Reply #13: OPEd: Submission to Feinstein Hearings On Election Rules

[rumpel]

February 9, 2007 at 06:39:22

by andi novick

Dear Mr. Ambrogi and Ms. Price,

I understand the public has 5 days from the Hearings held today (February 7, 2007) to submit comment which will be accepted by the committee. Please advise if I am incorrect about that.

I listened to the Hearing this morning and while I greatly appreciate that someone is finally paying attention to what will one day be seen as the greatest crime in the history of this country, I was deeply dismayed by many of the comments from those you'd called to testify.

No one expressed the fundamental understanding that these are the people's elections. No one had asked the people what they want (although in a Zogby poll taken this past summer, when offered a choice between "Citizens have the right to view and obtain information about how election officials count votes" or "Citizens do not have the right to view and obtain information about how elections officials count votes," 92% of those polled agreed with the first statement). I recognize that in a representative form of government like ours is supposed to be our elected officials make decisions on behalf of the people. But this is a unique situation in which, as you said, people don't know who was really elected. Moreover no one asked us what we wanted when HAVA determined for us that we would lose our historical right as citizens to oversee our elections. There is somewhat of a conflict of interest here which only fuels the distrust. Our might have been elected officials didn't ask when they went ahead and passed legislation which impacts their re-election, but when we were asked, 92% of us said in essence we don't want electronic voting displacing our right to oversight and transparency.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_andi_nov_070208_submission_to_feinst.htm