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"1. Count every vote
"The right to vote includes the right to have our votes properly counted.
"We must ensure that every citizen's vote will be counted. This includes a guarantee of open and transparent elections with verified voting, paper trails, hand-recorded paper ballots, and access to the source codes for, and random audits of, electronic voting machines. It also includes a guarantee that we the people, through our government, will control our voting machines -- not private companies."
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...although I think we need to start with a TOTAL BAN on all electronic voting machines and central tabulators, and a return to PAPER BALLOTS, HAND-COUNTED IN PUBLIC, WITH RESULTS ANNOUNCED AT THE PRECINCT LEVEL, until we have restored confidence in our elections, and have rooted out all the corruption among local election officials, and state and national legislators, that the privatization of our elections has brought about. This corruption was the handiwork of the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress--Tom Delay and Bob Ney, abetted by corporatist Democrats like Christopher Dodd--and it includes bi-partisan corruption at every level. They allocated over $3 billion for the fast-track conversion to Bushite-corporate controlled electronic voting, and furthermore permitted unregulated, lavish lobbying, to corrupt our election system from one end of the country to the other. This privately-controlled electronic voting system should NEVER HAVE BEEN PUT IN PLACE. It was forced into place through big bucks contracts and bribes, and has resulted not only in non-transparent, unverifiable elections but also in a culture of secrecy that now pervades election offices, where the voters have become "the enemy." Our election officials have much to hide, including their addiction to the heady power of big electronics contracts and to TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY vote counting. And what we need is a BIG BROOM to sweep the system clean. Bonifaz's proposal for public access to the source codes in electronic voting machines may push evildoers like Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia out of the "business of elections" (they can go peddle their fascist wares in No. Korea and Uzbekistan), but their stench will remain unless we get rid of the collusive election officials and legislators who sold away our right to vote. With fewer bucks, and fewer lobbying junkets, some will lose interest and drift over into corporate employ, where they belong.* But control over U.S. elections is a BIG PRIORITY of the Corporate Rulers, and they will hang onto it with tooth and claw. They have already "swift-boated" one good, anti-Diebold Secretary of State out of office (Kevin Shelley in Calif.). What are they doing to stop Bonifaz, Debra Bowen (running for SoS in Calif.), and other good candidates? And what might WE do to protect good SoS's once they are in office (if they can get elected in this system)? (Also, hey are already putting their backup plans in place--for instance, Voter ID to curtail voting by the poor; also, electronic voter databases, which make speedy, unfair, hard-to-remedy voter purges possible; and the backup plan of blaming the touchscreens, and retaining the optiscans and central tabulators--ALSO run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code--a backup plan that the official Dem Party supports!).
What Bonifaz is facing is the COMBINED opposition of Bushites AND corrupt DEMOCRATS--indeed, that's what all election reformers have been up against. Electronics = money. And that is the problem.
But, beyond that, American votes in general = money. If you can fiddle American votes, you can make LOTS OF MONEY. American votes are pure gold. We should be flattered. You wonder why they've put such THOUGHT into stealing our elections? Because we have the potential power, as the sovereign people living at the vortex of global corporate power, to CURTAIL them! To limit their unconscionable profits. To stop their corporate oil wars. To prevent their theft of resources and their oppression around the globe. And even to dismantle these bad actor corporations and seize their assets for the common good. Chevron, Exxon-Mobile, Halliburton, Fox News, the lot. Chartered here. Disbandable here. And, at the very least, subject to OUR regulation, should we ever be able to restore transparent elections.
This is what it's really all about. The electronic voting coup is, of course, the "logical" conclusion of predatory corporate behavior that began back in the 80's with the Reagan regime (looting of the Savings and Loan institutions--the bedrock of the American middle class--the first re-write of the tax code to favor the rich, the "era of greed" (but we hadn't seen nothin' yet!), and the illegal and heinous war on Nicaragua). Corporate corruption of our elections has involved the filthy campaign contribution system, commercial TV campaign ads (which is why candidates have to raise all this money), and out of control lobbyists, among other things. But before we can address any of these OTHER ways that the Corporate Rulers have entrenched their power, we MUST get rid of electronic voting. No if's, and's or but's.
Bonifaz has come closest to saying this (--in his proposed public access to all source code). I hope he can get elected. IT'S CLOSE! IF YOU ARE A MASSACHUSETTS VOTER, GET OUT THERE TODAY! VOTE FOR BONIFAZ AND GET EVERYBODY ELSE YOU KNOW TO VOTE FOR HIM! IT'S VITALLY IMPORTANT! They are more than likely putting a "thumb on the scales" against him, but turnout CAN overcome that handicap (since they can't be too obvious in the electronic fiddle). DON'T BE DISCOURAGED! That's what the bad guys want! NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE! *NEVER!* GET OUT THERE AND VOTE--and then FIGHT LIKE HELL to see that your vote is COUNTED! "Win" or "lose" (hard to say, in this system), Bonifaz's campaign is just ONE PART of a huge grass roots movement for election reform that is going to win in the end. Remember that!
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