Secret vote counting and the lost art of democratic elections

[kpete]

Secret vote counting and the lost art of democratic elections

by Nancy Tobi

.......

We the People no longer guard and defend liberty. Without blinking an eye we have given away the single most important defense we have against tyranny: our public elections. In the course of our history, Americans have always understood the connection between liberty and the secure right to vote and to have that vote properly counted.

Until today.

In the past, Americans have risked life and limb to protect this foundation of liberty. Where is the voting rights movement of today?

The American right to vote has been systematically eroded through a maze of legal and illegal disenfranchisement strategies. In today's privatized computerized elections, eligible voters are routinely "purged" from state voter registration databases. Insufficient numbers of voting machines ensure that those who succeed in getting past the questionable registration software can't succeed in casting their vote. Government sponsored reports of "voter fraud" have released dishonest and exaggerated findings to facilitate passage of voter ID laws and other tactics targeting undesirable voters (the poor, the illiterate, the elderly, the immigrant).

The American right to fair and open elections has been systematically nullified by the privatization of our elections. When Americans do succeed in casting their vote, 90% of those votes are counted in secret by private corporations, many of which still use the same vote counting software that was developed by a convicted embezzler whose specialty was alteration of computer records.

Not only have We the People abdicated our constitutional sovereignty by giving away the mechanism of democracy - our elections - to private corporations with no patriotic allegiance, we have paid billions of dollars to do so.

..................

more at:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Secret-vote-counting-and-t-by-Nancy-Tobi-090522-671.html

[MarjorieG]

1. In NYS, we are trying to keep the levers and transparency. Optical scanners are also secret counts

and require we count all the paper ballots or enough of them. States are trying to determine just how many, though reluctant to count at all. Even creating law so they don't have to count. No wonder, because it's time-consuming and costly.

New York has a history and established law of no recounts, given the opportunity for fraud, yet we are about to lose our levers. Old, clunky, but the last best opportunity for a transparent election, with results known on election night.

[2 Much Tribulation]

2. PAYING billions to give away the crown jewels of democracy? What a concept. nt

[kpete]

3. peace, k

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Land Shark]

5. the peace of Ralph Waldo Emerson...

"Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television."

--From Commencement Speech by Peter Hawken, May 2009, Portland University

We may gaze up into that starry starry night,

or work in good directions until one sees stars,

or start from the proper and few guide-star principles, but,

in each case,

it is not always to the stars that we go?

"Hitch your wagon to a star." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself" (Ralph Waldo Emerson) but in the final analysis that's because we always have here and now all that we need, or if not, Emerson assures us it is assimilable via the stars.

I couldn't miss a change to plug the Hawken commencement address in its full text, it will help one to see the stars even on a smoggy day.

See Hawken's address, Hailed by Humanity.org as one of the best commencement speeches of the last 75 years, at http://www.up.edu/shownews.aspx?id=3784 (link to full text)

[2 Much Tribulation]

6. Worth repeating: The linked commencement address is a VERY good one.. nt

[kpete]

7. thanks for another guide-star

a starry night to you my friend, k

"Every human being is born with an intrinsic need for recognition from others,
and it is in and through this recognition that we become ourselves."

peter gabel

[Land Shark]

8. I'll try to pass on your thanks to the proper sources....

THanks for the thanks, but it's not really me that's due any thanks for any guide-star identified. I'm the messenger. So are you. Especially qualified since you're an artist.

Truest thanks are due to the original author, whether that be understood as something outside us (the muse, Spirit, the heavens) or some creative force that is fully within us and part of us, but which we've nearly all tended to either divorce or alienate ourselves from enough that it seems proper to give it a name or identity of its own, even though it is not only just part of human nature but known to be specifically coming from within one's own (say) heart. In my mind, "big props" go out to Emerson and Hawken, and they can, in turn, best know if or what they need to pass on thanks and gratitude for. Could be great- sort of a gratitude chain letter in a way... ;)

But thanks to me? no. Certainly not thanks to "Land Shark!" But then along comes your Peter Gabel quote to remind that perhaps if one owned up to the "stars within" so to speak and fully answered the call then an integration or re-integration would occur, making the above kind of "splitting" disappear through transcendent unity. Examples: splits like that between the creative and "regular" life, schizophrenic crackups, and spiritual/"reality" dualisms of all kinds. All would collapse, or expand, into unity like reunifying East and West Germany only on a more cosmic scale.

BARRING that re-integration, then perhaps, just perhaps, with exactly the proper wry tragicomic sense of irony and wonder and humor, one could amplify and point to the ultimate "separate" source of the message repeated by messenger (yours truly) as follows:

"The creative and divine forces are so strong that few imagine that when we die individually, that those forces also die. Therefore, when we die, the messenger becomes one with the message, being no longer in mortal form. THerefore, shooting the messenger is entirely justified, and even ethically desirable, IF the message is a really great creative/spiritual message!" :)

From a reggae posting board, an "Emersonian" note, in some Rasta language:

People get too involved in "you must believe this, you must believe that." Rastafari is all about Love, true One Love. Most of all, the truth, the answers to all of your questions, lie within you. Not some book. Find out what YOU believe, not look at what someone else has written, what their beliefs are, -- the truth lies within YOU. seen? / Love and affection in the right direction!

NOw isn't that an interesting topic on so many different levels: "Love and affection in the right direction?" When is any of us barking up the right tree? When we bark at none, at one, at two, at many, or at all???

This phrase is also the refrain in an early song by Michael Franti and Spearhead, actually the first track on their first album entitled "Home" and the track is entitled "People in the Middle". On one level it's about reaching the political middle as an artist, using good rhythm and vocal arrangements that come from deep down, and joining that with heartfelt politics that come from deep democracy as well. But as with any good song it works on multiple levels. Anyway, it seems fitting to close this reply of mine with a song, to the extent it arose in or was inspired by the stars, wherever those stars are thought to be found:

I am not a muslim but I read the final call
because within its pages there is something for us all
and I am not professional but I love basketball
the squeaking of the sneakers, they echo in the hall

But if I don't have enemies, I'm not doin' my job
I might throw out a curve ball - but I never throw a lob
people criticize me, but I know it's not the end
I try to kick the truth - not just to make friends.

(chorus)
(Love and affection in the right direction)

but hey diddle diddle to the people in the middle
we got hot wax and it cookin' on the griddle
Got the guitar strummin' the drummer drummin'
the people all hummin' and the vibe was lovin'
on and on and on - 'til the breakadawn!

I am not a jerk (although sometimes I act like one)
and I am deadly serious about us havin' fun
well, I go many places, but I know I'm not with you
and I am not a sucker -- even though I'm stuck on you.

each one- should teach one, and share with one another
so many is out there, - that's livin’ undercover:
your mother, your father, your sister, your brother,
your friends and their enemies all have their lovers… yeah.

(chorus)
(Love and affection in the right direction)

So tell me the definition of a sell-out
cast your first stone, - but then get the hell out
people say they know me I can tell you that they don't
people say they own me I can tell you that they won't.
the left and the right they all try to use me
but I'll be in their faces before they can abuse me
so roll down ya window, and listen what I'm sayin'
relax your mind and let the band keep playin'...

(Love and affection in the right direction)

on and on and on...

'til the breakadawn.

And, at the break of every dawn, rises the most spectacular star of all.

[kpete]

9. 'til the breakadawn,

stay well and blessed, k

[Land Shark]

10. yah ovastan mon, til Gates (& wit the wisdom of Solo-mon, so...) Hush den... Kyaan done nt

Abbreviated Rasta slang dictionary at
http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/rastafarian-reasoning/34526-dread-dictionary-rasta-words-expressions-slang.html

[pleah]

4. K&R