Reply #4: I am very happy that you were published, and that these ideas,

[Peace Patriot]

which speak to the fundamentals of our democracy, are getting an airing. I like your first two paragraphs a lot. They lay the problem out very well and graphically.

(Just as an edit, I would amend this sentence as follows: "One by one the constituents approach the celebrity politician and whisper THEIR VOTE in his ear." --just for narrative clarity.)

I also like all of your recommendations, except #3 (see below)--all the rest are excellent and to the point. I am very, very, very glad to have these ideas out there in the public venue. Thank you for doing it!

Here are some suggestions for re-publication (future publication/re-write):

"Many people clearly understand these systemic problems yet persist in data analysis and endless debate about election fraud. However strong the evidence may be, this is not an effective election reform tactic because it necessarily exacerbates partisan tension." --GuvWorld

This sentence turns reality around and says that, because we were disenfranchised, and because we have strongly objected to being disenfranchised, and because we are occupied with compiling and analyzing the evidence of that disenfranchisement, WE are causing some kind of unnecessary disruption, or "partisan tension." It is the people who deliberately designed an unverifiable, partisan-controlled election system, and who used it to steal the election, who are causing the disruption, not we who are investigating what they did.

Truth is truth. The Bush Republicans STOLE this election--and the two previous ones as well. If Republicans don't want to face the truth about that, too bad. If it makes them want to have MORE unverifiable elections, they can go live in China, or Saudi Arabia. If they believe in democracy, then THEY should be as anxious to know the truth as we are. But you know many of them are not. Many of them LIKE having the powers of government without having to win the majority. I think there are some who DON'T, too--some who are honest--and quite a few who voted for Kerry and had THEIR votes changed and stolen. But I'm talking about the Republicans who support Bush and DON'T CARE how he obtained power.

I think you should careful of unconsciously pitching your arguments to this latter group, thinking you can persuade them. They are not the ones who need persuading--they are obdurate in their views, in any case. It is the DISENFRANCHISED who need persuading that the election system is not transparent and not valid. Too many of them have their heads in the sand, or simply don't know the truth.

You don't need to dis those of us who have been seeking the truth, and compiling the evidence, and analyzing this election system. It appears to me that you are seeking a phony "objectivity" or "non-partisanship" in stating things this way. That is, you are saying that YOU are not partisan; YOU are not a trouble-maker; YOU are not like US--us obsessives, us agitators who can't stand that this crime was committed. You just want everybody to be nice, and to be fair.

"Yet we persist." You're damn right. This last election was a CRIME. We have not got to the bottom of it yet. But we will. And we do have strong probable cause, if not the "smoking guns" and the perps in hand. And it is not something you can be neutral about. It is not something you can have a lofty, philosophy of government discussion about. I think that's what you're trying to do, and it just doesn't work at certain points.

"Yet we persist." Come on, GuvWorld, if we hadn't persisted, this would all have been swept under the rug and there would be no movement for election reform.

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"inconclusive results"

The Bush Cartel which now controls the White House, the Congress, the courts, the military, the intelligence apparatus, and the corporate news monopolies doesn't agree that the result was "inconclusive." They think the election system is just fine. They set it up quite deliberately to give them the result they wanted.

So how do you deal with that? "If it's not broke, don't fix it."

Are we not the ones--us trouble-making, partisan, election fraud analyzers and agitators--who ESTABLISHED that the result is not just inconclusive but very probably wrong? It takes trouble-makers to do that--to point out what's "broke" so that it CAN be fixed. If this keeps being covered up, nothing will get fixed. Yes, "inconclusive results" is not okay. But who cares--who is going to create a movement around THAT?

I agree that that is a neutral way to put it--we can't have "inclusive results"--but I think you have to be harder on what that means, on who set it up that way, who is profiting from it, and who has been corrupted by it.

There are REASONS why we have "inconclusive results." Motives. People. Decision-makers. And, I think, a whole lot skulduggery, corruption and crime.

Having conclusive results--that is, transparent verifiable elections--is a no-brainer. Or should be. Why are we suddenly WITHOUT conclusive results--in this highly developed, 200 year old democracy?

Until we face those obstacles--the why's--we will be stymied in fixing it.

Also, you're not going to get anywhere with election officials who have been promised lucrative employment with Sequoia after their "public service" is over. You're not going to get anywhere with public officials who are handing out OTHER government contracts to Diebold, in exchange for, oh, a week at Beverly Hilton at an "electronic systems conference."

What is going on with this is corrupt and criminal. It is not reasonable. And if you don't address these realities, then you are going to be up against ordinary citizens who have been lulled and reassured and lied to by these officials, and who don't understand why you don't trust these nice people.

Some will understand your reasonable argument. But many will not--because of the clever lies and propaganda and coverups that are going on with regard to these systems. (And some will just be Bushites who prefer an election system that is owned and controlled by rightwing Republicans.)

We need a purge. We need to clean house. We need to stop being so damned nice. And I am happy to be non-partisan about THAT. I think there are plenty of corrupt Democrats who need to be purged from our elections offices (as well federal/state elected representatives who are corrupt or malfeasant on this issue).

And Kerry voters need to know the truth, and need to get mad--for this to get done. Reason and good government arguments are not going to cut it. We are looking at very serious corruption.

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#3 of your recommendations

"...uniform standards determined by a non-partisan nationally recognized commission"

I think all of your other recommendations are excellent. But I don't like this one. Here's why. I am very wary of anything "uniform" or "national" because of the imminent danger of this phony, private Baker/Carter "commission" and what I think it is really up to: federalizing elections under Bush Cartel control.

I don't want anything that's "uniform" or "national" while the Bush Cartel is in power. It's extremely dangerous.

HAVA was bad enough--the corruption of our election system, and many of our election officials, with $4+ billion in federal dollars as a bribe to the states to buy Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and other such electronic systems owned and controlled by Bushites, with the lavish lobbying of these companies, and with the quite deliberate failure to control any of this.

Power over election systems should remain with the states. I think the Bush Cartel is going to try to take that power away, because of the threat of citizen election reform movements. Ordinary people still have potential power and influence at the state/local level. Any federal effort to impose "standards" can easily be turned into imposing Diebold--and then we'll have the voter purges and the vote "tabulations" all occurring in the White House basement orchestrated by Karl Rove. They had a patchwork system of control this time. Next time they want all control.

No "non-partisan nationally recognized commission" has any power to impose such standards. It has to go through Congress or the states. If it goes through Bush's Congress, you think we're going to get restoration of our right to vote (i.e., verifiable elections)? Not on your life! No way they are going to IMPROVE our election system--except to their criminal benefit.

This sounds uncomfortably similar to the B/C "commission." They claim to be non-partisan. It's a lie, but they claim it. They are acting just as official-sounding as they can, but they are a private entity that sprang out of nowhere, packed with interested parties to the exclusion of REAL voting right groups. And they are going to make a "report to Congress." (Nobody asked them to--it's their own idea.)

I would just as soon Bush's Congress, and the fed gov't, and phony national commissions like this one, keep their hands off our election systems. The Bush Cartel didn't care to enforce the Voting Rights Act in 2004. And they won't enforce--or permit--anything else that truly protects the right of the voters to vote them out of office.

So, if it is THEY who devise or impose "national standards," look out! Your right to try to restore and protect your right to vote will be the next thing to go.

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I'm not sure I fully understand your tag line: "Has the Consent of the Governed been withdrawn, YET?"

Shouldn't the question be: Has the Consent of the Governed been given YET?

Perhaps I'm not understanding something.

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Again, thanks for your work, GuvWorld! Please give us a report on any feedback you get!

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P.S. I was just thinking, I'm not dealing with what you are dealing with--city councils, cautious politicians, the Dem Party corruption influencing liberals to be fearful of this issue, and lots of uninformed people. I have strong feelings about things--but I am not doing what you are doing at the moment. So take or leave my advice accordingly. Gettting verifiable elections is the important thing, and you are doing great work toward that goal.