Our elections will never get fixed with this majority. check out link.

http://www.electionline.org/index.jsp?page=Newsletter%20Jan%2013%202005

Snip:
“In our view, HAVA is fully funded,” said Brian Lewis, floor counsel for the Majority Whip Senate office. “The states need to go get their money... it’s sitting at the Election Assistance Commission. Everyone has the funding.”

Further, he added, election officials should not expect Congress to get involved again in election administration.

The 109th Congress, he said, has a full agenda for the year ahead “...we don’t see any time for election reform... there was an obscene amount of time spent on passing HAVA.”

I guess we will have to show them up again. The battle for the right to vote goes on.

:kick:

Straight out of a sickening speech in the Senate on Jan 6th, here's he is, again.

-snip-

Paul Vinovich, majority staff director of the House Administration Committee, told officials that there is the possibility for legislation this year from lawmakers who want to move toward federally controlled elections, and take “your jobs away from you.”

-snip-

:puke:

It's going to take a long time for me to get over this election.

by getting rid of the paper trail. There were 5 bills to provide the VVPB and the Repub leaders wouldn't let them come to a vote.

I don't care what this bozo says. If the people demand it, they will have to give us verified voting.

Here's his name rank and serial number:

Brian Lewis, floor counsel for the Majority Whip Senate office.

That means he works for:

Senator Mitch McConnell
361-A Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-2541
Fax: (202) 224-2499
<http://mcconnell.senate.gov/contact_form.cfm>

So BLAST McConnell with mail demanding verified voting, along with others in this thread:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x284186>

Here's a sample letter I wrote, but I didn't include McConnell. Time to do it now though:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x277831>

Our elections have already been *fixed.* That's the problem.

Now we need them to be repaired.

"Obscene," indeed. $3.5 billion poured into BushCon company pockets to give us this piece of shit of an election system, with voting machine company presidents contributing to Bush/Cheney in $100,000 chunks, and holding the rights to the secret code that counts all our votes as "proprietary" information.

Obscene is the right word!

But, Bill, I don't know about your statement: "I don't care what this bozo says. If the people demand it, they will have to give us verified voting." (Post #4, above.)

The BushCons are on a jihad. They don't "have to give us" ANYTHING, and they won't. They own the election system. They've taken away our right vote. They are not going to give it back. Who or what will force them? The Democrats? They don't have the power. They've been neutered. The press? Ha, ha, ha. Embarrassment, humiliation, public outrage that they're being terribly unfair? When did that ever stop a BushCon nazi from doing anything?

In fact, I greatly fear this Congress. They could dictate electronic voting with no paper trail everywhere in the country, with no bid contracts to Diebold, ES&S and Triad, tomorrow, and who could prevent?

I think the Democrats' push for "national standards" is naive (to put the best face on it). The only way we are going to get back our right to vote is state by state, using the states' power over election rules. If they take that power away, WE, the people, will have no avenue left to fix it (as we do now).

I also fear the Democrats getting fooled (again! --if that's what happened with HAVA). By mandating electronic voting, and funding only electronic voting, they set up a highly corrupt process that bribed the states into purchasing very expensive systems they didn't understand, and --incredibly!--agreeing to secret source code and often to no paper trail.

"Getting fooled" is charitable. How could they possibly have agreed to participate in an election with this election system owned and controlled by BushCons? Why weren't they screaming bloody murder about this? Why didn't they at least warn voters?

Their silence then, and now, is beyond the beyond inexplicable! It is mind-boggling.

But if you grant that some of them were fooled, and didn't think the BushCons would actually use their highly insecure, highly hackable, BushCon-controlled programming...

...then, similarly, they could also be fooled by a bill to create "national standards" that may look benign, on the face of it, but contain poison pills, such as removing the state's power over elections. And once the BushCons do that, then they can have any kind of trouble-free, Democrat-free election system that they want, everywhere.

I see the way this situation has occurred and agree with the dangers, Peace Patriot, but going to your point of "the only way we are going to get back our right to vote is state-by-state, using the states power over election rules."
Am trying to understand why some are advocating "national standards." What is your response to this argument from "Voter Reform Wish List" thread?

anaxarchos (119 posts) Wed Jan-12-05 11:22 AM
Response to Original message

One approach to the tactical problem is to package up the applicable provisions of a national program (registration, voting standards,etc.) into a generic states program. The tactic then is to fight for conforming to such a national initiative at the state levels using referendum and legislative mechanisms where they make sense. This gets us into the game in the next year to two years and eliminates waiting for anything other than the drafting of such a program. State conformance has limits and becomes redundant if comprehensive national legislation is passed but in the meantime:

1) It pushes the program of a national VRA (?voting rights ammendment?) immediately without waiting for a congressional majority.
2) It makes the fight for such an effort both very broad and geographically distributed (i.e. "grassroots").
3) It links directly to the fraud in the 2000 & 2004 elections and starts practically eroding Republican fake majorities very quickly.

And I've written to my state officials. That was my first order of business, and everyone should do the same.

You can find your state reps from the links at <www.congress.org>.

If there is a federal standard, the states should be free to exceed that standard, just as they are with other standards affecting agriculture and the environment, or the right of the people to vote for presidential electors. Let's say for example, that the federal law requires only a paper ballot but no random audits; then the states will still be allowed to mandate the audits. So we have to work at both levels.

Since there were already 5 bills in Congress that would have mandated the VVPB, and all of them were blocked by a fairly small number of Republicans who happen to be in leadership positions, it is appropriate for us to hold these few accountable. We have to express our outrage, otherwise, they can always claim that the People didn't care. If we get the media to cover the issue, the Republicans will look terrible if they don't respond. This should be a central issue for the Democrats as expressed in these threads:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x285298>

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x264034>

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x277831>

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x284186>

You seem to be proposing more of a stealth approach, working only at the state level. I can see your point, but the reason why this was allowed to happen in the first place is because of our relative silence on the issue of verified voting during the 108th Congress. The light needs to be shone on those who obstructed this much needed legislation. And we need to support those who are trying to help us.

Harry Reid and Senator Ensign have a bi-partisan bill that is a start. I think we should support them, and suggest improvements. If you think the states should be allowed to exceed the federal standards, then tell them not to limit this. It's a valid point: Demand a minimum federal standard and allow the states to do better.

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x283991>

And use the Media Blaster to put pressure on them to cover this story!

<http://www.independentmediasource.com/>