HOW THE AMERICAN PEOPLE CAN DEFEAT UNLIMITED CORPORATE MONEY AND INFLUENCE IN ELECTIONS

[kster]

Jan. 26, 2010

By Kathleen Wynne

snip...

The initial devastation of the essential balance of power between citizens and big business at the ballot box was the advent of voting machines in the elections process. These machines make it impossible for any citizen to oversee the counting of their votes due to the hidden counting by the voting software that runs the machines. Secret vote counting combined with the Court’s most recent decision has rendered a citizen’s role in the elections process virtually non-existent, which is tantamount to not having an election at all. How is this good for democracy?


Not surprisingly, citizens of all political persuasions are already protesting the Court’s decision because they can so clearly see the impending danger to the People’s role in elections and understand that the kind of money that corporations will use now to influence elections will most assuredly diminish, if not totally destroy, our freedom and way of life. In stark contrast, it has been so incredibly difficult for citizens to readily grasp that our right to control and visually witness the entire process of voting to know for certain that the persons truly chosen by the people have been elected has been stolen from us by government officials who cleverly convinced us to replace the ballot box of old with the way of the future -- computerized voting.

For years, election integrity advocates have compiled a mountain of evidence against the use of these machines to no avail. The voting machine corporations have spent large sums of money on lobbyists and marketing these machines and have far too much support from politicians, election officials, computer security experts and powerful interest groups intent on keeping these machines an integral part of our elections process. They are marketed as “faster, easier and more secure!” Is democracy preserved when voting is allowed to be marketed as “fast and easy” rather than “public and accurate”? Despite investigations that definitively uncovered the truth about the dangers these machines pose to election integrity, which were featured in the Emmy nominated HBO documentary film, Hacking Democracy, our government is determined to maintain the current status quo.

It is important to note that American election integrity advocates haven’t been the only ones protesting the use of electronic voting machines counting their votes in secret. Citizens of other democratic republics, such as, Ireland, The Netherlands and India, are but a few of the growing number of countries that have either banned e-voting or are presently fighting to ban them and demanding a return to hand counts and the kind of voting every citizen can oversee and understand. The most recent has been Germany.





http://www.voterescue.org/VRNewsArticles/defeatCorpMoney.htm

[Mojeoux]

1. Canadians vote with #2 pencils! NT

[Peace Patriot]

2. Thank you with all my heart for this post! I wish I could rec it 1,000x! nt

[tomp]

3. how exactly do we stop it? nt

[druidity33]

4. remove/replace HAVA...

Void/overturn most recent SC decision by abolishing Corporate personhood, legislate transparency in voting, institute IRV, publicly finance elections, make Election Day a National holiday, require Civics classes for students (perhaps ballot counting can be done by HS seniors?), etc...

:shrug:

K&R

[tomp]

5. good luck with that.

i hope you don't think this is going to happen quickly or easily. meanwhile we hurtle toward the abyss.

[druidity33]

6. hey, you asked...

and big problems demand big solutions. There is no easy fix here. We need a multi pronged attack. I'm in it for the long haul... are you?

:shrug:

[tomp]

7. hey, i've been in it since 1968.

don't preach to me.

your way won't work. learn some lessons.

[druidity33]

9. I repeat. YOU ASKED. nt.

:)

[eowyn_of_rohan]

8. Glad to see this topic raised now...

it doesn't get nearly enough attention, and not enough people are willing to talk about it or admit it is perhaps THE most major problem.