Against complacency: After the election, we must work to make our elections fair and transparent!

[tblue37]

If the election goes as it should—in other words, if Republican election theft does not deprive us of the presidency and a significant majority in both houses of Congress—then our first order of business (I mean us, the citizens) should be to lobby as hard as we possibly can for fair and transparent elections.

We should relentlessly badger our president and our elected representatives for publicly hand-counted paper ballots and for a holiday on Election Day. We should also insist that current voting machines be immediately impounded and examined for evidence of programmed vote theft.

I hate to say it, but I suspect that the reason we still have such fishy, opaque elections despite the obvious thefts in 2000, 2004, and 2006 must be that some powerful Democrats, at both state and federal levels of government, have willingly acceded to the use of the machines that virtually ensure election theft, as well as being willing to tolerate state-level processes, like the data matching rules in Florida and the picture ID rules in Colorado, that selectively disenfranchise minorities, the poor, the elderly, and others who lean Democratic.

I am guessing that key Democrats at the state and federal level have been willing to go along with this crime either because they were protected by the machines against primary challenges or else they were receiving kickbacks from the companies that make the machines. One other possibility, of course, is blackmail, since it is evident that the whole domestic spying process has been set up to collect blackmail dirt to use for political purposes.

Sure, the Democrats have had only a modicum of power, and that for only the past two years, and the obstructionism of the Republicans has certainly limited the Democrats’ power even since 2006. (Amazing how the Republicans, even when in the minority, can prevent the Democratic majority in Congress from getting anything done, but the Democrats, when in the minority, couldn’t prevent anything at all that the Republicans wanted to do!) But even if they couldn’t legislatively force the rejection of the myriad ways that the Republicans steal and suppress votes, they could at least have been making a huge public stink to expose those tactics, to provoke a popular uprising against them.

But instead, most of the powerful and high-profile Democrats have either been very quiet about these things or have actively sought to marginalize those who have expressed concerns about vote theft and vote suppression tactics.

I believe (desperately hope) that Obama actually will win this time, though I think that the Republicans are perfectly capable of stealing the election with a squeaker “come-back/upset” narrative, which the MSM has been working overtime to make plausible, with all their noise about how the race is tightening. I also believe we actually will increase our majority in both houses of Congress.

Nevertheless, just as in 2006, we probably will win by much smaller vote margins than actually occur, since many Democratic votes will go missing inside those machines, and many Democratic voters will be forced to cast provisional ballots that will then be tossed will or be driven away from the polls by 12-hour lines.

Smaller vote margins will allow the Republicans to claim that the Dems and Obama do not have a true mandate and therefore must tack to the center-right. We also will probably not get all the seats in Congress and the Senate that we actually win. Close races will probably go to the Republicans, even if the Dems win a majority of the votes cast. Again, I believe this is exactly what happened in 2006. I am quite sure that we won many seats that the Republicans ended up getting, because of election fraud and voter suppression, and that the seats we did get were won by much smaller margins than we actually won.

If, as obviously should happen, Obama wins and we increase our majorities in the House and Senate, it will be too easy to relax and grow complacent. With just two years before the next congressional election, we have to push hard and harder to bring the US into the family of democratic (yes, small “d” this time) First-World nations. As it stands now, our elections are so obviously rigged that they would shame a banana republic! Until we actually have fair and transparent elections, our country can be stolen from us at any time and driven into fascism, as we have seen during these past 8 years. We must, must, must prevent it from ever happening again.

[tblue37]

1. This is the problem.

No one even wants to read a post about transparent elections, much less work to ensure them.

Complacency.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Hear, hear! Great post! We need to THINK PAST THE NEXT ELECTION!

--like the Corpo/Fascists at the Bilderburg Group are thinking.

And TRANSPARENT VOTE COUNTING and fair, honest election practices of all kinds, and fair and honest media, are the things we need to be thinking about, planning for, and getting done.

My best guess at the Corpo/Fascist plan: Obama wins, but with a significantly and fraudulently shaved mandate. The Democrats win Congress, but it is still infested with 'Blue Dogs' and Pukes. Serious reform is hampered. The 'TRADE SECRET' code voting machines stay in place. The Financial 9/11 that the Bushwhacks just pulled off hits home. The country suffers turmoil. It all gets blamed on Obama and 'the liberals.' And the Corpo/Fascists Diebold their favorite nazi into the White House in 2012.

What can we do to prevent this? FIRST PRIORITY: Restore transparent vote counting!

Congress ain't gonna do it. Believe me. We, the people, have to do it--in our local/state jurisdictions, which still (for now) control election systems, and where ordinary people still have some influence.

With a Diebold-selected Congress, there is serious danger of their making the election system worse, by federalizing and centralizing the system, and mandating electronic voting but without a sufficient audit to detect fraud, or with no audit requirement at all. We must prevent that from happening, and work at the state/local level to demand LOCAL, VISIBLE vote counting. On this issue, I favor states' rights.

[tblue37]

3. And yet the total lack of interest in this thread is a reflection

of the tendency to treat election transparency as a secondary issue, or to ignore our own essential role in making sure we have fair elections rather than the sort of elections that used to give Saddam Hussein 100% of the vote.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Well, I think people are very busy right now, with GOTV, trying to outvote the machines and

overcome the many Bushwhack voter suppression tactics, including tens of thousands of valid voters purged from voting rolls. This is very, very positive. It takes more than a good leader to reform a country. It's takes an active citizenry. Indeed, a leader can do nothing without motivated citizens. People are really involved this time--even more so than in 2004--and they are all seeing how bad this vote counting system is, how non-transparent and unreliable. That is good. That is very, very good. What we have to watch out for is a squeaky Obama win and a DINO-stacked Congress. If Obama loses, it's all over for the voting machines. Into 'Boston Harbor' they will go, all over the country. It will be pitchfork time. But if Obama wins--indeed, even if he wins big--the system is STILL very, VERY bad and must be made transparent, or 2010 and 2012 could see another fascist coup. I think awareness of this peril is growing by leaps and bounds, and we only have to mention the '10 Congressional elections to get the more short term, politically oriented activists into it. Your caution and my caution is: DON'T GO BACK TO SLEEP if Obama wins (big or small). We still have a country to save, and the FIRST PRIORITY must be transparent vote counting and fair elections. We can put Obama in the White House--by giving him a lead that is so big, the election theft corpos may be afraid to reverse it. But can we keep him there? Can we provide him with a reformist Congress, and keep them in Congress as well? With 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting, 2010 and 2012 are in great jeopardy. (Note: I think the pre-election polls are under-reporting Obama's margin by half--I think it's in the 20% range--and that may be a prelim to fraudulently shaving his mandate.)

[SoCalDem]

5. We could have it if we really wanted it.. It's quite simple, really

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4325328

SoCalDem's Journal


Time to think outside the box... the ballot box, that is.
Posted by SoCalDem in General Discussion
Tue Oct 28th 2008, 01:04 PM
Either US citizens have the right to vote, or they don't.

Other than the FEW exceptions (being a felon, for example), ANYONE who is a citizen and can prove it, should ALWAYS be able to vote for senator and president.

Those two political offices have NO bearing on which city or district you live in.

If a person can prove (with a piece of addressed mail), that they live in a particular congressional district, they too, should be able to vote for congressperson too.

The whole issue of "registration" is a red herring, designed to keep people FROM voting.

We don't FORCE people to vote in this country, but certainly every citizen should be able to IF they choose to.

Voting for the leaders of our country...the ones who make the laws and enforce them... should be EASY...and it should be available to ALL citizens.

Think about this.

When you have a gift card, you can go online to see what the remaining balance is, you can look for and find detailed maps where you can use those cards, and an easy "slide the card" motion, allows you to USE the card. The people issuing the card, know what you buy with the card, where you live, etc. They may know more about you than YOU do.

Plastic cards are CHEAP, and easy to produce. The US mail is cheap and easy to use. Government has every one of us in a database of one sort or another. They KNOW where we all are, who we all are, and which of us are citizens.

The republican zealots are using the media to portray an image of hordes of undocumented people swarming over the borders every election season..eager to hoodwink their way into polling places, so they can distort our elections..

NOTHING could be further from the truth.. Undocumented people are "ghosts". They try anything and everything to AVOID being identified. The LAST thing most of them want to do is to risk being "outed" , by showing up to vote, on a day when there is ultimate scrutiny.

I know that the framers left the actual election process to the individual states, but this was when there were THIRTEEN low-population states, and only male land-owners could even vote...so things have definitely changed.

The fact that national elections draw the most attention is the reason why ballots and elections have become so complicated. Many states have used initiatives and propositions to replace their legislative agendas, and that's why so many states have such idiotic laws in place.

It's time to take a serious look at how we vote, and how we can make it EASY, AVAILABLE, and FAIR.

Political parties were not even around when the framers set this whole "voting thing" in place, so parties should not even be a PART of elections, other than to foster interest in their candidates. Parties exist now... there's no going back from that fact, but they have grabbed a position of preeminence they should never have had. The parties should offer members to be available as poll-watchers & vote counters (equal numbers from each party), but the actual running of the elections should NOT be in their hands.. Each party has too much of an interest in the outcome, to be free from suspicion.

Instead of "black-boxes" and machinery, we need for each citizen to be issued a card with 2 votes "loaded" on it.. One for primary & one for general election.. Every public library could have a "reader" avaliable so that people could check the status of their card (to make sure they have the requisite 2-votes) .

Anyone without a photo ID should be able to get one FREE of charge at any DMV..(surely a country that can "afford" $800B for bailouts to banks could afford that ID).

Printers could certainly use the business every few years when they got contracts to print up ballots for NATIONALLY held offices elections.. Medium weight cardstock 5x7 ballots with no more than THREE races on it, would do the trick. In some elections, there would only be ONE ...for congress.

People do not get exorcised over county commissioner offices or school board members, but they DO care about congress, senate & president.

If states want to piggy-back their local/gubernatorial elections onto the same dates, their ballots could be any way they want, and voted on & counted by any machinery they chose to buy, BUT for the national offices that really count to us ALL, we need recountability, ease of use, and SIMPLICITY.

Voting day should be:

1) slide that card... (one "vote" gets deducted)
2) show your ID
3) receive your "national office " ballot card
4) mark it with a sharpie
5) vote your "local" ballot however your area does it
6) drop your card-ballot into the locked ballot box
7) turn in the "other" one

There's a commercial running right now that touts the "ease of return" cards, for when you come back into the US..It's a card version of a passport..If money can be spent advertising and offering these for travelers, they could also be offered to VOTERS...ALL CITIZENS.. We CAN "afford" it.

If people WANT to identify with a party, that should be their choice, but parties should NOT have to be the ones who spend resources and time making sure that "their people" are registered, or that "other people" cannot register.

IF YOU ARE A CITIZEN , IT'S YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE.

You should not have to jump through flaming hoops and grovel on election day.

There are plenty of unemployed people who can count, and who would love the opportunity to earn a little money every so often, by working elections.

By making voting mysterious, time consuming and scary, millions of people do not vote.

If elections were simplified, we would soon start to see legislatures doing the work instead of rich people pouring in shit-loads of money to push their private agendas. MANY people only want to vote for president, senator and congress.. they don't WANT to vote for the other stuff on those pages-long ballots....and most people probably don't even bother to read up on them anyway.

Get people the IDs that identify them.
Get people the VOTE cards that entitle them to vote in the primary & national election
Make standardized CARD-ballots for nationally held offices
Hire local people to oversee elections

"Registrars" of voters would only be needed to see that everyone had their "pre-loaded 2-votes" cards.. They would not know who was a republican and who was a democrat, since that would be between the party & the voter only.

Also, every polling place should be equipped with CCTV, and the whole day filmed and the film stored with the national office ballots. Once verified, tallied & reported, the ballot cards could be scanned onto CDs for storage.

Automatic full recounts should be triggered and done in ALL close elections. After a few cycles, people would once again have faith that their votes counted..

I also think that some "interesting" outcomes would occur.. There have been many "questionable" victories in recent years..

[tblue37]

7. Great ideas SCD! You're right--we can have it if we really want it.

But that's the problem--people go to sleep after the elections and forget all about it until the next election.

[tblue37]

6. I think this issue is important. Can I get a fifth vote? nt