10 Steps to Better Elections-Our electoral system in tatters (Sierra Club)

[Amaryllis]

Sierra Magazine
10 Steps to Better Elections
Our electoral system is in tatters. Here's what we can do to fix it.
by Steven Hill

THE U.S. ELECTORAL SYSTEM is our nation's crazy aunt in the attic. Every few years she pops out and creates a scene, and everyone swears that something must be done. But as soon as election day passes, we're happy to ignore her again — at least until the next time she frustrates the will of the people.

Under a fair, equitable, and democratic system of voting, Al Gore would have been elected president in 2000, and George W. Bush would still be whacking weeds in Crawford. In 2004, even though Bush won the popular vote by some 3 million ballots, the election was still tarnished. Florida replayed its 2000 debacle with attempts to purge African-American voters from the rolls, and voters who requested absentee ballots but never received them were barred from voting in person.

There were hundreds of complaints of voting irregularities in Ohio, with voters in some black precincts waiting in lines at polling places for seven hours because of voting-machine shortages. Some voters were required to show identification, even though the demand was illegal. Approximately 92,000 ballots failed to record a vote for president, most of them on the same type of discredited punch-card systems that malfunctioned in Florida in 2000. Ohio election officials may have improperly disqualified thousands of the 155,000 provisional ballots cast. Bush won the state — and thus the presidency — by 118,000 votes.

ALTHOUGH THE UNITED STATES PRIDES ITSELF AS A beacon of democracy to the rest of the world, for the second time in a row our presidential election appeared bumbling, if not outright fraudulent. Sergio Aguayo, an election observer and political scientist at the Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City, told BusinessWeek that the partisan way our election was run "looks an awful lot like the old Mexican PRI," referring to the notoriously corrupt ruling party that dominated Mexican politics for seven decades. President Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Center monitors elections around the world, said that in Florida, "some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing."

More:
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200505/tensteps.asp

[Wilms]

1. Good article, good points, great post. :) Thanks

[Melissa G]

2. Thanks for the post! n/t

[Carolab]

3. Oy. Again with the "paper TRAILS'.

I love the Sierra Club and am a member.

But, c'mon, get with it! Paper BALLOTS, my man, not TRAILS. With open source code and random audits of the tabulators or (best) manual counts.

Jeez. Why is it so HARD to understand?

[Amaryllis]

4. Write 'em and tell 'em. Just have to keep educating.

[Carolab]

8. Okay, I just did.

I sent a few links for Mr. Hill to read up on the difference as well.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Yes, this does need to be said: "Paper BALLOTS." It's an important...

...point, particularly as to legislative definitions (so they can't get around true auditing and recounts). But I do think that some people use "paper trail" as a sort of generic term to MEAN true auditing and recounts. To them, "paper trail" means PROOF, EVIDENCE, ACCOUNTABILITY--and I'm sure they would agree that it has to be solid proof, solid evidence, and good accountability. They don't mean a useless "paper trail" that can be cast aside.

We associate the phrase "paper trail" with criminal prosectution, say, of financial fraud. It MEANS accountability.

The corrective--to get people to say "paper BALLOTS" instead of "paper TRAIL"--is important to their understanding of what the law should say, but it IS kind of an awkward thing, language-wise. I've stumbled on it many times--trying to distinguish between an electronic voting system with a fully verifiable and legal paper backup with the paper taking precedence in any recount (a real ballot), and a strictly paper ballot system (the old-fashioned one, before punchcards and electronics).

Use of the phrase "paper trail" is often just a semantics problem. (They MEAN a REAL paper trail.) However, election crooks CAN use (and have used) this vague phrase to create crooked election law.

The problem itself is very simple. A paper BALLOT has legal weight. A paper RECEIPT usually does not. And it's very important, in electronic systems, that the electronics not be trusted when the electronic result and the paper result conflict.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Re: the Sierra Club

I've been a forest activist in the redwood region for many years, and I can tell you that the Sierra Club has been wish-washy, clueless and in some cases collusive with big timber. They are members of the Forest Stewardship Council--a private organization, increasingly dominated by timber interests, that has been "privatizing" the review of big timber management plans in California, in violation of the principles of the California Environmental Quality Act (which require public review and public participation), has "certified" practices such as clear-cutting, pesticide use, over-logging and harming and killing endangered species, and is using a very weak "certified wood" label process to help global financial interests invade unentered areas of the Amazon. (Note: The timber company pays for this "certification" and management info is kept secret and proprietary.)

There are aspects to these big, entrenched environmental groups--such as the Sierra Club and Greenpeace--that are not pretty, and need tough scrutiny by grass roots activists. Some of them (like the World Wildlife Fund) are a lost cause (wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Corporate Rulers). The Natural Resources Defense Council has people on their board of directors (big donors) who are clear-cutting redwood forests and using pesticides.

I would advise being very careful where you send your money. Give it to local groups where possible (they are generally the ones who know what's really going on). And if you give to a big group, try to specify a particular environmental campaign that you know something about. Otherwise, your money may end up supporting the clear-cutting of redwood forests or the looting of the last virgin areas of the Amazon.

(San Francisco alert: The Precious Woods timber company--a Swiss/German investment--is trying to get SF to weaken its ban on the use of tropical hardwoods, by exempting Forest Stewardship Council "certified" timber operations in the Amazon. These timber operations are bringing mechanized logging, and a new system of roads, into unentered areas of the Amazon, to extract virgin hardwoods. The excuse they are using, for seeking to weaken SF's ban on tropical hardwoods, is that the Port Authority does not want to use arsenic-laced pressed wood for pier pilings, and they are saying that the only alternative is virgin and other hardwoods (if you can believe that). And Greenpeace is supporting the timber company in its efforts to weaken this ban! They, too--like the Sierra Club--are members of this insidious "certification" group, the Forest Stewardship Council. Thus, outside financial interests--global timber interests--are pressuring the local Amazonian economy away from diversification, and toward more logging, and everyone is gaining access to virgin forests that they never had before. The protests of local groups and communities have been marginalized and smothered. They have no power against a big international group like Greenpeace, nor against European financial interests. SF-ers, please be on the alert, in the next few months, for an effort, at the city council level, to weaken the city's ban on tropical hardwood use, and tell your local representatives that you oppose it. This is not a time to be weakening environmental laws!)

[Carolab]

7. Interesting.

What do you know about the Wilderness Society?

[Amaryllis]

9. maybewhen they get big and entreched they are no longer grass roots and

fall prey to power plays like other large, entrenched orgs.