Bob Koehler: Ballot & Soul-Democracy Needs a Revolution Every Generation

[Amaryllis]

This is the column Bob wrote about the Portland National Summit to Save Our Elections, Sept. 30, Oct. 1 and 2

Ballot and Soul
Democracy needs a revolution every generation

By ROBERT C. KOEHLER
Tribune Media Services

October 6, 2005

If I want to generate a little fear-based insomnia, all I have to do is remind myself just before bedtime that the 2006 elections are barely a year away. Suddenly I’m awash in cold sweat and my heart starts pounding like a steam piston.

No, please, somebody stop the clock. It’s too soon. We can’t hold the elections until we get our right to vote back.

If you are one of those people who has opened up the can of worms known as the 2004 election and stared appalled at the irregularities writhing around the count in Ohio and New Mexico and Pennsylvania and other swing states — where dirty tricks and outright disenfranchisement (spurious voter challenges, too few voting machines) were blatant in inner-city and other Democratic strongholds and where electronic, no-paper-trail voting yielded results at odds with exit polls in statistically near-impossible percentages — you know what I’m talking about. Our elections, and therefore our democracy, are not safe, and not enough people know or care yet that this is so.

The only antidote to this insomnia is to connect with other stunned, appalled souls, realize you aren’t alone, and begin groping communally for a way to take a stand. And as you do this, a remarkable thing happens. Fighting for fair elections becomes not so much a desperate, stopgap chore as an act of citizenship of the highest order.

For the rest of the article:
http://www.commonwonders.com/