State SOSs worried EAC is crossing the line, eroding state control

[Amaryllis]

Can of worms here. Federal standards are one thing, but when we have a corrupt federal gov making the rules and chipping away at state control and responsibility, it gets scary. In my state,we have a great SOS. Blackwell was awful, but if the EAC, which is part of Bushco is making the rules, that won't be any better.

Election Officials Work on Making Changes
By ROBERT TANNER, AP National Writer

WASHINGTON - For the voters, the 2000 elections are long over and done with. For the top state officials responsible for making the voting run smoothly, the work has never stopped.

Deadlines are looming to make sure the election changes demanded after President Bush (news - web sites)'s disputed 2000 victory are in place by the Jan. 1, 2006, date ordered by Congress. But many states are not going to make it, many of the nation's secretaries of state warned Monday.

"I'm somewhat floundering," Wyoming Secretary of State Joe Meyer admitted to a Justice Department (news - web sites) lawyer overseeing state progress. "You might want to set up a form consent decree" to make it easier to take legal action against several states at once.

The goal is to have the changes ready for the November 2006 midterm elections, but a number of secretaries finishing four days of meetings in Washington think there are too many obstacles in their way. And they worry the federal government is undermining their authority with an assistance commission that is starting to act like a regulatory agency.

More:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=512&ncid=703&e=8&u=/ap/20050208/ap_on_go_co/election_worries

[Gman]

1. The SCOTUS abolished state sovereignty with Bush v. Gore

which, among other things, took away Florida's right to conduct it's own elections as Florida saw fit.

[Amaryllis]

2. Sigh. Is there any hope?

[Gman]

3. No, there is no hope as things exist right now

I've decided.

[Amaryllis]

4. Hope for change. Not as things exist right now.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Bush v. Gore was strictly limited by the Supreme Court to that one...

...election. They specifically said that it will not apply to any other cases. That was a one-time Bush-installation ruling. And they so disgraced themselves in that ruling--throughout the legal community--that they are not likely ever to cite it again.

As for the feds reducing state power over elections, I've no doubt they're working on it. I have feared this all along, with a weak, ill-informed, probably corrupt (some of them) Demoratic group in Congress, they, a) likely cannot prevent the BushCons from making things worse, even far worse; and/or, b) to look like they're doing something, they might go for some compromise or other that contains "poison pills" such as reducing state power (and thus reducing citizen options--say for return to paper ballots) or enhancing electronics with bribery or mandates.

We would be well NOT TO TRUST ANYTHING going on in Congress on this issue.

The BushCons know that this is a state by state battle (always a thousand steps ahead of us, it seems). That's why they are destroying Kevin Shelley (CA Sec of State, anti-Diebold).

To help out with that situation, go to:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x321070

...and stop whining. It's a big, diverse country, much, much harder to control and propagandize than Germany 1934. And we know enough from that scene to be strident and unrelenting in our efforts to restore our right to vote.

You are part of the greatest of all democracy movements--the movement to restore majority rule in the U.S. of A. We will be a better country in the end. We will know just how close we came to losing our democracy irretrievably, and we will never let it happen again.

[Gman]

7. Yes, the SCOTUS limited Bush v. Gore but...

they still did something absolutely unprecedented in American history going back to the spirit of the Articles of Confederation. That is, to remove the sovereignty of states by using the equal protection clause to rule over the sovereignty of states. (Of course the same argument could be, and is of course made, regarding discrimination. But that's why we have the equal protection clause.) And, the same disgusting use of "equal protection" has been successfully used in subsequent election related lawsuits without citing Bush v. Gore. So, in a de facto way, the equal protection clause now rules over any and all elections down to Dog Catcher. The sovereign right of a state to conduct elections as the state sees fit has been, in effect, abolished.

[Wilms]

5. kick n/t

Look for the openings.

[Bill Bored]

8. I say attack on all fronts!

Work to improve federal legislation.
Work at the state level.
And the federal standards should be only minimal!
If states want to do better they should be allowed to.
It's hard work but we shouldn't give up.