My letter to olbermann

[neohippie]

Hello,

I would like you to continue your stories about the election and problems with the vote. I think that if we are going to promote democracy across the globe with our army then at the very least we should take basic steps to insure that our democracy is safe here at home.

I believe that registration and voting can be made simpler and more accurate if we just examine our current processes. I am not against electronic voting, but I feel that the machines should also generate a paper ballot that can be used for manual recounts. They do this in other countries how hard could that be to do. Also the real benefit of machines is that they can carry any ballot, so that voters would be able to vote at any polling place. Voting could be more than a single day, to prevent long lines, many states have early voting already.

Instead of votes being tabulated at a central computer, housed at a private company the whole process should be more accountable, and open to public inspection. How can we expect voters to have faith in a system that has proven to be riddled with error and lacks any real accountability when it doesn't take the simple precaution of warning a voter or a poll worker when it is no longer able to store votes?

I think that the real shame of the whole election is the fact that the voters are bombarded with such negative attacks by the candidates in our current election system that they are so tired of the whole ordeal they don't have the energy or desire to see the process through to a proper outcome. People are just ready to put the issue to rest at the cost of everything that we profess to promote and believe in.

Our democracy is in serious peril, when voters rights are trampled on before the election as special interests try to suppress registrations and votes and then later when they challenge the ballots cast because of errors, hanging chads, instructions that were too difficult for some voters to follow, signatures that seem mis-shaped or suspicious to a vote counter. Time and time again I here the stories of the disenfranchised voter. What lessons did we learn from the 2000 election? What can we do to make sure that every vote really counts? What can we do to get people to admit that there are big problems with our electoral process. Perhaps we could run ads on Television about electile dysfunction and our new prescription. I am not sure what the answers are, but I do know that we can find them with a little bit of national discussion, and the only way that is going to take place is if the media will cover this important story.

Thanks again for your coverage,

Respectfully,

voter,

[Greyskye]

1. Nice letter

You might want to remove your name for privacy reasons.