Beware of BushCons & Dems "reforming" elections!

[Peace Patriot]

Here's my full response to John Kerry's letter to his supporters. I think the context is important to my comments (below) on the legislation he mentions (on election reform).

What an infuriating letter! But let me calm down just a bit.

Okay.

Worst blow:

"...our legal teams on the ground have found no evidence that would change the outcome of the election."

What "legal teams on the ground"? Invisible lawyers. I wonder how much of our hard-earned money they got paid for this opinion. And is it true? I heard the lawyers were chafing at the bit to challenge this election from day one, and that Kerry restrained them. So where is their evidence, their investigation, their refutation of Freeman, Baiman, UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, TruthIsAll, their defense of touchscreens, their argument against the impossible odds of virtually every numbers anomaly, glitch, malfunctioning machine and vote suppression incident in the country favoring Bush?

I think this statement merely means, "We CAN'T change the outcome of the election. BushCons are too powerful."

Or, "I'm not going to RISK trying to change the outcome"--for whatever reason.

____________

The good part:

The good part is that he has not put a stop on Senators signing on, and he supports the investigation. That IS news! I didn't know this before--I wasn't at all sure.

Also, this could POSSIBLY mean that he still has in mind a long term takedown of the BushCons, a la Watergate. It's certainly a realistic view that we very likely can't change the outcome of the election now, due to BushCon power. I think he should have championed it anyway--because they SHOULDN'T HAVE that power, and because it would have heartened the country wonderfully. But at least he sees some of the problems, is letting others challenge, and may have a long term battle plan (more than just aiming at his own election in '08--that is, a strong fight over the next year or two to expose and discredit Bush and his Cons).

Possibly.

--------

Kerry's very bad advice:

Bad advice: To rely on Congress to fix this utterly fraudulent election system. I saw this coming. Jesse Jackson gave Kerry this out. He proposed a Constitutional amendment to protect the right to vote. And the BushCons are going to do this? Right.

If the BushCons do anything, it will be to require electronic voting, with secret, proprietary source code owned by BushCon companies, with no paper trail, everywhere in the country--and take away the rights of the states and the people to prevent it.

Beware!

It is my very strong view that WE MUST REPAIR THIS VOTING SYSTEM OURSELVES, LOCALLY, STATE BY STATE, COUNTY BY COUNTY. We need:

1) paper ballots
2) hand counts

or at least

1) a paper receipt for every vote
2) open source code

and 3) undoctored exit polls.

And we need to do it ASAP, while we still have the power. Currently, election rules mostly reside with the states, and we can change them by state political pressure and initiative.

ANY new federal voting legislation that takes power away from the states IS BAD, because,

1) BushCons will be helping write it, and will be voting on it--it will likely be subject to very bad compromises, and provisions that take away OUR power to fix things;

2) How did we get the current system? --partly, anyway, by Dem Party leaders' CORRUPTION (porkbarrel money to the states; wining and dining by Diebold et al)--there will be much about this legislation that won't be in the public interest;

3) we have no power in Congress--none--we cannot prevent bad provisions;

4) the legislation may look benign, now, but BushCons can alter it later, and we have NO POWER to stop them, and, if it takes power away from local jurisdictions, they can then just dictate our voting system.

I am very, very suspicious of this proposal. The BushCons, with the Dems' nearly silent compliance, gave us this egregiously fraudulent election. And I'm sorry, I do not trust them to fix it.

The Dems had to know that this system was a fraud. They didn't warn us. And they didn't do their own exit polling either--which they damn well should have done. This election system had never been tested nationally. It cried out for verification and fraud detection measures, as are used in every other democracy in the world. They did nothing.

On top of that, they sat back in silence while the networks fiddled their own Exit Polls, "adjusting" them to fit the BushCon controlled "official results," so that we Americans--unlike the Ukrainians--DIDN'T KNOW that Kerry had won in the Exit Polls!

That illusion--that falsehood--changed everything. It broke hearts. It fractured and nearly destroyed the young new democracy movement that had arisen to oust Bush. It prevented an uprising. It prevented calls for immediate investigation. And it caused serious demoralization of many of the best citizens in the country.

A worse act of conniving journalism I have never seen. How could the Democrats and Kerry have gone along with this?

I don't trust the Dems in Congress on election reform. I don't trust Kerry on this. I think we MUST take it into our own hands.

[wiggs]

1. Yes. Always beware of entreched power.

The lessons of the 60's are back.

[Wapsie B]

2. We need to take the power to count the votes

away from people like Katherine Harris or Kenneth Blackwell. There needs to be a voting commission in each state with equal # of Dems & repugs overseeing elections. There's too much opportunity for fraud the way it stands now. If Diebold wants to make the hardware, fine. But the software and the means of counting the votes needs to be in the hands of the people. As it is right now the election officials we have are worse than clueless about the technology they're using. A good sales presentation by ES & S or Diebold is all they see.

[PROUDNWLIBERAL]

3. Dems Failing Over To Not Stand Up

I'm done with the Democrats---I'm turning in my voter registration card and watching Amerika implode!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[In Truth We Trust]

4. Great post! Let us all resolve to demand one simple solution: Paper

ballots NOW! Hand counts NOW!

DO NOT NEGOTIATE!!!! DO NOT ACCEPT ANYTHING LESS NOR ANYTHING MORE!!!

[EFerrari]

5. Of course we can't leave to the Congress. That's why I knew

MoveOn had no position yet, because they sent around a petition to Congress.

Congress, in its red spikes and fishnet stockings.

This is ours to win or lose. Our vote isn't Kerry's to pass on.

[In Truth We Trust]

6. Hey Peace Patriot I've nominated this post for front page. I hope it get's

the attention it deserves. Thanks for articulating so well what I too feel to be of paramount concern.

[Wilms]

7. Yep. We might have to ride them donkeys.

Voting Reform supposedly happened after 2000.

And after all that trouble, Jimmy Carter predicted in Sept. that 2004 would be a repeat. And, of course, was flamed for it.

<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/28/politics/main645964.shtml>

We should force Congress to turn down the thermostat, don sweaters, and put the Carter Center in charge of our elections.

[Vidar]

8. Beautifully argued. Thank you.

[Bill Bored]

9. This is exactly right.

To prove it, just look at the bills in Congress requiring the paper trail. They have more holes in them than a donut shop.
House: <http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5072>
Senate: <http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5074>

There is the potential to get this right, but I expect the Repukes to come up with a watered-down version, requiring the paper ballots without the audits or the recounts to use them. Some Dems won't support this, and the Repukes will claim the Dems voted against "election reform."

It's all so predictable, isn't it?

I wrote my state reps and governor yesterday after many days of futzing around with these damn exit polls. It felt GOOD to finally get those letters out! Everyone should be doing this at the state level, regardless of what happens in the Congress. In fact, Congress should be doing it at the state level! And as Howard Dean has said, by referendum if necessary and as I've been saying, by suing the states if necessary.