Reply #18: A Declaration of Independence from Corporate Control of U.S. elections.

[Peace Patriot]

The Declaration of Independence is laid out in a form that we can use. It starts off with a statement of general principles ("We hold these truths to be self-evident..."), lists the abuses of King George III, and declares an end of allegiance to the British Empire and its King.

The last part--the action to be taken--is what needs to be discussed. Personally, I'm ready to start throwing electronic voting machines into Boston Harbor. Short of that, perhaps the Velvet Revolution's boycott of these companies is the answer. Diebold et al have many gov't and university contracts not related to electronic voting. If they do not meet VR's demands on electronic voting, they need to hounded off our university campuses and out of government, and driven out of the electronic voting machine business.

Another proposal for action might be "We will not vote on these machines"--call for voters to use absentee ballots and paper ballots where available, and to submit their own paper ballot if no other is available, and insist that it be counted. (Doesn't solve the central electronic tabulation problem, but it makes the point.) Like Gandhi's campaign against the British monopoly on salt in India, Martin Luther King's bus boycott, and the American Revolutionaries' rejection of British tea, we have to find the symbolic heart of this matter.

Planks of the Declaration:

Return elections to the public venue.
Elections should be 100% transparent and verifiable.

No secret, proprietary programming code anywhere in our elections, for any reason.
No ownership or control of any aspect of our elections by any private person or corporation.
No partisan conflicts of interest (voting machine company CEO chairing Bush-Cheney campaign and promising to "deliver" Ohio to Bush).
No corporate lobbying for no paper trail and no auditing controls for their election machinery.
No corporate lobbying for billions of dollars from the sale and servicing of election machinery at the taxpayers' expense.
No corporate corruption of our election officials with "revolving door" employment, wining and dining, and who knows what else?
No secret central electronic vote tabulators owned and controlled by two companies (and run by two brothers, funded by rightwing groups).
Stop the TV networks and news monopolies from reporting any vote counts or exit poll results until every vote is counted.
End collusion among news monopolies, electronic voting system companies, private exit pollsters, and election officials to call elections before every vote is counted and verified.


Further:

A Constitutional Amendment banning all private money in political campaigns.

Enough! Fini!