Right to Vote Act of 2006 - If lobbyists can write laws, then we can too

[Ian_rd]

More and more, the people writing our nation's laws are not the lawmakers in Congress. It has become depressingly common for corporate lobbyists - and sometimes the Bush administration (Patriot Act)- to write our laws, which are then passed through Congress only as necessary formality.

Well if lobbyists can write laws, then so can we. I humbly propose a work in progress:

Right to Vote Act of 2006

An Act

To ensure the intent of the electorate of the United States of America is faithfully executed in all aspects of the electoral process. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

(1) Every eligible American citizen who is registered to vote has a right to cast a ballot and to have said ballot counted according to his or her intent.

(2) Any action with the intent to suppress electoral participation directly or indirectly is a federal offense subject to prosecution. Actions such as disruption of "get-out-the-vote" drives and similar initiatives, prevention of voters from reaching polling stations, disruption of political party operations, disseminating false information in order to discourage participation in the electoral process, and any and all other methods with the intent to discourage and suppress voter participation shall be punishable by a fine of $100,000 per instance.

(3) The number of available, operational, and legal voting facilities in each electoral precinct must be directly proportional to the number of registered voters of said precinct. The voter wait time for any electoral precinct shall be no more than two hours. Each electoral precinct must monitor wait times and when a wait time of over two hours is calculated, said precinct must make available additional legal voting facilities as required to comply with law.

(4) All voting machines, ballots, and tabulation methods, electronic and/or otherwise, shall be approved and certified by independent, nonpartisan, scientific review, the entire process of which open to public review. Any instance of unauthorized machines, ballots, computer code, or other methods are punishable by a fine of $100,000 per instance, nulls the election affected, and requires another election to be held in its place in order to ensure compliance with law and voter intent.

(5) All polling stations must be attended by personnel trained and appropriately certified in the operation of the voting machines and methods of said precinct.

(6) Local and state governments and private business are subject to lawsuits by the public for any instance resulting in the disenfranchisement of a voter's intent. This includes erroneous denial of voter registration, miscalculated votes, illegal wait times at polling stations, illegal voting machines, ballots, and/or methods, and any and all instances resulting in a failure to accurately and legally count and record voter intent.

(7) All machines and methods must produce hardcopy records that accurately reflect the voter's intent. Said records shall be securely kept by each electoral precinct for no less than a period of ten years for each election. No less than ten percent of election results for each electoral precinct must be audited with a hand-count of hardcopy records in addition to previously approved tabulation method in order to ensure electoral integrity. The elections audited shall be selected at random by each electoral precinct.

(8) Any and all instances of noncompliance with the law described herein and the appropriate prosecution shall be a matter of public record.

[Pab Sungenis]

1. EVERY Democratic candidate should endorse this act

...and sponsor it on January 3rd as the first act of the new Democratic majority.

[meldroc]

2. Not bad, just some extra suggestions.

Add criminal penalties in addition to civil fines for violations - people who participate in things such as voter suppression should face years of prison.

Also add a provision mandating that all steps of the election process - machine certification & setup, the voting itself, and tabulation afterwards, be open to observers. Each party must be able to send observers, and independent 3rd party organizations should also be able to send observers. The tabulation should be able to be observed by the public. (Like in Canada.) I'd even go so far as to give each political party its own tabulation machines, and allow them to count the votes, and not certify the vote unless both party's counts are the same.

[sendero]

3. I second that motion.

.... money doesn't scare these folks, they have deep pockets. "Up to 6 months incarceration for each instance of offense".

[Ian_rd]

4. Good idea with the observers and jail time! After I flesh it out more

and get more advice, I'm hoping to mail this to my Congressman, Lloyd Doggett every week until get some kind of acknowledgement.