Electronic Voting Machines

Letter to the editor, Doylestown Intelligencer

The democratic process is under assault from all directions. Our candidates are increasingly not elected, but rather "selected." Ballot access becomes ever more restricted to the two major parties, which themselves present the voter with candidates who are hand-picked by leadership committees. Barriers to ballot access for independents and minor parties are built ever-higher.

Electronic machines now threaten even the integrity of this "selection" process. Such systems are extremely vulnerable to tampering, and are acceptable (in any system that is even nominally a democracy) only for the handicapped-- and only with duplicate paper receipts. Our local "Coalition for Voting Integrity" has done a comprehensive study of this issue, and is actively challenging the County's rush to change voting systems.

How many taxpayers are aware of the real cost of these machines? Touch screen systems will cost tens of thousands of dollars per precinct, and they last for only an average of five years. But the sticker price may not be the greatest expense. How many taxpayers are aware that these machines must be kept in climate controlled storage? They have to be heated in the winter and cooled and dehumidified in the summer. This luxury given to machines is not affordable to many of the citizens who have to pay for them.

With the coming winter featuring heating costs that have increased 50 to 100 per cent, many local citizens will be wondering why they have to live in the cold while our selected officials are using our tax money to give themselves pay raises, and purchase expensive, corruptible machines that must be housed in comfy climates.

The people of New Orleans are not the only Americans whose well-being is ignored by government.

Greens Elect Bush . . . Again!

That's right, no joke the Green Party elected George Bush again in 2004.

Of course it is not true that Ralph Nader, Green Party candidate, helped Bush become president in 2000. Nader got 3 million votes, many of them drawn from Republicans and independents who wouldn’t have even voted, while 6 million registered Democrats voted for George Bush. Nevertheless, “Nader helped elect Bush” has become part of Democratic credo, and may even be included someday in shoddy high school history texts.

So let’s assume for a moment it is true that Nader was the deciding factor in Bush’s victory in 2000. Democrats, even those who have looked most desperately for excuses for Kerry’s sound defeat in 2004, are unaware that Bush’s victory a year ago was also the fault of the Green Party.

No, it wasn’t the 120,000 votes the Greens pulled nationally for David Cobb, the Green who didn’t want people to vote for him. No, the Democrats and Greens themselves, destroyed the Green Party at the polls in November, reducing their vote from the previous election by 96%!

How, then, did John Kerry fail to unseat George Bush, probably the most incompetent-- and now the most unpopular-- president in American history? How did the Democrats, after co-opting the Greens and spending many millions of dollars to keep Nader off the ballot in several states still manage to lose the election? Most Democratic strategists point the longest finger of blame for their failure at the gay marriage issue.

In February 2004, photos of gay and lesbian couples in front of the San Francisco city hall were front page in newspapers across the country. This catalyzed conservative religious folk— many of whom would not have otherwise voted at all, to come out to vote for George Bush. Eleven states also drew voters by adding a “preservation of marriage” amendment to their ballots.

The poster boy for this fiasco was San Francisco Democratic mayor, Gavin Newsom.

But why did Newsom make such a reckless move in an election year, even after being warned against it by openly gay representative Barney Frank, and other high profile Democrats?

In December of 2003, Newsom was elected mayor in a closely contested run-off election against Green city councilor, Matt Gonzalez. Newsom won the run-off by 53 to 47 per cent. This was the best showing ever for Greens in a major city election. The Democrats had been so afraid of the embarrassment of losing to a Green in a major city that they brought in Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and other party big wigs to campaign for Newsom in the final days of the election. They also outspent the Greens ten to one.

Two months later: gay weddings on the steps of city hall. Was this the result of an off the record campaign promise to leaders of San Francisco’s powerful the gay community; the felt need to solidify support in the gay community after a close election; or the euphoria of dodging an electoral bullet? Gavin ain’t talkin’, so we can only guess, but it’s no stretch to conclude that Bush’s victory was the fault of the Green Party . . . again!

This is not a democracy

Any system that does not encourage dissent in not a Democracy.