Voting Reform: Without It, the Next Election Is Also Doomed(Rolling Stone)

[Up2Late]

(EAC stands for "Election Assistance Commission". This is the latest 2004 Election Interview from the Rolling Stone section call National Affairs Daily. This is related to the RFK Jr. article.)

6/6/06, 3:29 pm EST

Voting Reform: Without It, the Next Election Is Also Doomed

2004 Election Interview: The Rev. DeForest Soaries]
Republican DeForest Soaries served as the first chair of the federal Election Assistance Commission, set up in the wake of the Florida fiasco of 2000 to oversee ongoing reform of American voting. The agency was constantly underfunded: “We really had to put together a federal agency with spit,” Soaries says, “when that agency was supposed to bring about reforms in voting for federal elections.”The EAC was supposed to ensure that the billions in federal funds spent on new voting technology was spent wisely: “There are legitimate questions in circulation about the integrity of electronic voting,” he says, “and the reality is that no one really knows the answers. Because we don’t have enough research, and the research budget that was authorized by the Congress for the EAC to get to the bottom of these issues was completely zeroed out in the appropriations. The EAC itself was only authorized through last year. So what serious person would accept an appointment to a federal agency that’s no longer authorized?”

Soaries resigned a year ago in disgust, calling the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress uncommitted to improving America’s sorry election apparatus. This May, National Affairs Daily talked with Soaries, who is speaking out after a year of self-imposed silence.

ROLLING STONE: What led you to resign?

DeForest Soaries: It wasn’t until I worked in Washington on an issue as generic as this that I realized how pitiful and perhaps how hopeless Washington really is. For God’s sake…if any issue should be the catalyst for bipartisan cooperation, this is the issue: voting.

It was probably the worst experience of my life. I found that there is very little interest in Washington for true election reform. That neither the White House nor either house of the Congress seems to be as committed to guaranteeing democratic participation in this country as we seem to be in other countries. It’s an embarrassment that we don’t have a broad enough consensus among political leaders that true reform should take place. I could count the members of Congress on one hand that took these issues seriously....

(more at link)

<http://rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs>

Note: if the link no longer goes to the interview above, try this link: <http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/?p=177>

(Also, if you scroll down past this article, you will find a Howard Dean interview from yesterday too.)

[Up2Late]

1. Kick for updated OP Headline.

:kick:

[BeFree]

2. Nice try, Up2Late

But it seems folks just don't care that the $4 billion spent by congress has lead to their votes being stolen. Yeah, $4 billion and they zeroed out the one commission that was supposed to be a check on what was being bought.

We wuz screwed, and folks seem to like it. Nice try. Move along, nothing to see here.

[Up2Late]

3. But, but....

People NEED to care!

Maybe the night people will care.:kick:

[blm]

4. I just kicked the other thread. Most important issue there is.

Everything else connects to it one way or another - or will, eventually.

[faithnotgreed]

5. count me in

[Up2Late]

6. Link update

Here's the more permanent link, I don't think the OP link will be any good tomorrow: <http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/?p=176>

[Up2Late]

7. kick n/t

:kick:

[BeFree]

8. I remember thinking at that time...

....4 years ago, that not funding the EAC was a good thing.

Of course, I hadn't a clue about HAVA, then.

Well, now we know the e-voting vendors are laughing all the way to the bank, having sold HAVA machines that were never inspected, or completely vetted.

And Tom Delay has to be smiling, knowing what a bag of crap he left on America's doorstep.

So it goes. HAVA has a reform bill waiting in the wings; a bill that would begin to wash that bag of crap off the door sill, but the dems are afraid to look at it, or even much acknowledge it.

I only wish I could get my hand into that bag and spread it on the floor of congress.... wearing gloves, of course!

[Up2Late]

9. Or just set it on fire!

Sorry, your post reminded me of the "Flaming bag of Dog Crap in the front porch" trick where, when the home owner finds it, they stamp it out, but get a shoe covered in crap in return. :freak: