Okay, enough procrastination. Here's my report from the
National Summit to Save our Elections, organized by
Oregon Voter Rights Coalition and
Alliance for Democracy - Portland.
The goals are to take our democracy back from the corporations who are privatizing the electorial process. To ensure that our elections are fair, open, and verifiable. To make sure that every vote is counted properly.
The truth is I haven't known how to start. It's like trying to take a tiny sip from a fire hose. There are so many ideas, angles, tidbits, anecdotes, and so forth. Organizing my thoughts has been a challenge.
So this first entry begins with a high level summary...
I couldn't get off work early Friday, so we missed the first day. Walking up Saturday, we crossed paths with
Judy Alter (
Citizen's Audit Parallel Elections), one of the presenters. We asked "How was it yesterday?" She replied "It's always the same. These functions are too small, we're not enough people. But we have to do something." I admit that was a bit of a downer.
After the summit, I think Judy Alter is too pessimistic. The summit itself is a shining beacon of democracy. The width and breadth of the topics, sessions, panels, and workshops was amazing. What we geeks would call a "very high signal to noise ratio". And what people are accomplishing is remarkable.
The lineup of speakers was top notch. Thom Hartman is very well spoken and a walking encyclopdia. Jefferson Smith (The Bus Project) was one of the most inspiring speakers I've ever heard, I really like how his mind works. In another life, *David Cobb* (Green Party Presidential Candidate) could have been an evangelical minister -- wow, that guy can fire up a crowd. Brad Friedman (The Brad Blog) was funny, ironic, and a bit mischievious. Nancy Price (On The Commons) is earnest, intuitive, and very engaging, her presentation on the commons just makes sense. Paul Lehto thinks the big thoughts, sees the connections, takes the necessary actions, explains weighty issues to laypersons, and serves as a catalyst for others. Bev Harris and Kathleen Wynne (Black Box Voting) have amazing gumption, tenacity, and courage. (There were many other speakers, all of which I hope to cover soon.)
I have added two new heros to my roster: Bernie Ellis and John Washburn.
Bernie Ellis is an organizer for Tennessee Save Our Democracy. His workshop covered their growth and the lessons they learned. Their accomplishments in just under one year's time is just phenomenal. Bernie has a humble, calming manner, with a deep reserve of strength. Even when he disagrees with you, you feel grateful for the feedback.
John Washburn is a geek like me. As a QA/Test professional, Washburn wrote the electronic voting machine testing guidelines for Wisconsin, also used by others. As a result of his inspired efforts, all electronic voting machines in Wisconsin have been decertified as of January 2006. That's just amazing.
I came away from the summit with some important takeway points.
First off, we can fix this. We can take our democracy back. We can even improve our democracy. This struggle is a modern day David and Goliath epic. Never underestimate the impact that individuals can make. By speaking truth to power, the election reform activists are winning against huge corporations, entrenched interests, apathy, and indifference.
There's the cliche that when times are tough, if you didn't laugh, you'd cry. There's definitely a bit of that. But more so, the people at the summit are filled with hope. The humor and joy of the event surprised me. Yes, we could just be witty and droll, impressing ourselves with our cleverness. This summit wasn't like that. The people involved were able to laugh at themselves and with each other. I have to believe that form of humility will serve us well in all of our battles ahead.
I relearned that all social progress starts with community. We're in this pickle because we're not talking to each other. People check out when they're isolated. We need to engage each other -- talk, educate, work. We can't rely on media. This effort must be done face to face.
I was heartened to discover that the people in the know all agree that electronic voting and counting is bad news and that we must insist on paper ballots. It was nice to spared the effort of having this debate, yet again.
The folks over at Black Box Voting are clever indeed. Another marvel is Votoscope, which I hope to monkey with soonest. It's a free utility to count scanned ballots yourself, on your own computer. Defeat the enemy with their own weapons! I love it.
A word about the summit organizers.
I've been to a lot of conferences, seminars, and so forth. This event was nearly flawless. It came off like they'd been doing this type of thing for years.
Some words were said at the final event about how the entire event was collaborative, distributed (with some people meeting for the first time at the event itself!), and democratic.
That jives with my own experiences. We're smarter in groups, when we work together, all pulling our weight, and trust each others to do the same.
Last item (for now)...
A bunch of us from Seattle had lunch together. We all want to do our part, even if it's not yet clear what those parts are. Every battle is local and the needs are different. I have the impression that most of us want to emulate Bernie Ellis' Save Our Democracy. Maybe we'll throw our own summit. I'm pretty excited about the possibilities.
Some of us are attending the SeattleKos meetup tonight. Otherwise, we'll kick things off later this month. Stay tuned, or contact me, if you want to be included.
I'll be following up with more detailed posts about the summit. Compiling links, more in depth on individual sessions, my own ideas, followups, etc. Please stay tuned for that as well.