any problem with electronic voting controlled by Bushites). Bowen got the overwhelming endorsement (80%) of the Dem party grass roots at the state convention.
But, more than this, Bowen is one of the few state or national Democrats to SAY ANYTHING AT ALL about these electronic voting flytraps. (John Bonifaz in Massachusetts is one of the others.) Everything she has said about it has sounded right on to me. She knows what she's doing. And she has spoken up in a dangerous, poisoned atmosphere, in which our excellent Dem Sec of State Kevin Shelley was 'swiftboated' out of office last year, on entirely bogus corruption charges, after he sued Diebold and de-certified the worst of the their election theft machines prior to the 2004 election.
As for paranoia, really, what do we have to be paranoid about, with corporations like Diebold and ES&S--with very close ties to the Bush junta and extreme rightwing causes--counting all our votes with secret programming?
Not to worry. Surely they wouldn't USE their secret "Wizard of Oz" power over vote tabulation to steal votes for a fascist president who started a heinous war for oil, slaughtering tens of the thousands of innocent people, and torturing many more, and who has driven the federal deficit through several roofs to $10 TRILLION (and that's just the part we know about), with tax cut after tax cut for the super-rich! Naw. They wouldn't play dirty pool, would they?
I am hoping that DEBRA BOWEN can win the primary, and then win the general election--against the Diebold shill that Schwarzenegger appointed as Sec of State, Bruce McPherson--with these odds against her: a 5% to 10% "thumb on the scales" for Bushites. She might still beat him. It's California after all. And the machines CAN be beaten by sheer turnout.
But, thinking back, oh, twenty years ago, or even ten years ago, I couldn't then have imagined what is happening now: that the elections in my state and my country have become completely NON-TRANSPARENT, and controlled by rightwing Republican corporations. I lived through the Reagan years, and often descried the prominence of corporate money in our campaign contribution pigsty. That is bad enough. Now the entire voting process is out of our hands, and out of anyone's sight. The code by which our votes are counted is so secret that not even our secretary of state is permitted to review it. (That's one of the things Shelley was working on, in his suit against Diebold.) And, in many states, there is not even a paper receipt--let alone a real paper ballot--by which to conduct a recount.
You wonder why we have an out-of-control President, committing one outrage after another, violating the Constitution and all of our shared values from over 200 years of democracy and human progress? You wonder why we have a lapdog Congress full of Bush "pod people" rubber-stamping these outrages, with maybe 25% of the Congress--the good guys, the ones who deserve to be there--trying to represent 70% of the American people?
Think about it. It's staring you right in the face.
This election system run by Bushite corporations with "trade secret" programming is no accident. It was quite deliberately engineered by the two biggest crooks in Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney (abetted by 'Democrat' Christopher Dodd), during the Anthrax Congress, in 2002. The so-called "Help America Vote Act" (HAVA) was given $4 billion in boondoggle funding, with no controls on "trade secret" vote tabulation, no paper trail requirement, no controls on lavish lobbying, no ban on partisan vendors, secret industry "testing" of the machines, and an underfunded Bush-appointed regulatory commission that was told to go slow on regulation but go fast on draconian deadlines to FORCE election officials to purchase this crapass, insecure, extremely hackable voting technology before it could be properly tested--or questioned by the public.
The $4 billion was intended to corrupt election officials from one end of the country to the next, but the biggest beneficiaries were...
DIEBOLD: Until recently headed by Wally O'Dell, a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser, who promised, in writing, to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush-Cheney in 2004."
ES&S: A spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things). Diebold and ES&S are run by two brothers, Tod and Bob Urosevich. Together, these two Bushhite corporations "counted" 80% of the votes in 2004, under a veil of corporate secrecy.
SEQUOIA: The third big player in the election theft industry, which employs former Repub CA Sec of State Bill Jones and his chief aide, Alfie Charles, to peddle the machines that Jones and Charles first brought to Calif when they were in office--an outrageous example of highly corrupt "revolving door" employment.
$4 billion, right into the pockets of big-time Republicans and Bushites, with the added benefit of big-time Republicans and Bushites now PROGRAMMING the machines we VOTE ON with their own SECRET VOTE COUNTING FORMULAE.
States were forced to match these funds--for this highly expensive, high-maintenance, insecure, hackable technology. We taxpayers foot the bill, every which way, for our own undoing.
So-o-o-o-o, I voted, in the best way I could think of, to achieve an accurate count. Hoping against hope that my vote will be counted. In America. In 2006. In the 230th year of the American Revolution.
The corporate news monopolies say there is little public interest in this primary contest, although that may be corporate bullshit. Making everything boring--and IGNORING avid interest on the part of ACTIVE citizens--is part of their job description. But it's true that the real sparks will fly in Bowen vs. McPherson. The Sacto Bee has already written the corporate/Bushite "talking point" ("she's a bit too paranoid on electronic voting"). It's certain that the public agrees with Bowen, and is extremely distrustful of these riggable machines, but whether or not the public will have any say in the matter remains to be seen. And that is the problem.
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*(The Calif primary election day is June 6.)
See
www.debrabowen.com, and
(for news articles) www.debrabowen.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=1&id=1&Itemid=30
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I also recommend a vote for MICHAEL STRIMLING for governor. Visit his web site and weep for a REAL leftist (i.e., mainstream) program that has no chance in our corporate-dominated, money-filthy state and national political scene. Send a message to the frontrunner Tweedles. They are not "dum" but they ARE far, far too "centrist" and "business-as-usual," leaning to the right (both pro-capital punishment, for instance). www.michaelstrimling.com.
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