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Apparently, I'm the only one who HAS a plan. So hear me out. There is NO CHANCE of an accurate, verifiable vote this November. Although the election reform movement is off and running, there just isn't time. This highly, corrupt, new, Bushite-controlled, riggable electronic voting system got entrenched too quickly (during the 2002-2004 period), abetted by the $4 billion "Help America Vote Act" boondoggle. Major efforts--like RFK Jr.'s lawsuit against the electronic voting companies--don't have the time to bring about reform by November. (And Alberto "torture memo" Gonzales will of course delay it as long as possible.) (And who knows if it will survive a Bushite court system anyway?)
So-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o--what do we do? Some will be closely monitoring the vote counts, challenging suspicious results, filing lawsuits, and continuing to educate the public, etc. And others are calling for mass protests over the (inevitably) stolen elections. Yeah, well, that leaves a lot of people out. Most cannot participate in mass protests; most have seen how little mass protests can do against fascist authorities who don't give a crap what we think; and monitoring election results is all fine and good--and vitally necessary--but if the war profiteering corporate news monopolies are in collusion with the fascists and don't report it--as we know they are--noe of these actions is not going to bring about reform--at least not any time soon.
But what if everybody in the country who despises Bush REFUSES TO VOTE ON THEIR RIGGED VOTING MACHINES? Say, 70%. (AB voting is up to 50% already in Los Angeles!). What if this is the new protest? What if we all boycott the machines?
AB voting is not safe--and WILL NOT RESULT IN AN ACCURATE VOTE COUNT. (Often they just scan AB votes into the rigged electronic system, thus separating the vote from the tangible evidence of the vote, as with optiscans.) BUT--Absentee Ballot voting is NON-COOPERATION. It says: "We will not vote on these machines." It reminds me a lot of the Montgomery bus boycott--triggered by Rosa Parks' REFUSAL TO COOPERATE with the segregated bus system. Then the whole community said, "We will not cooperate." They hit 'em in their MONEY.
Same with these EXPENSIVE new election theft machines. Make them obsolete. Make their purchasers look like the corrupt fools that they are. DON'T VOTE ON THEM!
We can't boycotting voting itself. That would be suicidal. But we CAN boycott the MACHINES! We can foster this rebellion, and create the climate for reform. Once it's established that the new election theft machines are going to gather dust--no one will vote on them!--then we go after the central election tabulators, and all the other corruptions of our election system.
Ordinary people have devised this protest themselves--individual voters trying to think how to outwit the rigged system and get their vote COUNTED. It is an indigenous protest against the rigged machines, that could get huge, with just a little help, and would be pivotal if it does.
It's easy. Everybody can do it. It is maximum participation protest. And it will HELP voter turnout. To those who say, "it's all rigged" and don't vote, we can say, "But this is a PROTEST aimed at UN-rigging the system!" No excuses then. If they refuse to vote AB as a protest against the rigged machines, they're just bad citizens anyway, and never would vote no matter what we say.
Also--and to me this is very important--it turns voting into an active outcry against rigged elections, instead of a somewhat gloomy, passive act, where you just hope against hope for the best. It will ACTIVATE consciousness. It will give people--all voters--a chance to SAY SOMETHING about things as they are--the lack of representation of majority views in Congress, the continual actions of the Bush junta against the interests of ordinary people, the lies, the thievery, the unjust war, and the rigged election that make these things possible, and that are preventing investigation and reform.
The WORST PROBLEM WE HAVE IS THE DEMORALIZATION of the American people! 70% against Bush. 84% against widened Mideast war. And we can't DO anything about it, and the corporate news monopolies keep telling people that they are isolated and alone, in their progressive views, and that the "mainstream" is now rightwing, fundamentalist 'christian' and pro-war. It's insane. It's nonsense. But it gets to people. An Absentee Ballot voting REBELLION would help MORALE!
To those who object to this protest idea (with irrelevant points about the insecurity of AB voting), I would ask: You got any better ideas for November?
I keep asking that. And no one does.*
With just a bit of leadership--a few press releases, some focus--we have the chance to involve nearly every anti-Bush voter in America in a protest against this rigged system on Nov. 7.
Bumpersticker: "Bust the Machines--Vote Absentee!"
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*(Why are some people opposing this? Frankly, I think it's the Corporate Democrats/Common Cause crowd, trying to save electronic voting and corporate control of the election system. They're pushing optiscans--but optiscans are ALSO run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, as are the central tabulators. The optiscan ballots--tangible evidence of the vote--go into a box and are almost never seen again. Audits are rare; recounts are even rarer. Optiscans are better than touchscreens, because you have the POSSIBILITY of a recount. But the REAL problem is CORPORATE control, and that cannot be broken except by throwing every one of these goddamned election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor.' An Absentee Ballot protest--a BOYCOTT of ALL electronic voting machines--can, theoretically, accomplish that, by expressing the REBELLION of the American people, and creating the climate for reform.)
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