Friday, October 17, 2008
John Nichols: 2000, 2004 Elections "Inconclusive"; Humboldt Dems to Show "Uncounted" This Sat
Sorry for the split headline, but it is time to do some dot connecting.
First, a note for Humboldt readers. The local Democratic Central Committee will be hosting a free screening of "Uncounted" beginning at 7pm this Saturday (10/18) at 129 5th Street, Eureka. The film is a "documentary that shows how the election fraud that changed the outcome of the 2004 election led to even greater fraud in 2006 - and now looms as an unbridled threat to the outcome of the 2008 election."
I'll be there and anticipate a lively group discussion (read: confronting Dems' cognitive dissonance) following the film. If you've ever met me or read anything else I've written, you may already have a sense of what I'll be saying, especially now that others are saying the same thing. Say what?
I was both pleased and bemused last week when John Nichols posted to The Nation website a piece called "No More Stolen Elections." Two key excerpts (emphasis added):"...[Bush campaign co-chair and Ohio] Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, made it possible for the Republican ticket to secure an election night "result" that was of dubious legitimacy, and circumstances taht [sic] made the ensuing recount an inconclusive exercise in frustration."
Certainly I am pleased to see a major American journalist take the position I've held for years, that the Bush regime claim to power is illegitimate, and was made possible by election conditions that ensured inconclusive results (see: Voter Confidence Resolution, adopted by Arcata, CA City Council, 7/20/05).
(snip)
The bottom line from both 2000 and 2004 is this: Smart, engaged activists from across the country were caught unprepared for monumental struggles over not just clean elections and electoral votes but, in a very real sense, the future of the republic.
Good people tried to intervene. But it was too little, too late. Mistakes made in the hours and days after the presidential elections in each of those two years would haunt the process to its conclusion -- or, to be more precise, to an inconclusive moment when power would be allocated without legitimacy.
But Nichols has two major disconnects that I'd like to put back together here. First, he attributes the inconclusive results to the election conditions - which are largely the same in 2008. To look back and say the previous results were inconclusive requires a degree of honesty which could only be called ruthless honesty if it acknowledged that the same conditions will always and again produce inconclusive, unknowable, unprovable results. "Too little, too late" last time means take a different approach this time.
The second disconnect is Nichols' call to action:What should smart activists be doing?
If we already recognize that election conditions guarantee inconclusive results, waiting until after the "election" to protest is not what smart activists would do because it would again be "too little, too late." In fact, the same well-meaning progressive leaders behind "No More Stolen Elections" put forth a similar pledge that I wrote about just prior to the 2004 "election."
Preparing to say, without caution or compromise, that they will not sit idly by and allow another presidential election to be gamed.
That's what the Rev. Jesse Jackson, populist leader Jim Hightower, author Barbara Ehrenreich, singer Holly Near, activist Tom Hayden, Rabbi Michael Lerner and other activists, academics and writers -- including this author -- were thinking when we signed on to the call to action for the "No More Stolen Elections!" campaign that launches this week.
The campaign asks Americans to take a simple pledge:
"I remember Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, and I am willing to take action in 2008 if the election is stolen again.
I support efforts to protect the right to vote leading up to and on Election Day, November 4th.
I pledge to join nationwide pro-democracy protests starting on November 5th, either in my community, in key states where fraud occurred, or in Washington, D.C..
I pledge: No More Stolen Elections!""I remember the stolen presidential election of 2000 and I am willing to take action in 2004 if the election is stolen again. I support efforts to protect the right to vote leading up to and on Election Day, November 2nd. If that right is systematically violated, I pledge to join nationwide protests starting on November 3rd, either in my community, in the states where the fraud occurred, or in Washington DC."
It has become cliché to cite the definition of insane as doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Does it make me a bad writer to use a cliché or a smarter activist to say let's do something different?
The original link to the first "No Stolen Elections" pledge no longer works, but I found it archived here. That's a page on the site of the Liberty Tree Foundation, one of the sponsors of the new pledge. There is a lot of other great work happening there, but I can't consider either of these pledges as good examples. It is counterproductive to reinforce the frame: "if the election is stolen again." We all know already the "election" is a charade. We also all know more than enough to conclude with certainty that the "election" results will be inherently uncertain, inconclusive, and unprovable.
Even though I've been making this point for more than four years, it has morphed and sharpened somewhat in the past several weeks. For reference, read here and here, and listen here (.mp3) as I spoke at a Constitution Day rally in Eureka last month, and here (.mp3) for a few minutes with Peter B. Collins and Brad Friedman.
While my blog posts have not been frequent, I have been doing other writing that I'll soon make available. It will be another, bigger example of others saying what I'm saying we should say. If you get it, you need to pass it on to the media. Don't be shy about expressing disbelief or even disdain that media would expect us to accept their reporting of election results as fact when the results have not and can not be independently verified by media, can not even be proven, and come from only one source -- the government whose power is at stake. If we buy that, we really are insane by any definition.
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/10/john-nichols-2000-2004-elections.html
Labels: Brad Friedman, Democratic Central Committee, inconclusive, John Nichols, No More Stolen Elections, Peter B. Collins, The Nation, Uncounted, unprovable
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Hints of Things To Come
New Voter Confidence Committee webmaster Paula Long and I met today with members of the board of the Redwood Chapter of the ACLU. This culminated a process that spanned the last four months as the group developed a statement on election integrity. I promised not to scoop their forthcoming press release but suffice to say I am grateful the VCC was given an opportunity to input on this, and I am immensely gratified at the end result.
Following up on last Wednesday's presentation to the Humboldt Democratic Central Committee, today Larry Hourany submitted to one of the Dems' subcommittees a resolution that I also can't fully disclose just yet. I wrote it, so if you have been reading my blog for any amount of time you can probably guess what it says.
Tonight I attended the Ron Paul Meet Up. There were about 25 people and it was fairly well organized and smoothly run. In the few minutes I spoke I addressed some questions raised by the previous speaker about the Feb. 5 CA primary, namely that Humboldt will be using eSlate machines for voters with disabilities (adding that ballots cast this way must be copied by elections department staff onto the regular paper ballots fed into the Diebold optical scanner); and that modems will no longer be used to send precinct results into HQ so we have to watch the chain of custody getting ballots and memory cards physically transported from precincts to HQ.
I suggested group members consider election day observing, and to connect back with me next week when the VCC can be prepared with a plan to coordinate reports from observers coming in and being posted to multiple places online. I have also forwarded them these two links provided by Dan Ashby of the Election Defense Alliance. Both are manuals for election day observers:http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/sav_r_vote_election_monitoring_field_guide
I also took a few moments to mention the VCC Report on Election Conditions in Humboldt County and how we are moving the community dialog into a discussion of the tangible components, such as how long it will really take to hand-count all the paper ballots, and how many people we'll really need to get it done. Seven more people signed onto this project tonight. If you are a registered Humboldt voter, you can sign-up too at VoterConfidenceCommittee.org.
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/ca_election_monitoring_a_training_manual
Finally, tomorrow afternoon I am scheduled to talk to Arcata Eye editor Kevin Hoover so I'm hopeful we'll soon see a news article that actually presents our framing, offering the community an opportunity to objectively judge the feasibility of hand-counting paper ballots in Humboldt County.
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/01/hints-of-things-to-come.html
Labels: ACLU, Arcata Eye, Dan Ashby, Democratic Central Committee, Eureka Reporter, hand-counting paper ballots, Kevin Hoover, Larry Hourany, Paula Long, Ron Paul, Voter Confidence Committee
Monday, January 07, 2008
VCC Ramping Up Outreach For HCPB Campaign
Following last Thursday's My Word column I wrote in the Eureka Times-Standard, we've had several people hit the sign-up form on the Voter Confidence Committee (VCC) home page, letting us know they are willing to hand-count paper ballots on election night, and will help us get more people signed up. I was also asked to submit an essay for the Hope Coalition Newsletter. I chose Confidence in election counting?, which I wrote for the Eureka Reporter toward the end of November.
Larry Hourany has arranged for me to make a presentation to the Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee on Wednesday night. It is not clear whether he'll be able to make a motion or if any proposal would be referred to a committee first. Naturally I'll be asking people to declare their willingness to hand-count on election night, whether signed up as an individual or in fantasyland where the group as a whole endorses it and the entire campaign changes overnight.
I've previously mentioned my recent meetings with the Redwood chapter of the ACLU. That group has been circulating a draft of a position statement it may make on election issues. The group has solicited input from the VCC and we're excited about the common ground, and also the interesting challenge of building some bridges. The VCC will be finalizing our suggestions tomorrow and meeting with the RACLU on 1/17.
John Matthews called this afternoon, he of the KSLG morning show and also producer for the KHUM Review. I was previously a guest on this show on August 30, 2007. Apparently the Review is being broadcast this Thursday from the California Welcome Center in Arcata and I have been asked to be part of a discussion about elections. I'm a little unclear on the details so I'll be checking in with Matthews again tomorrow.
By the way, I posted my Saturday commentary on the NYTimes e-voting article at DU and OpEdNews.com. It appears Nancy Tobi also posted it at the Democracy For New Hampshire website.
Tobi has a few new ones herself I'm trying to get to: Back to the Future: Democracy that Works, which is actually written for publication in Mark Crispin Miller's forthcoming book; and also NH: "First in the nation" (with corporate controlled secret vote counting), a side of the New Hampshire voting situation we hand-counted paper ballot admirers don't hear much of. They are fighting the good fight there against the same Diebold optical scanners used here in Humboldt. Tobi links to a newly posted You Tube video from Black Box Voting. It is the footage of the Hursti hack being done in Leon County, FL as well as footage of Hursti testifying to NH legislators. See it, and pass it on.
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/01/vcc-ramping-up-outreach-for-hcpb.html
Labels: ACLU, Black Box Voting, Democratic Central Committee, DU, Eureka Reporter, hand-counting paper ballots, Harri Hursti, hcpb, Hope Coalition, Mark Crispin Miller, Nancy Tobi, OpEdNews.com, VCC
