Koehler on Sancho & outsourcing our elections while they say "trust us"

[Amaryllis]

Trust us
Take this box and stuff it

By ROBERT C. KOEHLER
Tribune Media Services

March 16, 2006

Something fundamental about who we are as a nation is dribbling away, it seems, without alarm or even debate. We torture prisoners - it's out in the open, a done deal. We're fighting an unnecessary war that, well, yes, was launched on a lie, but too late now; we're in, we can't get out. And our neighbor's phone is being tapped.

But the worry that trumps all others is the state of this proud, imperfect democracy. We may be surrendering our power to change the national direction or demand that government be responsive to us. My fellow Americans, our voting machines don't work, at least not all the time. The mechanism of our democracy is in chaos, and almost everyone is going along with it.

Thanks to the allegedly well-intentioned, but disastrous, Help America Vote Act, the country is shifting, county by county, to electronic voting machines, which are not only glitch-prone on a spectacular scale (e.g., 100,000 phantom votes were recorded in Tarrant County, Texas, during the state's primary last week), but work, like God, in mysterious ways, which we're not supposed to question. The results they give us are all too often unverifiable.

And here's the clincher: The process isn't even public anymore.
"The question is, how can a state essentially outsource the most public act? They've outsourced voting to private companies and (the states) have no role to play."

More:

http://commonwonders.com/

[Amaryllis]

1. kick

[BeFree]

2. Koehler is a good guy

Unlike some, he has a grasp on what's going down.

Unlike most of the press, he is free.