Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer and Brad Friedman
The question (video below) in the CNN/YouTube seems to be about “standardizing” voting systems around the country. The only one given the opportunity to answer it is New Mexico’s Governor Bill Richardson, who should have hit this out of the park since he signed a bill to outlaw the use of DRE touch-screen systems after disaster in NM in the 2004 election.
Though his answer uses the phrase “touch stones” (we’ll chalk it up to nervousness, we guess) and he goes on to use the phrase “verifiable paper trail” (instead of paper ballot), he’s clearly speaking about actual ballots since he calls for those “verifiable paper trails” with “optical scanners.”
Richardson is theoretically trying to break out from the pack. He ought to be able to use his status as the only candidate to have actually outlawed dangerous, disenfranchising DRE touch-screens to distinguish himself from the others. It might help, however, if he got his words right. But at least someone spoke to democracy, finally, in the midst of this absurd Presidential Election campaign.
Anybody else in the pack care to speak up and stand up in favor of democracy? Anyone? Bueller? We’re waiting.
The video of the question and answer, appx 1 minute, follows in full…
A good friend in NM feels as I do — we can still not get over how Richardson would not allow a recount in NM after the 2004 election.
She’s a lifelong native of that state and says that Richardson is part of the ultimate insider good old boy network that has corrupted politics and business there for years.
She has long thought that Richardson knew he would run in 2008, and his decision to ban the recount had everything to do with not wanting a Kerry win.
I don’t live there but I do know how heart-wrenching it was when he stopped the recount.
It’s very interesting (curious?) that after all hope of getting to the bottom of the 2004 results were done and gone, he suddenly became a great advocate for fair and transparent elections.
Well, like JE suddenly seeing the light on Iraq, after giving Jr. a blank check to do what he wanted, I guess better late than never.
It would just be really really nice to have someone who is actually a leader trying to become our next President. The current crop of candidates (excepting Kucinich and Gravel) strike me as opportunistic professional politicians who will say anything to get the top job.
Run, Wes, Run!!
Yes, Brad. Bill Richardson has been the best of all the candidates on election fraud. A shame. I saw him on “Beat the Press” not too long ago. Tim Russert asked him if he was a “life long Red Sox fan.” Richardson said he was. Then Russert read from his recent book to the effect that “Number 7” –Mickey Mantle– converted him into a life-long YANKEES fan. Man, I live out here in the middle of Red Sox/Yankee mania (Connecticut). There is no way in hell that anybody who is either a Red Sox or Yankee fan will ever vote for him. So, there goes the Northeast!
Richardson gave a clever reply: “I have a reputation for bringing people together.”
Russert, the consummate political interviewer, scoffed: “Not those two!”
I shudder to think that the next election will be between Hilary and Newt!
Be careful with Richardson. Yes, he ultimately did the right thing by his constituents, and is now trying to make that a distinguishing aspect of his campaign. But have a look into local politicals in NM leading up to 2004. My understanding is that this fellow is a carnivore, and allowed serious damage to Kerry’s vote in NM because the implications in local politics would benefit him at the expense of an adversary. (source for that btw is Palast’s Armed Madhouse)
A shame only Richardson was allowed to answer.. but, after all, its only our right to vote. Not terribly interesting compared to the other debates of our time..
I had to click it off when he said “paper trail” instead of “ballot”. John Conyers gave me a migraine earlier, and I have no patience left at all.
Agent 99 #4
I have not yet, in all the cacaphony, felt sure that the EI movement could come up with a single definition of “vote”, “ballot”, or “paper trail”.
So I take it that you have developed a definition that will make every star in the movement agree with you?
The EAC has an interesting statement when it comes to defining DRE:
(EAC Defines DRE, emphasis added). My mind wonders how there can be a vote if there is no ballot. And vice versa.
I would think that a vote is what is expressed thru a ballot and when there is no ballot there is no vote.
But alas, the dictionary definition of ballot offers no simple, clear definition that everyone would agree to either. That word traces back to “ball” which long ago was used in elections.
Alas again, the word “vote” (which descends from “vow”) is likewise the subject of many dictionary definitions.
But if “vote” means a voter’s expression, and a “ballot” is the way it is recorded, then there are as many forms of ballot as there are means of vote expression:
Notice that I added the notion of [trail] to the mix to illustrate the three seperate concepts.
He made some good points but his solution to fixing our election system fell well short of first base! In 2004 the Optimum Scam Machines stole many more votes nationwide than the DRE’s did. The over-hyped “dangerous DRE software” could very well be the same software that is used in the Optimum Scams. The secret software that secretly decides the outcome of our elections completely eliminates any right we have to claim this country is a functioning democracy. This country very clearly is not now functioning as a democracy. HAVA established the EAC which is now the dictator of our “democracy”! They and they alone secretly determine the outcome of our “elections”.
To get back to democracy we need to get back to verifiably counting our votes. Going to Optimum Scams with a “verifiable paper trail” is clearly not going to get us closer to that destination. The resulting “verification process” only verifies that the printout was correct, while doing absolutely nothing that would lead any logically thinking mind to believe that their vote was going to be counted correctly. Any or ALL votes can be swapped by the secret software after the so called “verification process”, which very clearly verifies absolutely nothing, is complete. We need the paper ballots to be made the vote of record and to be counted to make sure that the secret software that is now totally responsible for determining the outcomes of are election is working correctly on election day. That software has very clearly has not been working correctly in recent elections and we need to get that changed. Switching from DRE technology where a very illogical vote swapping program can get caught in the act of swapping votes to the Optimum Scam technology where even a completely idiotic vote shifting program will never ever be detected by the voters is not a step toward solving the problem. It is merely a step to cover up the fraud that has determined the outcome of many recent “elections”. We can not accept that as even a step in the direction of restoring our democracy. It very clearly is not!
Bill might mean well or he could be as decribed by comment #1. Either way his remedy is very clearly not even close to a solution to our voting system problems!
“The opposite is the truth” … is a catch phrase. So I was caught by a statement of a constitutional lawyer:
(Reactionary Activism, emphasis added). And how many times do the neoCons call for “strict constructionists” meaning non-activist judges?
The buzz word dodge of the day is “executive privilege”, a term that does not appear in the constitution or any federal statutes.
It was created by activist judges, and is now being fed steroids by the bushies so it becomes a monster.
The electronic voting machine movement is at the mercy of judicial activism, and the movement is in the government ER, slowly turning into a skeleton, along with those other SICKO movements trying to experience wellness.
Anyone who has done the research knows very well that Richardson can never be “part of the solution” since he’s been on “the other side” for way too long, but as “the lesser of evils” who knows?
“Bob Young” above, is right, the paper ballots in NM are meaningless unless counted BY HAND (which, as mentioned, Richardson has never advocated), and the machines are a scam NO MATTER WHICH MACHINES we’re talking about.
The solution: mandate a “None Of The Above” candidate on EVERY election for ANY office, and legislate PAPER BALLOTS counted only BY HAND.
DN! Take a look at what Gravel says here in the DN! headlines:
http://www.democracynow.org/art.../07/24/1431205
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow...sp&start=
Take a look at Marian Wright Edelman, she RIPS Bush:
Children’s Defense Fund’s Marian Wright Edelman Calls on Congress & Bush Administration to Help the Country’s Nine Million Children Without Health Insurance
http://www.democracynow.org/art.../07/24/1431211
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow...38;start=10:10
NMvoter #8
We have the Stalin experience to inform us that the simplistic notion of paper ballots counted by hand is not a panacea.
The stalinists understood that it is not who votes on a paper ballot that decides who wins, instead, they well understood that it is who counts the paper ballots that are the ones who decide every election.
Simplistic heavenly visions in election matters are no different than fundamentalist dogma and doctrine in any religion.
The First Church of Election Truth would have dogma, doctrine, liturgy, and evangelists for the cause. What do I mean “would” have … I mean does have.
I urge a comprehensive view composed of many divergent concepts and laws, because it really does take the whole election integrity village to raise a bona fide election, which is after all a child of democracy.
What Are Their Views on Contempt of Congress?
There are as many versions of Gonzales’ testimony as there are appearances by him before the committees.
That is because he could not tell the same story twice if he had to.
Senator Spector admonished Gonzales that the Congress has inherent power to hold anyone in contempt, without resort to the courts, should the Department of
JusticeJust Us obey the White House and order the US Attorney for the District of Columbia not to prosecute Congress’ contempt citations.Problem is that Spector is most likely thinking of the Senate, forgetting that the filibuster is the republican tool for thwarting votes in the Senate.
They have used the filibuster 45 times or so just this year.
So, the safe harbor method is for the House, where the dems have a majority, to vote a contempt citation.
The contempt citation does not have to be bi-cameral like a bill or joint resolution does.
Therefore anyone who has been held in contempt of Congress by the House, on a simple majority vote, can be put in jail by the Capitol police, which is the police force of Congress.
Dredd-
U.S. law does attempt to define “vote”. I am posting from the office and so I do not have a citation handy, but I have cited it for you during a previous debate. Paraphrasing, it defines vote to the entire range of steps involved in voting, and explicitly includes casting of the ballot as part of this defintion.
In a later section, it goes on to say that any deliberate attempt to obstruct a vote, or fail to count one (vote as defined above) is a crime.
Therefore it could be argued that, for example, Holt HR-811 is inherently criminal, as it refers to paper printouts as “ballots” but declares that they be counted as little as 5% of the time.
I feel you have a legitimate point when you say that the “stars” of the EI movement will be hard-pressed to agree on definitions to words like “vote” and “ballot”. That remains an achilles heel of the movement, and is well-exploited by our opponents, to everyone’s disadvantage (regardless of what point in the EI spectrum they reside in).
https://bradblog.com/?p=4217
John Edwards has already called for a complete ban on DREs.
In a Brad Blog story reported on arch 3, 2007 in response to a question “whether he would join PDA in their campaign calling for “the complete removal of all Touch-Screen Direct Record Electronic voting machines from U.S. elections, with or without a paper trail.”
Drawing an “X” in the air as the question was being asked, Edwards — who was reportedly upset at Sen. John Kerry’s decision not to contest the 2004 Presidential Election count, or lack thereof, in Ohio — answered with a definitive “Yes!”
Bob #12
You say:
I can’t tell if you mean the criminal statute attempts to define the word “vote” or if it refers to a non-criminal statute for that meaning.
Here is an updated list containing three aspects that set out these relevant notions as vote type, (expression type), and [trail type]:
Perhaps linking three aspects of these concepts together gives some additional perspective.
Bob #12
What I am attempting to say in post #14 is that:
and that:
and that:
and that:
Bob #12
As to the definition of a vote:
(42 USC § 15481(a)(6), emphasis added). So it is a definition capable of 50 meanings I suppose.
What one could say then is that:
and that:
and that:
and that:
Such clarity will surely inspire the stars 🙂 of the election integrity movement to new heights.
Clinton cleaned up, I’d hate to say, though I really like Gravel. Who do you think won? Vote on it: http://youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=217
Looks like the question of voting systems is being overthrown in favor of “DREDD”‘s pursuit of red herrings. Is DREDD a government shill? ES&S employee? Or does DREDD get paid by someone else to throw any democratic discussion off track? I WAS going to vote for Richardson, but now, I guess, based on the incredibly insightful information DREDD has offered, I’ll just have to wait to see who DREDD supports! Oh, I almost forgot, the question WAS about voting, wasn’t it?
Sorry to hurt your feelings NMvoter. You asked “the question WAS about voting, wasn’t it?”
Yes the question was about voting, but if you cannot define “vote” then you cannot define “voting”.
Be definitive! Be logical! Don’t be simply faithful by believing in a system stalinists used successfully! Instead, realize that it takes good people too, not just good paper to do the job dude!
Those folks you would have us have faith in, so long as they are using paper, are not worthy of such faith, as Brad’s post today shows!
The question WAS about voting, not “good people” or “good paper.” There must be some sappy song you’d like to break into.
Anyone in the know has to suspect someone who throws around terms like “stalinist” and “have faith in.”
Good punchline though: “Be definitive! Be logical!”
Sorry to have engaged in your (obviously habitual) purposefully mindless banter. It’s unlikely in the extreme that you know anyone well enough to hurt their feelings, certainly not mine. But don’t let that bother you: no one will be reading your last words in this non-discussion.