Guest blogged by Fin
Brad just contacted me with this information from one of his sources inside the Judiciary Committee.
Among other things, their legislation will provide for a nationwide federal write in/absentee ballot; require states to provide for a voter verified ballot; insure that provisional ballots cast anywhere in a state are counted; eliminate disparities in the allocation of voting machines and poll workers; mandate early voting and election day registration procedures; and protect against improper purging of registration lists in federal elections.
“It is imperative that we have elections that count every vote of every eligible voter,” declared Dodd and Conyers. “A provisional ballot cast anywhere in the state of Ohio should count just as it does in the state of Iowa. There is no reason that voters in inner city areas should be forced to wait in lengthy lines, while their counterparts in the suburbs are able to vote immediately. If voters in Oregon can vote early, why can’t voters in Michigan, and if citizens in Idaho enjoy same day registration, why can’t voters in Florida?”
“Our elections are the very foundation of our democracy. We’ve made great strides in repairing cracks in that foundation, but clearly we still need to do more to strengthen and reinforce each American’s right to vote and have that vote counted,” said Dodd. “This measure can hopefully act as the democratic mortar to anchor one of our nation’s most precious rights and ensure that all voters are treated equally on election day.”
Conyers stated “Our nation has just endured the second consecutive presidential election which came down to a single state, and that state – Ohio – was riddled with irregularities and the appearance of partisan manipulation. If there is any issue that is central to our democracy, it is insuring that eligible voters are freely able to participate in our elections. I intend to do everything I can to insure that this issue does not go away until we have a set of uniform and non-discriminatory rules that respects all of our citizens’ right to vote.”
In 2001, in the wake of the myriad problems that surfaced in Florida and around the nation in the presidential election, Sen. Dodd and Rep. Conyers jointly introduced election reform legislation that ultimately passed into law as the Help America Vote Act.
Anyone else have concerns about the federal constitutional problems here?
For instance, the vote for president is not the same as the vote for senators and representatives.
State law governs the vote for president, in terms of the electoral college.
Only state legislators have the plenary right to vote for president. Citizens of the united states have ZERO right to vote for president under the federal constitution.
These two dynamics must be distinguished or this law is DOA.
Anyone know where the text is?
🙁 :O 🙂 😀 😛 😉 :confused: :blush: :angry: 😎 :crazy: 😥 :doze: :hehe: :laugh: :plain: :rolleyes: :satisfied:I hate the war i iraq it is getting on my nervies alot.This why we have so many people dieing from the u.s.
May we never lose sight of this as THE ISSUE that must be dealt with first. Without it our cherished democracy will never have a chance against the wrongdoers’ demockracy. Thank goodness for Conyers and Dodd, two of our diminished supply of heroes!
Dredd #1: The answer lies in the US Constitution, but the fly in the ointment is that it depends on which incarnation of The Supremes is interpreting it at the time…
This sounds better than HAVA, but not a whole lot better. It will make it marginally harder to commit fraud, but a Karl Rove or a Kenneth Blackwell will still find a way unless they’re threatened with jail.
The bill must provide penalites severe enough to deter fraudulent conduct, i.e. mandatory prison terms, and pay for special prosecutors whenever necessary. It must bar secretaries of state from engaging in partisan political activity. It must set a uniform standard for determing the eligibility of convicted felons to vote once they’ve served time. It must make the source code inside electronic voting machines available to investigators during any election dispute or recount.
czaragorn #4
Point taken. A look at Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence is a good example.
However I think that a well written federal constitutional amendment giving the american citizen the right to vote for president would hold.
It is just too sensitive for them to screw with, plus it is in essence non partisan.
The only thing that might give them all pause is the utter and complete shock the american red state citizen would have when s/he heard s/he has no such right.
The budweiser would spray all over the place from squeezing the can so hard.
What’s wrong with having the FIRST Recall Petition for a President? I’m sure people will sign it! You’d probably get knocked over by the stampede of volunteers to do it.
Rik –
I REALLY like this idea. 😀
Yeah, there’s something concrete you can hang your hat on!
Washington Year 2025 "Rep.Conyers and Senator Dodd anounced today, that they will be working together in seeking changes in our nations election system. Dodd introduced S 9000000, the Stop killing Dems Voting, or "SKDV ACT"…
That’s all well and good if they can get it by the Republicans, but even that will not help if there are no paper print-outs on the voting machines and no inspections of the secret software. Dems will never win another election when Repubs have control of the machines.
I do not believe there is any law or any way that we will have fair elections as long as the voter registrations, voter lists, and vote tabulations are conducted by machines. They are manipulable on so many levels, and their codes and manner of operation are privately owned. We are at their mercy. Only "hands-on voting" is credible.
Can anyone out there confirm whether it is true that the Germans always vote by paper ballot and count by hand because we REQUIRED it of them by law as being the ONLY WAY to assure free and fair elections? I would love to know if that was sealed in cement for Germany by the good old U.S.A. after the war.
I believe it is absolutely true that the safest and most verifiable method of voting is by paper ballots, handcounted. I have served as an election judge for 3 elections, the first of which involved handcounting, and the last 2 were by machine. Although I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the machine count, I can say without reservation that the handcounting worked just fine! You simply have to have manageably-sized precincts, where the votes are handcounted. (Too large precincts could make it a bit unwieldy). The results are posted publicly and if the totals as reported at the state level do not add up correctly, it can be challenged and traced to the point of discrepancy. Any voter with a good head for adding, or a good calculator can ride herd on them!
Many of the points in the Conyers bill are good, I just don’t think we should continue to trust these machines and the corporations that control them. How could we let ourselves be that stupid!
Machines can only do what they are told. Only people tell them to do bad things.
The problem is with dishonest individuals, because there are no "dishonest machines".
Same with paper. The only way a lie can get on a piece of paper is if an individual causes it.
We use machines to drive, draw out money, put money in to the bank, print money, fly airplanes, and a thousand other things.
The issue is having machines that are not easily used to do bad things like voter fraud.
We have not even attempted to make voting machines competent. When we do they will perform honestly as told to.
All the security is to keep people honest … not the machines.
The machine I am using to write this and the machine you are using to read it cannot be blamed if you or I place incorrect information in it.
Humanity is the focus of voter fraud like it is with bank robberies and ATM robberies.
I’m with CD and Dredd. No open source code? No paper trail? What have we been fighting for? Unless those things were implied under "Technology Enhancement". Until the voting machine process is transparent from A-Z, I say paper ballots too.
Slot machine companies make machines that can count every nickel in every machine without a problem. It’s not that voting machine companies can’t make accurate voting machines, it’s just that they won’t.
I apologize for hijacking the thread with an OT, but in the *this just in* category is this horrifying article. Make sure the righties hear about this, but I don’t knwo if anyone should stick around to argue them. Just post it and trust that amongst them are some people who will read this and suddenly have things snap into focus.
Remember this: they can only fling poop if we get up close to their cage. Don’t debate them. Just do a *fact drop* and bail and let them argue it out amongst themselves. And they will – remember, their ranks include the very religious. Let the true freaks "out" themselves by defending or justifying it – by their own words will they hang themselves in front of the moderates.
Remember that history is full of tales where the worst haters become converts – remember Paul on the road to Damascus.
Ready? read this!
I’ve heard of three bills today being introduced, but sadly none of them deal with the reasons we have fraud. I’ll wait for pen & paper ballot, hand counted in public. Machines in any part of the voting or counting of ballots must be excluded. My 2 cents anyway…
Sounds to me like those women had the "hots" for some of those good-looking Arab men. Guess they got rejected for the sluts and cows they are. It’s plain old "have some sexual fun and who cares if it’s abuse". Who’s hearts and minds is America trying to win? Oh, nobody’s. I forgot. This is DUMYA’S America now, and the new motto is we will F..K anyone who gets in our way (literally and figuratively, it seems). Why? Because we want to … because we can … that’s why.
Guess my blog #17 sounds rather ODD! It’s in response to #15 Jimmo Needs A Hug and "read this".
On the REAL (SEXY) TOPIC of voting reform, please everyone send your concerns about what’s missing from, or problems with, the proposed reforms to Congressman Conyers and Sen. Dodd. You are all so very articulate, and it’s important to voice your concerns and help get the voting reform done RIGHT!
Right on, Peggy … um … especially for #19!!!
(thank you whoever tidied that link for me, and apologies again… I was just so horror struck when I saw it that I went OT so as to post it *somewhere*)
re #21: [nod]
re #22: Wookie, you’re British, no? Correct me if I’m wrong…
Britain has a parliamentary system, like Canada and Australia. In an election, there’s only one question on the ballot.. In such a system, voters elect their Member of Parliament and he [or she] votes on their behalf on everything else, including Prime Minister. They don’t vote for their MPs and PM separately, let alone filling two houses of legislators. They just check one box and they’ve voted. It’s easy to count those ballots by hand.
In most American elections, there are dozens of races on the ballot, for many reasons. There are many more offices to be filled, [because so many of the positions that would would be called ‘civil service’ in Britain or Canada are ‘elected offices’ in USA]. There can be many other questions on the ballot, as well [such as the proposition that the state government should ban gay marriage, which was on the ballot in many states, this time]. And Americans vote for State and Federal offices in the same election, and often for County and/or Municipal offices as well.
So counting the American ballots is more difficult than counting the ballots you are accustomed to seeing. I’m not saying machines are necessary to count the ballots in USA, just trying to explain why vote-counting machines are attractive to more Americans than you might otherwise expect.
Having said that, I tend to agree with what you said there, and I wouldn’t even care if the counting took a week or two. We heard many times that votes shouldn’t be recounted in Ohio, for example, because of the cost. But what is the cost of putting the wrong people in office? [And why do we never hear that question?]
Patriot dude:
Yep, I do indeed hail from the "sceptred Isle" (if you believe all that nationalistic bullshit).
When we vote, we have the national and local elections at the same time, but yes our ballot papers are probably simpler than yours are even so.
In our system, we vote for our Member of parliament and the party with the most MP forms the government with the leader of that party becoming Prime Minister.
Our upper house is the House of Lords and comprises of (fewer and fewer) herediatry peers, Life peers appointed by governements, Law lords and some Bishops (the Church of England isn’t as seperated from the state as some would like, but their power is mostly historical now though). We don’t elect officials into the upper house, although the Lords are being phased out to be replaced with an elected upper house, but no-one seems to know how that will progress.
As you say, when the choice is between fast elections and credible elections, why does the question even get raised? Without a CLEAR AND DECISIVE mandate, the elected have no right to govern IMO.
You are doing a kickin’ job in Brad’s absence BTW.
#15 That is disgusting! I truly believe that women can be even more cruel and heartless than men if they choose. Not a religious war? Bah!!
Winter #23-you’re close. In Canada anyway that is what we do. However the MP’s (Members of Parliament) don’t vote for PM. The leader of the party automatically becomes PM.
We also hold 3 levels of elections all at different times; federal, provincial and civic (municipal). (Which is good for me since that’s what I do for work and it means I am working nearly constantly being as we have 10 provinces and 2 territories. As an added bonus I get to criss-cross the country and see places that I otherwise never would have seen.)
I recognize that you have many more choices on your ballots but it could still be done with paper and pencil if your elections people simply cut down the size of the precincts and handed out multiple ballots to be distributed in several vote boxes. A little more expensive maybe, but still cheaper than all this *electronic* stuff, both in terms of actual cost AND peace of mind.
I’m with DaWookie #24. You’re doing a KICKASS job!
Rik — fully support the Presidential Recall you suggest and also agree that should such a Recall be announced we’d see way more than 60 million of our fellow citizens ready to sign.
Great day to target for the launch of the Recall would be 19 March 2005!! — lots of folk planning on gathering that day to let the shrubber and his neocon, theocratic brigade know how much they are NOT appreciated.
Peace.
BE THE BUSH OPPOSITION; 24/7
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/01467.htm
I reiterate what I said here.
OK. That "jerk" from #23 could be….probably is…..absolutely right! I hate when that happens.
in #23, some jerk said that in Britain and Canada,
"voters elect their Member of Parliament and he [or she] votes on their behalf on everything else, including Prime Minister."
then in #24, DaWookie, from Britain, wrote:
"In our system, we vote for our Member of parliament and the party with the most MP forms the government with the leader of that party becoming Prime Minister."
and then in #26, Cheryl wrote:
"In Canada anyway that is what we do. However the MP’s (Members of Parliament) don’t vote for PM. The leader of the party automatically becomes PM"
and now that same jerk comes along feeling picky and says:
I believe the Members of Parliament DO vote for the Prime Minister. And they do it every time a piece of legislation comes up for a vote. Other than the rare "Private Member’s Bill" [a bill that the government doesn’t care about and which can pass or fail on its own merits or demerits] and the even rarer "Open Vote" [where the MPs are allowed to vote for their conscience and/or their constituents], if a bill fails to pass in parliament, it’s a vote of no confidence and the government falls and in most cases this leads to another election.
Correct me if I’m wrong. It seems to me something like this happened in Canada not all that long ago. and Joe Clark became "Joe Who".
Isn’t that right? Oh what a true American Patriot wouldn’t give for a Parliamentary system of government right about now!!
Comment #29 contains an error. Did you spot it? We got Brits and Canadians reading this and I bet they did. They probably didn’t want to get all picky and pin me on it but I made a mistake when I said:
I said "Open Vote" because I couldn’t think of the proper name of it. It’s "Free Vote", isn’t it?
What a jerk! 😉
Yeah, that jerk from #23(where in the heck did he appear from?), has got me thinking.
A free vote?…the government falls… another election.
This has got my mouth watering and my stomach rumbling for a democracy again.
Winter,
After the chastisement (?) I received from you in #29 I didn’t dare comment again. 😉