Validate the vote - by Ian H. Solomon (Associate Dean of Yale Law School)
November 26, 2004
"MOST MAINSTREAM newspapers have already dismissed stories of voting fraud and voting rights violations in the November election as baseless or irrelevant. Sen. John Kerry's concession is supposed to demonstrate that there is no story here. Give up, go home, it's all over. But it's not over.
.....
American legitimacy demands that the news media, the parties and all political leaders take seriously the challenges presented by the 2004 election: We need an audit of the election process, validation of the election results and corrective measures to ensure the legitimacy of future elections. (continued)
To begin with, that means supporting the audit efforts already under way.... This should be a priority for Congress, with vigilant participation by independent news organizations. The complete process - from registration through vote tallying, including all equipment and procedures - must be thoroughly and publicly assessed. No reasonable argument can be offered against disclosure and accountability. We can afford whatever expense, inconvenience, distraction and possible embarrassment may be caused by an election audit and congressional investigation. What we cannot afford are unresolved doubts about the legitimacy of our democratic government."
Partial link:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/
One of those registered sites.
You can also find commentary on DU at:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x80768
Suffice it to say, I encourage all of you to write the Baltimore Sun and Professor Solomon and express gratitude for the fact that they are focusing on the core issue -- the validity of our franchise. And, you might want to send this item on to all those who, until now, who watched the hit-and-run inflict a near fatal blow to our franchise and closed their eyes, silenced their brains and waited for someone to tell them what to do.
Anyone wishing to witness how quickly everything can be compromised that generations of courageous citizens strove to achieve in their undaunted efforts to expand access to the vote, take a look at Pravda online or just check these few bitter sentences:
Link:
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2004/11/26/155033/85/25#25
"Prove My Vote Counts, Now" may gain traction, but it will only happen if all of us encourage our friends, families, and all those who are supposed to be honorably serving the our Democracy to do so.
Update [2004-11-27 19:26:38 by understandinglife]:. Amusing item from the NYTimes "Electronic Voting 1.0, and No Time to Upgrade"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/business/yourmoney/28techno.html?oref=login
"A columnist in The Washington Post recently suggested that nostalgia for paper ballots, in today's reliably computerized world, must reflect a Luddite disdain for technology in general or an Oliver Stone-style paranoia about the schemings of the political world.
Not at all. It can also arise from a clear understanding of how computers work - and don't. The more you know about the operations of today's widely trusted commercial computer networks, the more concerned you become about most electronic-voting systems.
The phenomenal reliability of the systems we trust for banking, communication, and everything else rests on two bedrock principles. One is the universal understanding in the technology world that nothing works right the first time, and maybe not the first 50 times."
......
The second crucial element in making reliable systems is accountability. Users can trust today's systems precisely because they don't have to take them on trust. Some important computer systems run on open-source software, like Linux, in which the code itself can be examined by outsiders."
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There's more to the article, and I'm glad that the NYTimes bothered to publish it. Now, we need to continue urging them that an 'alpha test' in something as important as the Presidency of the USA should be accompanied by the most rigorous audit, ever, of a National Election.
Peace.