One year later: what progress have we made on election reform?

[Fly by night]

On Saturday, I have been asked to give a 30 minute presentation on the national picture regarding election reform as part of a full day conference on election security being held at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing (10:00 am-4:00 pm; y'all come). That is a pretty daunting task and I could easily get bogged down in the details. So I wanted to start this thread to ask DUers to help me with the larger themes with which to describe this latest wave of voting rights activism that may save our democracy yet. So please be as general or as specific as you want to be.

If possible, please list and describe both successes and continued challenges to achieving meaningful election reform and election justice. To kick this discussion off, here are my thoughts in bullet form. Please give me your feedback, kick and nominate. I would like to hear from the larger DU community and not just us diehards here in the Election Reform foxhole. Thanks kindly.

Successes:

-- We've awakened small "d" democrats in most states to the threats to our democracy and have stimulated many successful (or promising) legislative campaigns for VVPB, MRMA, etc. (Feel free to list the successes in your state.)

-- We have utilized the internet very successfully to both keep this issue on the front burner and to share relevant information, strategies and tactics among ourselves. This includes both oft-visited blog sites and listservs for voting rights activists.

-- We have identified our "heros" -- Conyers, Boxer, Holt, Fitrakis, Koehler, Friedman, Eaton, Curtis and many others -- and have rallied to increase their visibility and support their efforts.

-- We have not "moved on" and as a result, we have helped increase the proportion of Americans who believe that our elections are not now trustworthy and must be fixed.

-- We have exposed wrongdoing by many election officials and have identified honorable ones who deserve our support.

-- We have stimulated dialogue between voting rights activists and election officials and have begun to build some common ground (or better define the battlefield).

-- We have "outed" evil-doers like R. Doug Lewis, Wally O'Dell and Tom Feeney and have them looking over their shoulders.

-- We have linked our efforts with those that have come before and those that stand with us now (NAACP, Common Cause).

-- We have stimulated promising election protection lawsuits in Washington, California and Tennessee.

-- We have come to understand and support the needs of disabled voters and have succeeded in getting many of them to expand their concerns beyond accessibility to include accountability.

-- We have stimulated the Baker-Carter Commission and the GAO reports. And despite their flaws, we have used them to illustrate the nonpartisan nature of our concerns.

-- We have come together at election reform/election justice conferences in Tennessee, Ohio, California, DC, Oregon, and (soon in) New Mexico and Florida to allow us to put faces with names (and nicknames), to share important information and to strengthen our resolve.

-- We have helped accelerate (though still too slowly and too sparsely) the coverage of the stolen election in the corporate media. (Thanks again to Koehler, Mitteldorf, Miller, Hitchens, Olbermann, et al.)

I could go on but I'd like to hear from you guys.


Continued challenges:

-- Enacting state-level and national election reform legislation is still a tough battle.

-- Corruption still abounds, in and out of our legislatures and election commissions.

-- Money still talks and corruption still walks among us like the living dead.

-- Some of us remain hung up on debating old evidence (e.g., how many exit pollers can fit on the head of a pin) instead of preventing the accumulation of new evidence in future stolen elections.

-- Too many of our national leaders (e.g., Howard Dean) and progressive organizations (MoveOn) refuse to accept the obvious and keep spewing the kool-aid that we lost the last election. MOVEON AND HOWIE, WE WAS ROBBED. Get with the voting rights program, won't you?

-- The Rethugligan Congress still blocks any meaningful debate and a vote on HR 550 and similar bills.

-- The unelected Smirking Chimp and his organ-puller, Karl Rove, are still in the White House.

-- Too many Americans still believe that "it" (stolen elections) can't happen here. (Just like too many parishioners refused to believe that a few kindly parish priests were predatory pedophiles.)

Well, that's enough from me. At this vantage point -- one year after a seriously stolen election -- how do you view our successes and our continued challenges? Looking forward to hearing from all of you voting rights activists out there. Peace out.

[tatertop]

1. This is the number one issue facing us

[Fly by night]

6. One kick for the evening crowd

[Land Shark]

2. Some lessons learned

1. We've learned that tiny interstices in statutes or administrative systems are readily exploited and/or create problems, so we've adjusted by watching carefully for whether a system has a paper "trail" or a paper "ballot", and that ambiguities in election statutes are legion.

2. We've learned that in the big debate about "paper ballots" vs computers in elections, it is not so much the question of paper vs. plastic computers, but the relative checks and balances that are present in each system. And that even a paper ballot system can have bad administrative checks and balances, corrupting even the paper system, while computer systems make checks and balances impossible in many instances.

3. We've learned that corporate trade secrets claimed in vote counting software are legally considered pieces of property.

4. Because trade secrets are corporate private property claims, we've learned that at the heart of democracy are elections, and at the heart of elections is the counting of the vote, and at the very heart of the counting of America's votes we find a sign that says "Private Corporate Property, DO NOT ENTER!"

5. "The ballots didn't make the outcome" Tweed admitted, "the counters did." "Boss: You have the Liberty of Voting for Anyone you please, but We have the Liberty of Counting In any One we Please." Quotes from: Deliver the Vote, A History of Election Fraud, an American Political Tradition, 1742-2004, by Tracy Campbell.

[Fly by night]

3. All excellent points. Keep 'em coming.

Any news on the status of your lawsuit out on the Left Coast? Did I leave out any states where similar lawsuits are being pursued?

[Land Shark]

4. other lawsuits would include the states of

New Mexico, Ohio, Maryland (preceded 11/04 and still going), and California. There certainly are probably others.

[Fly by night]

5. Thanks.The OH and NM suits involve 2004 election fraud, don't they?

I'm wondering whether other states are pursuing the illegality (or unconstitutionality) of paperless electronic voting per se.

[tatertop]

7. yep