Why is the election process being fixed "piecemeal"

[Fescue4u]

And by fixed, I mean repaired.

No wonder we lose.

In 2000, Florida decided the election. So a million lawyers and lawmakers decended on Florida. To some extent the issues were fixed (or sufficient hidden).

In 2004, Ohio decided the election. So now we have people descending on Ohio, to fix the process there.

Why not fix *ALL THE STATES*. Surely, we are not so naive to think the problems exist/exited in only 2 states. Why not recount *ALL THE STATES**?


What if in 2008, California is screwed up? then New York in 2012?

All Rove(or his equivalant) has to do is to target a state or states not being paid attention to, and the process repeats.

As long as we play this onesey state at a time game, it could be generations before the election process is repaired.

[imenja]

1. HAVA was supposed to address problems nationally

but states continue to resist change, especially the ones controlled by Republicans. The problem is the constitution gives to the states the power to conduct elections. I think we all need to focus on the local level--get Democrats elected as Supervisors of Elections, Secretaries of State, and of course Governors. We can also push for reform at the county and state level. To wait for a Republican controlled federal government to fix the system is a waste of time.

[mattclearing]

6. No, HAVA was meant to subsidize the infrastructure for tampering.

on edit: It should have been called the "Help America Vote for ME Act"

[imenja]

7. What solution do you suggest?

[sepia_steel]

2. I believe we need

standardized, federal election guidelines. Differences in state laws complicate the vote. Blackwell struts around doing whatever the hell he wants to. It has to stop now.

[imenja]

3. How do we resolve that constitutionally?

Any ideas?

[Fescue4u]

4. kick

[GuvWurld]

5. Excellent point - we must create conditions allowing legitimacy

Right now conditions do not exist for us to have elections that are beyond question - this is another way of saying we have no BASIS for confidence in the legitimacy of US federal elections. There is not one change that will singlehandedly make our elections legitimate beyond question. In the No Confidence Resolution there are eight specific positive developments which, taken together, could restore a BASIS for confidence. They are:

1) all private corporations are divested of ownership in election machines, and
2) clean money laws keep all corporate funds out of campaign financing, and
3) any future mechanisms for voting conform to a uniform national standard and produce a verifiable audit trail for every vote, and
4) all votes are cast on the same day, designated as a national holiday, with the exception of absentee ballots which will be granted to applicants meeting a narrow list of federally determined criteria, and
5) all votes are counted publicly in the presence of citizen witnesses and credentialed members of the media, and
6) equal time provisions are observed by the media along with a measurable increase in local, public control of the airwaves, and
7) presidential debates contain a minimum of three candidates, and are run by a non-partisan commission comprised of representatives of publicly owned media outlets, and
8) ranked choice voting, also called instant runoff voting, is implemented for federal elections (see H.R. 5293);

Learn more about the the strategy and talking points of the No Confidence Movement.

[imenja]

8. good suggestions

as for 7) I assume you know the League of Women Voters stopped sponsoring presidential debates in the 1980s because the two major parties were determined to set up the debates for their own benefit rather than that of the voters. The main obstacle to number seven is getting the Democratic and Republican parties go along with it. How do we convince them?

[GuvWurld]

10. All Bets Are Off (or think outside the box)

imenja - I'm glad you like the suggestions I presented. To address your question about #7, I respectfully suggest that you let go of how things are, or how they're supposed to be, as a starting point. If we are trying to imagine "what would be better?" then let us not limit our thinking in any way (these proposed changes already represent a bold leap of wishful thinking, no?).

Dems and Reps engage in simulated competition (a phrase that also describes our pseudo-"elections") and will never be "convinced." The genuine creation of a new democracy will require the overwhelming rejection of the collection of myths with which we live (democracy, capitalism, free speech, free press, free market). After the revolution, perhaps there will be some honest, principled people who want to organize under the banner of Dem or Rep. That would be OK, but it is not necessary, and certainly does not need to be a presupposition.

And to igil, who wrote below about volunteer staffing...while it is not in the No Confidence Resolution, I support the idea floating around about drafting election volunteers by a method similar to getting called for jury duty. Combined with making election day a national holiday (which is in the resolution), we can expect increased voter turnout, greater availability of volunteers, and stronger safeguards against partisanship.

As I noted above, no one aspect of this is a panacea. I think this is in agreement with your point about looking everywhere to identify problems. If we only looked in a small area, and fixed only what was found there, we'd still have no BASIS for confidence in the legitimacy of US elections.

If we are ruthlessly honest with ourselves, we reject as a false alternative ideas that reinforce any part of the mythology. It may be a bitter pill, but this includes the recounts. I see a positive where they are stretching out the uncertainty and compelling people to investigate; but I see a dishonest negative where they reinforce the bogus frame that there was ever anything worthy of being called a count in the first place. Like with imenja, there is a letting go that is necessary here - it is analogous to emasculating a bully by depriving him of your fear.

[Igel]

9. The only way it would be CA or NY (barring

a large, obvious problem nobody could possibly ignore) is if they provided the "deciding" (which in this case only means last) electors in the networks' calling of the elections.

Every electoral system is riddled with flaws, you just try to keep them to a minimum; as long as you have near-volunteers staffing precinct tables, officials running as part of political parties, and lots of decentralization. (But flipping it around isn't much better--there's no way to have professional staff staffing the tables, non-partisan elections officials are that in name only, and I suspect we don't want long-term officials or massive centralization.) FL was a nightmare because people looked at it closely and saw the problems; OH is a nightmare because people looked at it closely and saw the problems.

Even WA is turning out to be riddled with what might uncharitably called fraud (or charitably be called error; depends on how much ill-will you impute).

The problem is that somehow people erroneously think FL or OH were the "deciding" states, and consequently focus on them. This was only true for a few hours on 11/2-3/04. Bev Harris has the right idea (as do some others, it's not original with her): look everywhere.

[Carolab]

11. This is what Jesse Jackson Jr. is trying to do

did you not hear what he said at the first hearing? We need a constitutionally protected right to vote and we need fair and equal protection of that right by standardizing it federally rather than letting each state determine the means by which it is "granted".

[lthuedk]

12. We need to form a more perfect union outside and superior to

the fascist one now in place. We need soldiers, lawyers, leaders, scientists, scholars, artists, and philosophers to found a new government from scratch.

Fascism must be stopped.

Then, we'll take back what belongs to the People.

[GuvWurld]

13. AMEN!!! (Kick - eom)

[sandnsea]

14. Four Billion Dollars

That's how much was allocated through HAVA. That's the approach we should take with this mess. How the hell could we spend Four Billion Dollars and not get anything fixed. There's problems all over the country. We made a huge mistake focusing on Ohio and screaming fraud with these machines. We lost more votes from people not being able to vote and broken machines and screwy software and that's what we should have focused on. I think we've made it harder to fix these other problems because of the mess we've made with the fraud approach.