An open letter to activists from NOW President Kim Gandy

An open letter to activists from NOW President Kim Gandy

November 3, 2004

We will never give up.

As NOW activists gathered at the White House carrying signs that said "Count Every Vote" and "Democracy NOW," we learned that John Kerry would be conceding the election.

Despite pleas for the Kerry campaign to wait for the counting of hundreds of thousands of provisional ballots in Ohio, and for the verification of Florida results that were dramatically contrary to exit polling, the promise of the 2004 election is no more.

But the strength we gained, the alliances we created, the friends we made, the voters we registered, the debates we provoked, the activists we energized, the new feminists we elected to Congress and state legislatures . . . no one can take those away.

Your phone calls to friends and strangers, door-knocking in your own neighborhood or on the other side of the country, marching on Washington, emailing friends and co-workers, writing to undecided voters, organizing actions and events, contributing to NOW/PAC efforts and to campaigns across the country . . . in all those ways and more, you brought us to the edge of victory.

The battle of the last year is over, but a new one is beginning.

more at:
http://www.now.org/issues/election/elections2004/041103letter.html

I'm not really interested in reading this. If the vote can be stolen, none of our work matters.

So if the integrity of the vote isn't her priority, she's nothing to me.
Except part of the problem.

She is ignoring the REAL problem and the REAL fight. OUR--for our voting integrity.

I think we should be organizing for 2006. And we need to figure out a grassroots way to keep the polls honest. How do they pick the people who are in charge of the polls. amd how can we affect that process.

Just saying the past and the future are both important, not just one over the other

This is my first post. I read in the latest U.S. News that the government is toying with changing passports so that they would have a chip built in which could identify a person by fingerprint (Don't ask me how this actually works--science is not my thing) but anyway, it's supposed to be like the new credit cards which identify a person by finger print. The point here being to avoid identity fraud--well the article suggested, using this measure for voter's cards, that way each person's vote would be tracked as well as the real identity of the voter. Of course this presents the issue of privacy because if we went that route each person would effectively have a National I.D. card which could also be misused. I think one answer would be creating actual receipts, one copy kept by the polling location and another by the voter, stating the voter's name and who they voted for.