so you think your vote will count?

[donsu]

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/nation/7636469.htm

Many states face mess at polls

Ten months before the next presidential vote, the federal commission created to help states avoid another Florida-style ballot fiasco still has no office or phone lines.

Millions of voters in cities such as Chicago and St. Louis will still have to guard against dangling chads - four years after punch-card ballots helped turn the 2000 election into a U.S. Supreme Court case.

Across the country, sweeping election reforms pledged in the wake of the Florida mess remain unfulfilled.

-snip-

As a result, most major reforms will not be ready by Nov. 2. Except for a few states such as Florida, Georgia and Maryland, voting in 2004 will look much like it did in 2000.

-snip-

Why? Money came too late from Washington.
-snip-
----------------------------------

pretend you are hearing me say the F word.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

You mean

Bush doesn't want the election system fixed? Shocked, Shocked!

[SlavesandBulldozers]

1. You mean

Bush doesn't want the election system fixed? Shocked, Shocked!

[camero]

2. I'm voting absentee this time

At least it may be looked at. The vote machines can be rigged.

[demnan]

3. No my vote in 2004 won't count

I live in a red state so my Presidential vote won't count.

The Virginia Democrats can't find anyone to vote for Senate so my non-vote won't count.

My local Congressman is a Democrat but a shoo-in as a Republican never wins in this area so my vote won't make much difference.

Does this bother me? Yes. The thing that hurts the most is they won't run anyone for the Senate seat. Will it keep me from voting. Hell no.

[Racenut20]

4. Vote State Congressman & Senator

[Terwilliger]

5. of course not...Democrats have done nothing since 2000 to ensure...

that people get their vote counted. They should have been all over election reform as they should be ALL OVER BBV RIGHT NOW!

They haven't done anything and they won't.

[NV1962]

6. Not true!

Here's a statement made by one of the candidates running for President:

We shouldn't have to wait for another Florida to fully fund election reform. Congress should get to work and put their money where their mouth is. And states need to buckle down now, and demand stiff penalties for election officials who turn away registered voters or purge them from the rolls.

As a candidate, I'm going to talk about this struggle every chance I get to make sure that in the 2004 election, we truly achieve one person one vote.

To do so, we're going to take the following three steps.

First, we're going to identify and bring attention to hot spots where there are recurrent voting problems, paying special attention to places where African-American and other minorities were illegally turned away from the polls on election day 2000.

Second, we're going to train campaign volunteers across the nation to work to ensure that voters are registered, can get to the polls, and are allowed to cast their votes.

Third, I want to put the Republican Party on notice: We're going to appoint a legal team to monitor the 2004 election carefully, and if anyone is intimidated, or turned away from the polls illegally, we will push to prosecute the perpetrators to the full extent of the law.

And I have heard several other candidates make similar, strongly committed public statements.

What happened in 2000 can be undone this year: by coming out strong, backing your candidate of choice, and after the primaries the nominee, and most of all, by ensuring that media -- local and national -- know that they are watched, too.

It is unconscionable that Greg Palast was left dangling practically alone, with scant reflection in media of his work on the elections in 2000. This year, we can demonstrate that the lessons are learned. And one of the lessons is: no more meekness and bleating along when the sheep are taken to the slaughterhouse.

[Terwilliger]

8. who said that?

and, while I appreciate the statements of presidential candidates THIS year, I would have appreciated it a lot more if they'd done something in 2000 and 2001.

[NV1962]

9. I don't want to identify the speaker to avoid "electoralism"

But you can read the full speech here.

[Terwilliger]

10. oh ok...well...

that's all well and good but I prefer actions over words

[RedEagle]

13. They're not funding election reform

HAVA is a funnel for money to contractors.

HAVA will be used to fund machines that cannot be audited. (Tough Screens)

Money will not solve this problem. Re-thinking the whole process and getting control from companies and vendors is necessary.

The voting machine industry is UNREGULATED.

The standards are lame.

STOP the funds and make Congress get off its duff and do a real investigation.

The biggest crime is misappropriating votes.

[Catherine Vincent]

7. Mine won't. I'm in Texas.

These people would vote in David Duke as long as there's an (R) behind his name.

[tom_paine]

11. No, my vote won't count

(I am still going to cast it in the beliefe that the more the Busheviks have to scrub honest votes, or implant dishonest votes, the harder it will be for them)

The funny thing is that for "states like Georgia, Florida and Maryland" (funny how they are all hotly contested battleground states), the new system is much more of a guarantee that votes will only be "partially counted".

That's 3 states that Bush can 100% count on "winning" in 2004.

Plus there are all the manual disenfranchisement (and ballot stuffing) methods the Busheviks have already tested and honed to a fine art such as Vacation Home Voting, Absentee Ballot Scams, and the all-important Give the Minority & Democratic Precincts The Most Error-Prone Machines.

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. No, I don't

because I'll be voting Dem by default, just in case Bu$h doesn't manage to steal the election. *annoyed*