Throw Diebold and all election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

[Peace Patriot]

Really, friends, the time is NOW. We may have only a narrow window of opportunity to restore transparent, verifiable elections. Although the election reform movement has grown by leaps and bounds--with new groups formed, many articles, books and web sites, many scientific reports, many lawsuits, and impassioned activists--there is nothing on the horizon to prevent Stolen Election III this November. The worst may well happen--a complete and impossible turnaround for Bush and his Junta in the fall elections. The war profiteering corporate news monopolies appear to be setting up the post-election narrative of that miraculous comeback "victory," even as I write this. And our Corporate Rulers are now fully capable of dictating the "results" of our elections, with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code in all the new electronic voting machines and central tabulators, owned and controlled--incredibly!--by Bush-Cheney partisans (Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia). I won't go into how this happened (--or, the most puzzling part of it, the MIND-BOGGLING SILENCE of our Democratic Party leadership). Some people know about it; some don't. Trust me. We have completely lost transparency and verifiability in the tabulation of our votes. The November elections are wide open to fraud, and the people in power have every reason to commit it.

The best that could happen is modest gains for a mix of real and corporate/war Democrats--and no majority in either house of Congress (let alone an anti-war or strong anti-Bush majority). And this, despite something like 65% to 70% opposition to the Bush Junta among the American people--major disapproval that has been persistent for over two years, following upon majority disapproval that goes way back to before the Iraq war, Feb. 2003: 56% of the American people opposed to the war on Iraq. To May 2004, six months before that election: 63% opposed to torture "under any circumstances" ("under any circumstances"! 63%!). To issue and approval polls throughout that period, and moreso today, showing stunning opposition to every Bush policy, foreign and domestic.

Huge disaster in Iraq. Huge Bush-caused disaster in the Gulf Coast. Huge deficit, due to the huge disaster in Iraq and multiple tax cuts for the super-rich ($10 TRILLION!--with 90% of the American people concerned or gravely concerned about the deficit). Lies. Deceit. Mass murder. Treason. Torture. Ripping up the Constitution. Plans to loot Social Security. Assaults on women's rights. And yet both Bush and Cheney can confidently predict a "win" in November.

Well, they have reason for confidence. Their buds at Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia will be "counting" all the votes behind a veil of corporate secrecy--with many election officials around the country in their pocket (lavishly lobbied, or heady with the power of secret vote counting), and a new "culture of secrecy" now pervading our election system, such that "voters" are viewed as "the enemy"--and with our Party leadership at best--at best!--now proposing MINOR "fixes" of this outrageously fraudulent election SYSTEM some time in the future!

WHAT CAN WE DO?

THE ABSENTEE BALLOT PROTEST

Absentee Ballots are not "safe" either--and will not insure accurate vote counts this fall. But, if enough people vote by Absentee Ballot (--and many are--it's up to 50% in Los Angeles)--if everybody who loathes the Bush regime votes by Absentee Ballot--we CAN put sufficient pressure on LOCAL/STATE election officials to FORCE them to reform this election system NOW, before the '08 primaries and general election.

They are NOT going to give us back our right to vote voluntarily. We must DEMAND it.

FLOOD election officials with MOUNTAINS of paper AB votes this fall. BOYCOTT the machines! DON'T vote on them! Let these fancy new election theft machines sit idle! Show these election officials up for the corrupt fools they are. FORCE the reform!

Reform IS STILL POSSIBLE at the local/state level--where the decisions about voting systems are still made, and where ordinary people still have some influence. Nothing in the law requires electronic voting. It was all done by means of billions of dollars in boondoggle funding from the Anthrax Congress, lavish lobbying, bribery, bullying and enticement. Election officials can abandon these extremely insecure and insider hackable machines tomorrow, and switch back to paper ballots hand-counted at the precinct level (the best method--the old-fashioned one) or other reliable systems (the tried and true old lever machines in New York, for instance). There is NO NEED to keep these nefarious electronic machines--none!--other than the financial embarrassment of the stupid fools and corrupt no-goods who purchased them with our money!

We need a MASSIVE citizen "vote of no confidence" in this election system. An Absentee Ballot protest is the only way to do it quickly and peacefully. It's easy. Everybody can do it. Almost every state has some form of AB voting. An AB voting protest has many potential benefits (among them, increased scrutiny of how AB votes are handled), and no downside. It will HELP turnout (which can possibly overwhelm the machine advantage to Bushites, warmongers and corporatists, in some cases). It's a great motivator for the disillusioned non-voter--participating in a protest aimed at UN-rigging the system. With the clout of a massive AB voting protest behind them, election reformers will not only be able to demand transparent, verifiable elections, but will be able to tackle all the OTHER ways that votes are being suppressed or stolen (purges of black voters, etc.).

Non-transparent elections are NOT elections. They are tyranny. That's what threatens us--being unable to influence the government, no matter what we do; loss of our sovereignty as a people.

We must change this. We MUST! And we don't have much time. One more stolen election that goes by without a major revolt by the citizenry and demand for reform, and that may be it for our democracy.

The United States is not an easy country to rule over and oppress, and therefore insidious means are being used to bring about this fascist coup. Chiefly: 1) Control of all "news" and opinion by five billionaire CEOs (with the exception of the Internet--but they're working on that, too). 2) Control of election results by three main corporations--one of them (Diebold) until recently headed by a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser, another (ES&S), a spinoff of the first, funded by a rightwng billionaire and religious extremist ((whose one million dollar-funded Chalcedon Foundation touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things), and a third (Sequoia) which employs the Republicans who brought this election theft machinery to California (former Sec of State Bill Jones and his chief aide, Alfie Charles) to peddle their machines (in the highly corrupt "revolving door" employment).

We can all think of OTHER ways that this progressive country is being fooled into believing that it is actually a rightwing country. These are the main methods of it. And we can do nothing about the corporate news monopolies--or anything else--until we restore transparent vote counting.

Transparent elections are Priority No. 1, if this democracy is to survive and recover from what these fascists and criminals have already done to it.

The goal of the November elections--in addition to trying to elect decent representatives in these circumstances--must be to UN-RIG THIS SYSTEM.

People are planning a lot of things--intense monitoring of the elections, better organization, quick statistical analysis, challenges of suspicious results, and so on, all to the good--but no one has a plan for American voters to register their profound distrust of this election system, and their profound discontent with the leaders and the policies that it has produced.

The Absentee Ballot Voting protest IS that plan. It is a maximum participation protest. It is a way for Americans--whose voices are stifled, and whose votes are being stolen--to SPEAK OUT ABOUT IT. It has grown from an individual, grass roots protest--individual voters trying to figure out how to get their voted counted--into a major movement. We here at DU, and others on the Internet, have the power to magnifiy this protest, multiply its numbers, focus it, and give it the boost needed for profoundly impacting election officials and FORCING change.

Bust the Machines--Vote by Absentee Ballot this November! Spread the word!

[hughee99]

1. What's Boston Harbor ever done to deserve this? n/t

[Peace Patriot]

2. Well, you could throw 'em into the nearest Lousiana levee, I suppose!

And, anyway, if it was good enough for King George's tea, it's good enough for King George's electronic voting machines!

[Peace Patriot]

3. And please note: I always put inverted commas around 'Boston Harbor'.

I don't support anyone harming these diabolical machines--OR any body of water. Quite the contrary! DON'T TOUCH THESE MACHINES! DON'T VOTE ON THEM! Let them gather dust, to the embarrassment of their foolish and/or corrupt purchasers. BOYCOTT THEM! May they rust in Hell! VOTE ON PAPER wherever possible, and don't trust the Optiscans either (you vote on a paper ballot; it gets dumped into a box and never seen again; and they go on with their secret electronic games.)

'Boston Harbor' is a metaphor for 'real pissed off.' So pissed off that you won't even drink their goddamned tea. So pissed off that you'd like to pour their goddamned koolaid all over their crocus garden.

[stellanoir]

4. I've thought of that concept many times before as well.

Though I understand the metaphor there are some literalists out there. Not that I have a problem with that.

The thing is you'd have to use some sort biodegradable non toxic mock voting machines or we'd inevitably experience the very FIRST EPA enforcement in nearly 6 years, of a toxic pollution dumping violation, subsequent resulting charges, and a draconian clamp down.

As evidenced by minimal coverage or accuracy in reporting of massive protests and repeatedly overt election fraud in recent years, and in consideration of this celebrity obsessed culture, you'd only get media attention with some really high profile heavy hitters taking part.

If memory serves, the anniversary of the original Boston Tea Party is in mid December and semi synchronous with the anniversary of the SCOTUS selection of * in '00 after our first OTT rigged election.

When there is more overtly verifiable info regarding the insecurity of our voting mechanisms from the mid-terms (not that I don't think that hasn't been previously well established and there isn't boatloads of statistical evidence already), it might be well passed time to do something along those lines by then. If not before.

If neither house of Congress is brought under Dem control in November as Darth Cheney gloomily and self servingly predicts, in this current climate, hopefully it'll become more obvious to the seemingly slumbering masses that our democracy has been lost and we no longer have anything that vaguely resembles a representative legislature.

K & R'd

[Efilroft Sul]

5. Bust the machines, literally.

Find out where the machines are stored, then break into those locations a few days before the elections and smash them to bits. Can't break in? Burn the building. That's how you send a message to King George and Prime Minister Diebold.

Sure, my response is hardball. But if the spirit of Boston Harbor is going to be summoned, then it requires the same type of risks and actions taken by the Sons of Liberty.

[TankLV]

6. My thoughts exactly for some time now.

DESTROY the machines - literally...

Too bad if this action is "against the rules" for this website - I say it's LONG overdue.

I'm too much of a coward to personally do it, tho...