Election Reform

Considering the threat that the Republicans pose to democracy .. the Democrats should consider some election reform by seriously empowering the FEC - atleast for Federal Elections ..

Repulicans here succeed in getting honest hard working purged from the Voter Database --In India .. Even prisoners are allowed to vote .. So a voting booth is set up inside every jail and ballots are counted .The guiding principle is that every 'CITIZEN' is eligible to vote ..and just because you are in jail - you are not are deprived of your fundamental rights as a Citizen.

I am not suggesting that India is a Model for democracy ( The Politicians there are actual thugs .. ) .. but the Law is very clear on Voting rights. The Election is Administered by an Agency called the "Election Commission" (EC) that is responsible for all matters related to the campaign and it works like a charm.It is the best thing that has happened to Indian Democracy. The Election Commission enjoys complete autonomy and is insulated from any kind of executive interference. The body also functions as a quasi-judiciary body in matters of electoral disputes and other matters involving the conduct of elections. Its recommendations and opinions are binding on the President of India. However, the decisions of the body are liable for independent judiciary reviews by courts acting on electoral petitions.


EC commissioners have the same power as Supreme Court Judges.
Single body with a single set of Rules for ALL STATES -.
It regulates campaign finance, advertisements, news coverage, Movies for impartiality/Libel/Slander.
It is the single owner of the national voter database and uses Voter ID Cards to prevent fraud.
Politician are scared SHITLESS by the EC as it can disqualify anyone is found violating election rules ... I can Imagine half the Republicans getting their asses kicked by the EC



In comparison FEC is toothless dog that cannot bark.


This will take care of a lot a shit that the Republicans resort to.

:kick:

are purged from our government, and I am not at all comforted by the thought of the Congressional Democrats, or even an Obama administration controlling it either, because the Congressional Democrats voted en masse in favor of turning our election system over to PRIVATE, RIGHTWING, BUSHITE corporations, using 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code in all the new fast-tracked electronic voting systems, with VIRTUALLY NO AUDIT/RECOUNT controls.

The only place where it is feasible to undo this fascist coup in our voting system is at the state/local level, where ordinary people still have some influence. So I am in favor of retaining and defending state/local control over voting systems for now.

Any Fed commission is APPOINTED BY the president, or the president and assorted national politicians. They cannot be trusted. Period. Neither party.

The Obama campaign has said nothing about 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting, that I know of. I presume they take the Corpo Dem position that everything is okay as long as there is a 'paper trail.' That is NOT TRUE. A 'paper trail' is almost worthless if the paper doesn't have legal standing as the official ballot, and if the ballots are not counted, and, currently, some jurisdictions have ballot standing, some don't, and 99% of the ballots are never counted, and that's just in the GOOD states, that have a ballot backup. Half the country has no ballots and NO WAY to audit, verify or recount elections!

This is a disaster. And our Democrats went along with it, and still support it.

If, by Corpo noblesse oblige, or by an overwhelming turnout that beats the machine programming, Obama enters the White House in January, and proposes a bill to ban all 'TRADE SECRET' code and all PRIVATE corporate control of our elections, of course I would support it, and want it to be the law of the land. But I can pretty much guarantee you that that isn't going to happen. So our only hope, currently, for restoring public control of our elections is pressure on state/local election officials and legislators. Thus far, in this tragic story of the end of our democracy, every time the Federal government or Congress has meddled in election systems, they have made things worse. Every act of federal control has been bad, bad, BAD.

So, WHO is going to appoint a commission to make it all good again? Say, Obama sets up a commission like India's, and has the president, say, appoint two of the seats on a five-person commission, and Congress appoints three. This commission is given total control over elections. Obama may appoint neutral, objective, 'good government' people to his two seats--if any people with the right credentials can be found who don't support Corpo control of (and profiteering from) our elections--and a Democratic Congress may appoint three others. Say this commission throws the Corpos out (not gonna happen) and requires every state to count all votes in PUBLIC VIEW. Then, Jeb Bush somehow gets elected (or crowned by the Supreme Court, or whatever), and appoints former Diebold CEOs to his two seats, and a divided Congress appoints one Corpo and two neutrals. Jeb now has the power to undo all reform, and go back to 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting.

The state/local control we have now--in all its variety, in all its weirdness, in all its complexity, in all its mistakes, and even with all of its injustices and its infestation by Corpos right now--is our only hope of avoiding that hopeless situation. Once it is in sole Federal control, game over.

Take New York, for instance--the one state that held out against e-voting. The Bushfuck EAC sued New York to force them to accept 'TRADE SECRET' voting systems. Their current system--the old lever machines--is publicly owned (all paid for), reliable and virtually unriggable. A big, big, vitally important fight has been going on for New York to resist this bullying. It has been going on for several years, and it has resulted in widespread dissemination of the grave flaws in these 'TRADE SECRET' systems--and, if New York succumbs, they will at least have a far better, much more secure and verifiable system than anyone else has achieved.

If New York didn't have the state power to choose election systems, game over. No fight. No exposure. No chance to resist.

What we need to do is to take a picket sign and everybody in our neighborhood, and go down to our county registrar's office, and protest the expense, insecurity and unverifiability--not to mention the partisan rightwing control--of these systems. And that needs to happen in every community in America--as long we still have any kind of chance to throw off this coup.

Corpo/fascist control of the vote counting is intimately related to OTHER election theft activities--whether its voter purges, or shorting black precincts on voting machines, or doctoring the exit polls, or whatever--and it is also the first, foremost, essential remedy against them. If our elected officials are beholden to Corpo/fascist electronic voting companies for their power, and not to us, they will not reform ANYTHING, let alone the many forms of election fraud.

Corpo/fascist control of our election results is also intimately related to Corpo/fascist control of the 'news.' And there is nothing we can do about that monopolistic control until we start electing real representatives of the American people, who will bust those monopolies and restore sanity to our national political debate.

Everything depends on transparent vote counting. Everything! Our national political establishment DELIBERATELY took that transparency away, and now, there is hardly a public official in the entire country who can prove that he or she was actually elected. They apparently want it that way. They are not going to fix it. We have to do that ourselves, and we cannot do it, if the Feds take over the election systems from the states and counties.

There should be 3 Commissioners .. One by the President and One each by the Democratic and Republican members of the senate judicial committees ...The Presidential appointee should only be the administrative head but will only have the same powers as the other two.