The Three Determining Factors of Election Results in the United States

[Time for change]

Of the three factors that determine the results of elections in the United States, unfortunately only one of those factors is appropriate to a full fledged democracy. That factor is the willingness of the candidate to do things that are of benefit to or are considered to be fair by his or her constituents.

If that was the only factor involved, the most liberal of the two major party candidates, which today is in almost all cases the Democratic candidate, would win the great majority of the time, our President would be a Democrat, and Congress would be heavily Democratic. There would have to be a major party re-alignment, since the Republican Party would no longer be viable.

Unfortunately, there are two other, highly undemocratic factors that play major roles today in determining who wins elections in our country: In three words: election fraud and money.


Election fraud

Nobody knows how many votes were stolen in the 2004 Presidential election. Literally thousands of articles have been written on this subject, but probably the two most thorough and widely acclaimed accounts are Roberts Kennedy’s article in Rolling Stone, “Was the 2004 Election Stolen”, with 208 references, and Steven Freeman’s “Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen”, with 262 references. From these and many other sources, three things are abundantly clear:

1) There was massive election fraud in 2004 (not to mention 2000 and 2002 as well), perpetrated by Republican operatives, especially in Ohio, and it is highly likely that this election fraud was responsible for the continuation of George W. Bush’s pResidency.

2) Our voting system today remains highly insecure, and not enough Americans care about that.

3) Our corporate media, with some rare exceptions, such as Keith Oberman, do whatever they can to bury this issue.

It is very difficult for many of us to understand why more of the American public is not outraged about a situation where private companies count our votes with secret software that provide no assurances about the accuracy of the vote count. The best explanation for that fact is that our corporate media, which is the main source of news for most Americans, does everything it can to persuade us that everything is ok – and too many people are happy to believe that.


The corrupting role of money in politics

With the availability of mass media, money is needed for the dissemination of information. Although a class war has always existed to some extent in our country, that class war has now reached its greatest intensity since the Gilded Age of the late 19th Century, as manifested by a widening income gap between the poor and middle class on the one hand, versus the ultra wealthy on the other hand. With that income gap, 1 percent of the wealthiest individuals in our country possess 38% of our country’s wealth, and therefore have a highly disproportionate amount of political clout.

The result is that one of our two major political parties, the Republican Party, has opted to do everything it can to make their wealthiest constituents happy with them, at the expense of everyone else, with the firm knowledge that the voters they lose by doing that will be more than made up for by the disinformation that will be paid for by their wealthiest constituents. The other major political party, the Democratic Party, has tried much harder to act in behalf of the welfare of their constituents, although they too have needed, to varying degrees, to pander to the corporate interests, lest they be smacked into the ground by them.

The legality of contributing money to political candidates, with the implicit (though not explicit) understanding that that money will buy political favoritism, has been defended by both our courts and our Congress by sanctimoniously pointing to the free speech provisions in the First Amendment to our Constitution and claiming that money is speech. But the absurdity of that contention should be obvious to anyone with some primary school education. Speech is of value, from a political standpoint (or any other standpoint) only when it is heard. But if one billionaire has one thousand times as much right to speak through a medium which reaches lots of people than several thousand other people added together, the speech of that one billionaire will drown out the speech of most other people, thereby interfering with their right to free speech.

Anyhow, what is the difference between bribery and contributing money with the implicit understanding that the money will buy political favoritism? I fail to see a substantive difference in the morality of the two. I realize that there must be some difference, otherwise people such as Jack Abramoff wouldn’t feel the need to cross that thin line between bribery and legal campaign contributions. But the bottom line of all this is that Republicans absolutely need to cater to the wealthy, since there is no way that their policies alone, without tons of money behind them, would win them 50% of the vote – or even 20%.


The special case of the corporate media

If cash donated to their political campaigns is not enough to carry them through to victory, and if election fraud doesn’t happen to play a significant role in their state, the corporate media serves as the ace in the hole for Republicans. I think of this as one more example of the role of money in politics, since those who own and control the corporate media are uniformly wealthy, and since it was their money to begin with that led to the legislation that enabled the corporate media to become what it is today – Reagan’s veto of Democratic legislation to enforce the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which together allowed the consolidation of our news media to the point where today it is controlled by a very small number of extremely wealthy individuals.

Several excellent books have been written about the extent to which wealthy corporate interests control our news media today. I would highly recommend “Lapdogs – How the Press rolled Over for Bush”, by Eric Boehlert, “What Liberal Media – The Truth About BIAS and the News”, by Eric Alterman, and “Into the Buzzsaw – The Myth of a Free Press”, edited by Kristina Borjesson. And I have ranted about pseudo-journalists such as Chris Matthews and Tim Russert, who make a largely successful, but hypocritical effort to appear unbiased to their viewers.

The bottom line, as Bill Moyers points out, is that the protection offered us by our First Amendment is based on the assumption of a separation of our government and a free press, which is supposed to protect us from government abuses. Moyers goes on:

What would happen, however, if the contending giants of big government and big publishing and broadcasting ever joined hands, ever saw eye to eye in putting the public's need for news second to free-market economics? That's exactly what's happening now under the ideological banner of "deregulation". Giant media conglomerates that our founders could not possibly have envisioned are finding common cause with an imperial state in a betrothal certain to produce not the sons and daughters of liberty but the very kind of bastards that issued from the old arranged marriage of church and state.

Consider the situation. Never has there been an administration so disciplined in secrecy, so precisely in lockstep in keeping information from the people at large and -- in defiance of the Constitution -- from their representatives in Congress. Never has the powerful media oligopoly ... been so unabashed in reaching like Caesar for still more wealth and power. Never have hand and glove fitted together so comfortably to manipulate free political debate, sow contempt for the idea of government itself, and trivialize the peoples' need to know.

How do we know that Democrats would rule our country today if not for the corrupting role of money and election fraud?

To answer that question I’ll just give a few examples:

National Health Insurance
Opinion polls in this country consistently show that Americans overwhelmingly favor a national health insurance program (For example, this ABC News/Washington Post poll, which demonstrated a 62-32 margin in favor of national health insurance.) Yet, when it comes time to vote on the issue, the dollars start to flow by the millions, and the result is that today a national health insurance plan is considered not to have a snowball’s chance in hell with our current Congress.

The minimum wage
According to Gallup opinion polls in November 2005 and June 2006, Americans expressed a clear and decisive approval for a raise in the minimum wage. Yet, even though the minimum wage has remained stagnant for almost ten years, during which time Congress has repeatedly voted itself a raise, in June of 2006 the U.S. Senate again rejected a minimum wage bill, with an almost straight party line vote.

The inheritance tax
Though polls show that Americans favor a repeal of the inheritance tax, the reason for that is misinformation which leads many people to believe that repeal would actually help people who aren’t already wealthy. Though a recent attempt to totally repeal the inheritance tax was successfully filibustered by Democrats in the Senate, the great majority of Republicans still voted for its repeal, even though that would benefit only individuals who inherited more than a million dollars. How many people in this country could possibly think that the total repeal of this tax would help them? And in the meantime, the Bush reductions in this tax have contributed substantially to our massive budget deficits and the paucity of money left over for needed government services.

Veteran’s health care
A recent attempt to pass a much needed veteran’s health bill was defeated in the Senate, with only two Republicans, Arlen Specter and Olympia Snowe, voting for it. How many Americans would approve of that if they knew? But no matter. Few Americans either know about it or ever will know about it.

The Iraq War
A recent Gallup poll showed that 37% of Americans feel that it was worth going to war with Iraq. Yet, the same poll suggested that if Americans were not misinformed about the war they would be much less likely to believe that it was worth going to war with Iraq. In particular, a substantial minority of 39% believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9-11 attacks on our country, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and 48% believe that the Iraqi people are better off because of the war, despite polls showing that Iraqis overwhelmingly feel that our presence there has done them no good. If people were not misinformed (by the corporate media) on those issues, the percentage of people who continued to feel that “it was worth going to war” would undoubtedly be much lower.

Black box voting
I have never seen a poll which asks Americans something like: Do you think it is acceptable for private companies to count our votes with secret software that provide no assurances about the accuracy of the vote count? – though such a poll badly needs to be performed and publicized. And for those who might say that such a question would be biased, I say to them that if the assertion is absolutely true, then the question is not misleading and therefore produces no bias.

Anyhow, it seems obvious to me that if such a question were to be asked in a poll, Americans would overwhelmingly answer with a resounding NO. Yet, Republicans in Congress continue to do whatever they can to ensure that precisely this type of voting system remains in place for future elections. How could they get away with that if people knew what was going on?


Conclusions

The above are only a small sampling of the examples that can be given of Republicans supporting policies that cater to the wealthy at the expense of the great majority of their constituents because that is what they need to do to bring in the money necessary to win elections.

It’s a vicious cycle, with money and election fraud installing corrupt Republicans in office, and Republicans using their office to make their benefactors ever more wealthy and to perpetuate election fraud. Yet, their greed may have over-reached, and it appears that in 2006 and 2008 we may be able to take back our country. If we’re successful in doing that, Democrats damn well better make sure to use their window of opportunity to pass legislation that will begin to take the money out of politics, re-establish controls that will lead to a free and independent press, and greatly improve the integrity of our election system.

[Kurovski]

1. Good work, good outline of the problems we face.

K&R, and a thank you.

Edit: also a sad line-up of all we've lost and suffered in this nation (and the world) due to our corrupt election system.

[Time for change]

15. Thank you Kurovski - This is a sad commentary indeed

But our country has a reasonably solid history of democracy to draw from, and I'm hopeful that we can turn this thing around.

[Time for change]

2. The Three Determining Factors of Election Results in the United States

Of the three factors that determine the results of elections in the United States, unfortunately only one of those factors is appropriate to a full fledged democracy. That factor is the willingness of the candidate to do things that are of benefit to or are considered to be fair by his or her constituents.

If that was the only factor involved, the most liberal of the two major party candidates, which today is in almost all cases the Democratic candidate, would win the great majority of the time, our President would be a Democrat, and Congress would be heavily Democratic. There would have to be a major party re-alignment, since the Republican Party would no longer be viable.

Unfortunately, there are two other, highly undemocratic factors that play major roles today in determining who wins elections in our country: In three words: election fraud and money.


Election fraud

Nobody knows how many votes were stolen in the 2004 Presidential election. Literally thousands of articles have been written on this subject, but probably the two most thorough and widely acclaimed accounts are Roberts Kennedy’s article in Rolling Stone, “Was the 2004 Election Stolen”, with 208 references, and Steven Freeman’s “Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen”, with 262 references. From these and many other sources, three things are abundantly clear:

1) There was massive election fraud in 2004 (not to mention 2000 and 2002 as well), perpetrated by Republican operatives, especially in Ohio, and it is highly likely that this election fraud was responsible for the continuation of George W. Bush’s pResidency.

2) Our voting system today remains highly insecure, and not enough Americans care about that.

3) Our corporate media, with some rare exceptions, such as Keith Oberman, do whatever they can to bury this issue.

It is very difficult for many of us to understand why more of the American public is not outraged about a situation where private companies count our votes with secret software that provide no assurances about the accuracy of the vote count. The best explanation for that fact is that our corporate media, which is the main source of news for most Americans, does everything it can to persuade us that everything is ok – and too many people are happy to believe that.


The corrupting role of money in politics

With the availability of mass media, money is needed for the dissemination of information. Although a class war has always existed to some extent in our country, that class war has now reached its greatest intensity since the Gilded Age of the late 19th Century, as manifested by a widening income gap between the poor and middle class on the one hand, versus the ultra wealthy on the other hand. With that income gap, 1 percent of the wealthiest individuals in our country possess 38% of our country’s wealth, and therefore have a highly disproportionate amount of political clout.

The result is that one of our two major political parties, the Republican Party, has opted to do everything it can to make their wealthiest constituents happy with them, at the expense of everyone else, with the firm knowledge that the voters they lose by doing that will be more than made up for by the disinformation that will be paid for by their wealthiest constituents. The other major political party, the Democratic Party, has tried much harder to act in behalf of the welfare of their constituents, although they too have needed, to varying degrees, to pander to the corporate interests, lest they be smacked into the ground by them.

The legality of contributing money to political candidates, with the implicit (though not explicit) understanding that that money will buy political favoritism, has been defended by both our courts and our Congress by sanctimoniously pointing to the free speech provisions in the First Amendment to our Constitution and claiming that money is speech. But the absurdity of that contention should be obvious to anyone with some primary school education. Speech is of value, from a political standpoint (or any other standpoint) only when it is heard. But if one billionaire has one thousand times as much right to speak through a medium which reaches lots of people than several thousand other people added together, the speech of that one billionaire will drown out the speech of most other people, thereby interfering with their right to free speech.

Anyhow, what is the difference between bribery and contributing money with the implicit understanding that the money will buy political favoritism? I fail to see a substantive difference in the morality of the two. I realize that there must be some difference, otherwise people such as Jack Abramoff wouldn’t feel the need to cross that thin line between bribery and legal campaign contributions. But the bottom line of all this is that Republicans absolutely need to cater to the wealthy, since there is no way that their policies alone, without tons of money behind them, would win them 50% of the vote – or even 20%.


The special case of the corporate media

If cash donated to their political campaigns is not enough to carry them through to victory, and if election fraud doesn’t happen to play a significant role in their state, the corporate media serves as the ace in the hole for Republicans. I think of this as one more example of the role of money in politics, since those who own and control the corporate media are uniformly wealthy, and since it was their money to begin with that led to the legislation that enabled the corporate media to become what it is today – Reagan’s veto of Democratic legislation to enforce the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which together allowed the consolidation of our news media to the point where today it is controlled by a very small number of extremely wealthy individuals.

Several excellent books have been written about the extent to which wealthy corporate interests control our news media today. I would highly recommend “Lapdogs – How the Press rolled Over for Bush”, by Eric Boehlert, “What Liberal Media – The Truth About BIAS and the News”, by Eric Alterman, and “Into the Buzzsaw – The Myth of a Free Press”, edited by Kristina Borjesson. And I have ranted about pseudo-journalists such as Chris Matthews and Tim Russert, who make a largely successful, but hypocritical effort to appear unbiased to their viewers.

The bottom line, as Bill Moyers points out, is that the protection offered us by our First Amendment is based on the assumption of a separation of our government and a free press, which is supposed to protect us from government abuses. Moyers goes on:

What would happen, however, if the contending giants of big government and big publishing and broadcasting ever joined hands, ever saw eye to eye in putting the public's need for news second to free-market economics? That's exactly what's happening now under the ideological banner of "deregulation". Giant media conglomerates that our founders could not possibly have envisioned are finding common cause with an imperial state in a betrothal certain to produce not the sons and daughters of liberty but the very kind of bastards that issued from the old arranged marriage of church and state.

Consider the situation. Never has there been an administration so disciplined in secrecy, so precisely in lockstep in keeping information from the people at large and -- in defiance of the Constitution -- from their representatives in Congress. Never has the powerful media oligopoly ... been so unabashed in reaching like Caesar for still more wealth and power. Never have hand and glove fitted together so comfortably to manipulate free political debate, sow contempt for the idea of government itself, and trivialize the peoples' need to know.

How do we know that Democrats would rule our country today if not for the corrupting role of money and election fraud?

To answer that question I’ll just give a few examples:

National Health Insurance
Opinion polls in this country consistently show that Americans overwhelmingly favor a national health insurance program (For example, this ABC News/Washington Post poll, which demonstrated a 62-32 margin in favor of national health insurance.) Yet, when it comes time to vote on the issue, the dollars start to flow by the millions, and the result is that today a national health insurance plan is considered not to have a snowball’s chance in hell with our current Congress.

The minimum wage
According to Gallup opinion polls in November 2005 and June 2006, Americans expressed a clear and decisive approval for a raise in the minimum wage. Yet, even though the minimum wage has remained stagnant for almost ten years, during which time Congress has repeatedly voted itself a raise, in June of 2006 the U.S. Senate again rejected a minimum wage bill, with an almost straight party line vote.

The inheritance tax
Though polls show that Americans favor a repeal of the inheritance tax, the reason for that is misinformation which leads many people to believe that repeal would actually help people who aren’t already wealthy. Though a recent attempt to totally repeal the inheritance tax was successfully filibustered by Democrats in the Senate, the great majority of Republicans still voted for its repeal, even though that would benefit only individuals who inherited more than a million dollars. How many people in this country could possibly think that the total repeal of this tax would help them? And in the meantime, the Bush reductions in this tax have contributed substantially to our massive budget deficits and the paucity of money left over for needed government services.

Veteran’s health care
A recent attempt to pass a much needed veteran’s health bill was defeated in the Senate, with only two Republicans, Arlen Specter and Olympia Snowe, voting for it. How many Americans would approve of that if they knew? But no matter. Few Americans either know about it or ever will know about it.

The Iraq War
A recent Gallup poll showed that 37% of Americans feel that it was worth going to war with Iraq. Yet, the same poll suggested that if Americans were not misinformed about the war they would be much less likely to believe that it was worth going to war with Iraq. In particular, a substantial minority of 39% believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9-11 attacks on our country, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and 48% believe that the Iraqi people are better off because of the war, despite polls showing that Iraqis overwhelmingly feel that our presence there has done them no good. If people were not misinformed (by the corporate media) on those issues, the percentage of people who continued to feel that “it was worth going to war” would undoubtedly be much lower.

Black box voting
I have never seen a poll which asks Americans something like: Do you think it is acceptable for private companies to count our votes with secret software that provide no assurances about the accuracy of the vote count? – though such a poll badly needs to be performed and publicized. And for those who might say that such a question would be biased, I say to them that if the assertion is absolutely true, then the question is not misleading and therefore produces no bias.

Anyhow, it seems obvious to me that if such a question were to be asked in a poll, Americans would overwhelmingly answer with a resounding NO. Yet, Republicans in Congress continue to do whatever they can to ensure that precisely this type of voting system remains in place for future elections. How could they get away with that if people knew what was going on?


Conclusions

The above are only a small sampling of the examples that can be given of Republicans supporting policies that cater to the wealthy at the expense of the great majority of their constituents because that is what they need to do to bring in the money necessary to win elections.

It’s a vicious cycle, with money and election fraud installing corrupt Republicans in office, and Republicans using their office to make their benefactors ever more wealthy and to perpetuate election fraud. Yet, their greed may have over-reached, and it appears that in 2006 and 2008 we may be able to take back our country. If we’re successful in doing that, Democrats damn well better make sure to use their window of opportunity to pass legislation that will begin to take the money out of politics, re-establish controls that will lead to a free and independent press, and greatly improve the integrity of our election system.

[dweller]

3. sigh

you need to post this again at 8AM in the morning, any morning will do. 1am will not get the eyes it needs.
:kick: and R! all the same.
dp

[lonestarnot]

4. I will kick it in the a.m. It's only 10:30 on the west coast.

[dweller]

5. and so will i, LS

when the sun rises.

:hi:

it is a fine post, deserves may eyes/ayes.
dp

[lonestarnot]

7. yes!

:hi: To the top at sunrise, and mine is later than yours.

[hfojvt]

6. I would suggest another huge factor

by listing these candidates
George W. Bush
Jesse Ventura
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Elizabeth Dole
Hillary Clinton
Scott Klug

That factor is the celebrity factor. Those people start out with a million dollar advantage in the fact that they are already very well known, and often well liked. Scott Klug may not seem to fit, but like Gopher from the Love Boat he went from television to Congress. Klug was a local anchorman before he became a 3 term Congressman.

Celebrity ties into another hugh factor - incumbency. Every incumbent is a celebrity. They are on TV, they are in the papers, they mail reports to their constituents for free. Defeating an incumbent takes a herculean effort, not only because they have spent the years of their incumbency adding to the campaign money left over from the last election, but because they are so darn well known.

Plus, incumbents are well paid. The salary of a Congressperson of $165,200 puts them in the top 5 percent or Americans which breaks at family income of $150,599. If their spouse gets a job, and a good paying job seems kinda like a cinch given their connections, family income is likely to be over $200,000 a year. and thus:

"Forty members of the current U.S. Senate are millionaires; less than one percent of the American people are millionaires. And big money mixed with irregular and high-tech redistricting help explain why the incumbent reelection rate in the House of Representatives the past three elections has been more than 98 percent. These are the kind of numbers we expect to see in countries like North Korea or China, not the United States." Charles Lewis (writing on Counterpunch)

The parties also tend to rig the districts in favor of their own party basically disenfranchising people who are in the wrong party in the wrong district. Often they run unopposed, even for the US Senate!! In 2002, Pat Roberts was re-elected in Kansas to the US Senate without a Democratic opponent.

[Kurovski]

8. Also, the Corporate Media makes many millions of dollars

during elections from the many nauseating, tedious ads.

[Time for change]

17. Yes, that's true, celebrity is certainly a factor in voting patterns

But that doesn't worry me anywhere near as much as the role of money (including the loss of a free press) and election fraud. Take election fraud and money out of politics, and at least people will be free to make up their own minds about who will represent us.

[hfojvt]

20. when did the election fraud start?

The quote I gave from Counterpunch was probably from 2003 when I was reading Counterpunch (until the primary season when they switched to punching at any and all Democrats and it got old fast).

Read that quote - incumbents were re-elected in 98% of House elections for the last three elections. That would be 2002, 2000 and 1998, and I bet the numbers were pretty high before that too. We had an incumbentocracy long before the loss of a free press or election fraud became huge issues, and even in our next election it is very likely that most incumbents will win regardless of election fraud or money.

[Time for change]

21. Yes, that's true, the incumbents have always had a big advantage

And in more recent times in the House they've had an even bigger advantage because of the redistricting fiascos.

And it's true that having good name recognition is part of it.

But incumbents also have a big advantage because of the money issue. Take the money out of politics and we'd see the incumbent advantage plummet. Especially the Republican incumbents have a great advantage because they sell out their constituents to the highest bidder. If that kind of legalized bribery was made illegal we'd make some big gains in Congress just based on that fact alone (but hopefully we'll make big gains in 2006 and 08 anyhow.

[lonestarnot]

18. kick

[mistertrickster]

23. Brilliant analysis--long, but worth the read.

This is what everybody from Robert Reich to Noam Chomsky has been saying--the majority of the American public is radical liberal. From health care to social security to more money for education and less for the military to gay marriage, a clear majority wants more government involvement and protection, not less.

[Time for change]

25. Thank you - I think it was Ronald Reagan who started the bullshit about

the need to "get government off the backs of Americans". Yeah right, stop the FDA from ensuring a safe food and drug supply, stop the EPA from trying to maintain a safe environment, let private companies take over the burden of running our elections so that we don't have to worry about it any more. Unfortunately, too many people bought into that bullshit, forgetting that we create governent to serve the people.

And if we can get some of the money out of the political process we might again some day have a government that serves us.

[Kurovski]

40. Congratulations, I see you were on the homepage, TFC.

I couldn't agree more with the decision to put it there.

[Time for change]

41. Thank you Kurovski - And thank you for all the kicks

It's hard for me to tell when I write an article what kind of reader appeal it will have until I see what kind of responses it gets.

[Peace Patriot]

9. Excellent analysis, Time for Change! I agree with your three biggies:

1. Election fraud
2. Private money in politics
3. The war profiteering corporate news monopolies

But I don't think you should reverse the order to things in the last paragraph. There you say that Republican greed may have over-reached, and that means that we (the majority party, the Democrats) may be able to take our country back in '06 and '08, and THEN we will pass legislation "that will begin to take the money out of politics, re-establish controls that will lead to a free and independent press, and greatly improve the integrity of our election system."

It ain't gonna happen that way. Bush junta overreaching on greed is NOT going to put the Democrats in office. Their overreaching has so far had no consequences for them--even though it has been the most filthily greedy, lawless, murderous, traitorous, conscienceless, monstrous overreaching in the history of the world. A $10 trillion deficit--to lard the super-rich and their corporate war profiteer buds. They didn't just steal everything in sight--they stole the future! A hundred thousand innocent people slaughtered, in the initial bombing of Iraq alone, in the most cold-blooded, calculated mass murder in history, apart from the Holocaust. Not the result of quagmire (Vietnam). Not the result of war weariness (Hiroshima, Nagasaki). Not the result of madness (Hitler). But the result of calculating how many lies they could get away with, for how long. A war and a mass killing without any excuse--and possibly the most ill-advised war ever perpetrated. A corporate oil war--at our expense.

Overreaching, indeed. And that very same "overreaching" prompted them to install Bushite corporations in our election system, to "count" all the votes with trade secret, proprietary programming code and virtually no audit/recount controls, so that they can KEEP ON STEALING from us and from the future, with impunity. And here's where I differ from some election fraud analysts. I think that Ohio is a distraction. Whether they needed Ohio, on top of having Diebold and ES&S put their "thumb on the scales" for Bush all over the country, or whether it was just extra fun for them to stomp all over poor black voters, I don't know (maybe some of both), but the fact of the matter is that MOST of what happened in Ohio was ILLEGAL under EXISTING LAW, and it was the IMMUNITY from consequences afforded by Diebold and ES&S that emboldened them to break those laws. They knew that there would be no angry Attorney General coming down on Ohio. They knew there would be no Democratic president or Congress outraged at what happened there, and there never would be again.

And what remains is Diebold and ES&S, so that now, no matter how hard the Democratic Party under Howard Dean, or grass roots election groups and others, work to prevent blatant violations of the Voting Rights Act, the Bushites can smile their unhealthy little smiles in the confidence that they will win. They can say anything they like, and do anything they like, and they will be forever immune to accountability from the voters.

It is therefore useless to talk about reforming the money in politics, or busting corporate news monopolies, or any other such expectation of the Democrats, including withdrawing from the Mideast War (and who knows? is it WW III yet?), that the Bush junta, and the mad Israelis, and half the Democratic leadership, have started.

NONE of this can happen without FIRST OF ALL finding a way to reform the election system. Without transparent elections, we cannot reform anything else. And, indeed, without transparent elections, we will never have the Democratic leadership that we need to address things like the filthy money political system or the corporate news monopoly "Iron Curtain" over real news. Much of the Democratic leadership is corrupt and collusive on both scores--and on much else. They, too, were installed by Diebold and ES&S!

So how do we do it?

I have thought and thought and thought and thought and thought about this--always trying to think strategically, and always on the lookout for the crack in the dam that, if we could just widen it a bit, would bring secret corporate voting counting to an end. I have followed many hopeful developments, and there is quite a lot of activity on it: new pressure groups formed, many lawsuits, groups formed to monitor elections and challenge suspicious results, numerous reports from high powered entities (the GAO, top scientific groups, Common Cause and more), BBV/Hursti's work, Ion Sancho's and others' work, book and article publications, tremendous public education going on, web activism, BradBlog's campaign about CA-50, Debra Bowen's campaign for Sec of State in Calif, and John Bonifaz in Mass. Then came RFK Jr's article in Rolling Stone. And Steven Freeman's book. Great developments! I have suggested a multi-jurisdictional strategy for the long term. Don't depend on Congress--in fact, avoid them; they are a danger. Go after local/state election officials. And people are doing just that! There are many hopeful signs around the country.

But none of it is going to come to fruition in time to prevent the Bushites from stealing Congress again. It is logistically impossible. There are many of us election reform activists, but not enough. RFK Jr's lawsuit has a 2 month waiting period, while Alberto Gonzales tortures some people and combs his hair. September is too late. Diebold and ES&S--although they are a crumbling house of cards--nevertheless WILL STEAL THIS ELECTION. And when Diebold/ES&S crumbles (after '06), other corporate entities will replace them. It's a corporate shell game (as with Enron). The corruption that Tom Delay, Bob Ney and Christopher Dodd caused, with their $4 billion HAVA boondoggle, did its work. Non-transparent election systems were quickly entrenched, and cemented with great corruption, all over the country. They cannot be easily or quickly dislodged.

So, what do we do? Do we just let them steal '06--and hope we have a country and a world after that?

There IS one strategy that COULD bring this rigged election tumbling down rather quickly--before November. And it is this: MASSIVE ABSENTEE BALLOT VOTING AS A PROTEST AGAINST THE MACHINES.

Lots of people are doing it already, as a protest--and in an effort to get their vote counted. (It's up to 50% in Los Angeles.) They are mistaken that an Absentee Ballot is secure, but that doesn't matter. It's the PROTEST part that counts. What if we pushed this, and it got up to 70% AB voting, nationwide (the approx. number of the American people who are disgusted with the Bush junta)?

Think what that would mean: 70% of the American people making a statement of NO CONFIDENCE in the election system. 70% of the people refusing to vote on their rigged electronic voting machines. The machines gathering dust, obsolete before their time. Only rightwing Christians and billionaires will vote on them.

So that's my suggestion. We CANNOT reform 50 different state election systems, and thousands of counties, in three months! The Diebold Congress barely re-passed the Voting Rights Act--and we want them well away from any more "helping America vote," in any case. Let's push this already in-progress, indigenous, citizen protest against the machines. Get it up to 70% and THEN let them try to throw AB votes in the dustbin, or mess with them in the scanning process! If 70% vote AB, THEN we will HAVE SOMETHING. A rebellion!

Think M L King and the bus boycott.
Think Gandhi and the salt tax protest.
Think Boston Tea Party.

Hit 'em in their money! Their expensive, million-dollar, shiny new election theft machines sitting there--and nobody will vote on them! A massive boycott of the machines! And after we have made the voting machines obsolete, we will have momentum to get rid of the central tabulators and all other election fraud components.

[Time for change]

16. Thank you Peace Patriot -- I agree with most of what you say here

I certainly wouldn't make any excuses for BushCo - I agree that he is one of the worst characters in history:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=67175&mesg_id=67175

I see your point with the absentee ballot idea, but I'm not so sure about it. In Ohio in 2004, absentee ballots were a MAJOR source of fraud. Somehow, a large portion (I don't think anyone knows exactly how large, but it was large) of absentee ballot requests from Democratic areas were simply lost, and many many voters did not receive their absentee ballots. Then, when they showed up on Election Day they weren't allowed to vote either. I'm almost certain that absentee ballots were a bigger source of election fraud in Ohio in 2004 than was traditional vote switching via DREs -- partly because not many Ohio counties used DREs in 2004. So, if you go with your absentee ballot idea, that's fine, but we'd damn well better have a way to make sure that our absentee ballots are received, and that they are counted when sent in.

Also, I don't understand what you mean when you say that Ohio was a 'distraction', and then seem to question whether they needed Ohio. Without Ohio's electoral votes, Kerry would be President now - so I don't follow your reasoning on that.

[Kurovski]

10. Kick. Lou Dobbs of CNN and Catherine Crier of Court TV

are also taking up the tainted case of electronic "voting" machines of late. But it's true that Mr Olbermann was out front and alone early on.

[Time for change]

26. Yeah, that video that Catherine Crier did was great

And Lou Dobbs -- He may be much too conservative for my taste, but I often get the impression that he has a sense of integrity that most journalists don't have today. I respect him for talking about election issues.

[Kip Humphrey]

11. Very well framed!

[Arger68]

12. Kicked for the morning.

:kick:

[annabanana]

13. k&r. . . . .(must read). . . .n/t

[dweller]

14. back to the top

:kick:


dp

[Kurovski]

19. Kick.(nt)

[Initech]

22. Sadly, we may never get money out of politics.

As much as I would like for that to happen, just remember what they said in This Is Spinal Tap - "Money talks, bullshit walks."

[Time for change]

24. We can certainly work to improve the present system

It may never be perfect, but we can certainly work to make it better. The current influence of money in our political system is a big threat to our democracy IMO.

[Kurovski]

27. Kick.(nt)

[Time for change]

28. Cowtowing to the pharmaceutical industry

2 million Americans currently get their perscription medicines from Canada, which is against US law. The reason is that it is 80% cheaper there because the Canadian government makes an attempt to prevent pharmaceutical industry profiteering. NAFTA was supposed to allow free trade between the US and Canada, but the pharmaceutical industry prevailed to get importation of drugs from Canada (or anywhere else) deemed illegal.

With what excuse? they claim that drugs from anywhere other than the US are unsafe. And yet, the pharmaceutical industry in the US imports drugs from all over the world.

[liberalla]

29. Excellent!

Bookmarking and recommending!

[Kurovski]

30. Kick.(nt)

[Nothing Without Hope]

31. K & R. Another brilliant, insightful analysis. If only more people of good

conscience in the US would open their eyes.

I am so frightened that they are now inciting WWIII in the middle east. All part of the PNAC/fascist agenda.

[Time for change]

33. Thank you so much Hope - Yes, these are very frightening times

I think that one of the biggest problems is psychological denial. There are just certain things that people aren't ready to believe, so they close their minds to the worst possibilities. How else can you explain an approval rating in the 30s for Bush?

[Nothing Without Hope]

34. Yes, I think John Dean's book hits on one of the core issues: about a

quarter of the people may NEVER open their eyes. The Olbermann interview lays this out:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/posts/2006/07/11/john-dean-on-countdown-conservatives-without-conscience/#more-8839

They are quite willing, even eager, to go right over the cliff with their authoritarian leaders. Listen to Dean talking about G. Gordon Liddy telling him that he accepted the need to be killed because what he knew could bring down the president (Nixon), and asking only that it not be done in his home because he had children.

Very, very scary, the psychology of fascism. THAT is how I explain an approval rating in the 30s for Bush. It was about the same for Hitler:

http://www.counterpunch.org/chuckman08252005.html
Hitler, despite huge expenditures and desperately hard campaigns, never received more than just over a third of votes. He was appointed Chancellor, after a long series of backroom manipulations, by the Republic's ancient and exhausted President von Hindenburg. Hitler's rise more closely resembles that of some of America's favorite shady men in Iraq and Pakistan than it does that of a man {Venezuela's Chavez} whose election was closely scrutinized and declared fair by international watchers.

[Time for change]

36. Wow, great interview!! -- I love those guys!

I was very impressed with John Dean the first time I saw him testifying at the Watergate Hearings. If not for him the Nixon administration never would have fallen. Never! I ordered his book a few days ago, and I can hardly wait to read it. I hope he writes as well as he talks.

[Nothing Without Hope]

38. I just posted a DU thread on John Dean's op/ed on authoritarianism

as described in his new book:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1640208
thread title (7-15-06): John Dean op/ed: TRIUMPH OF THE AUTHORITARIANS - fascist psychology

Definitely a book we progressives should read and consider in our strategizing on how to fight the Bushies and reach those who still support them despite everything.

[Melissa G]

32. K&R for TFC! n/t

[Time for change]

35. Social Security is another important example

Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of our federal Social Security program

Yet, Bush has been relentlessly pushing his privatization scam, for no other reason than to put more money in the hands of his wealthy benefactors from the financial sector. According to the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, Bush's plan would cut benefits by 28%, while simultaneously adding greatly to our national debt:
http://www.drummajorinstitute.com/congress/outerenvelope_bd.htm

In the Senate, 100% of Democrats are against this plan, and only 9% of Republicans are against it.
In the House, 82% of Democrats are against it, and 0% of Republicans (see last column):
http://www.drummajorinstitute.com/congress/outerenvelope_overview.htm

[Nothing Without Hope]

37. a Saturday morning kick n/t

[Kurovski]

39. Kick.(nt)