I'll never forget the gratitude and relief I felt when I first found this site in the aftermath of Katrina. I've never written a diary before, but I love this place. After the 2004 election, my partner and I were burned out--we showed up at the occasional march, wrote the occasional check, but that was it. It was this community that motivated me to become a citizen again.
But I've been puzzled by the attitudes expressed here about the issue of election integrity. The indifference and contempt casually expressed towards people concerned about protecting our right to vote borders on the pathological.
Yes, there has always been voter fraud. But as we all know, the old-style tactics--voter suppression, ballot destruction--are now buttressed by a technology that can tamper with the vote count. The corporate vendors of this electoral infrastructure--Diebold, ES&S, Triad, etc--have Republican ties. The "malfunctions" that occurred in Ohio are well-documented. Yet by and large this issue gets no play on the front page, and is often rudely dismissed elsewhere. "Diebold diaries" tend to scroll down the recent diaries list (though SusanG's diary rescues have helped in that regard).
Not one activist or journalist working on election integrity has been invited to speak at yearlykos. Bizarrely, the election reform panel has been specifically designed to exclude discussion of this issue. Topics it will address instead include proportional representation and instant run off voting-- laudable long-term goals, but we need to talk about protecting elections now.
Why isn't this wonderful community confronting this threat to our democracy with all the energy and brilliance at its disposal? There is a disconnect between the pats on the back we give each other for "small victories"--engaging a wingnut at the watercooler, writing an LTE--and the blithe acceptance of voting machines capable of spitting up hundreds, even thousands, of extra Republican votes.
SusanG's Eeyore diary was an eye-opener to me:
What are you even doing here if you're completely convinced every facet of casting a vote is predetermined? Why invest the time? Daily Kos is, first and foremost, a site about the mechanics and strategy of getting progressives to the polls and winning campaigns.
I want to talk about winning elections; more importantly, I want to actually win them. To win them we have to have them. Yes the issue is a "buzzkill." But we don't come here just to get a buzz. We all want to save our democracy. A transparent electoral process is the mechanism of democracy; it has to be a part of any serious progressive agenda, and it should not be an ancillary issue on this site.
These are the main objections I've heard:
1. It's Just Another Conspiracy Theory
The phrase is supposed to express intelligent skepticism, but to invoke it in this context is simply irrational. We are not talking about little green men here. The evidence of tampering is available and it is abundant. If you're not convinced, beg, borrow, or steal a copy of Mark Crispin Miller's Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them): it's an easy read, and Miller is no loon.
"No evidence and "conspiracy theory" are phrases that every Republican has been programmed to spout when this issue is raised. These are talking points with no relation to reality, yet many people on this site have internalized them. They invoke evidentiary standards that they never would dream of invoking when assessing the likelihood, for example, that this administration is spying on its enemies for blatantly political purposes. We understand that the administration acquired the capacity to do so for a reason. Given that electoral malfeasance has already occurred, the demand for further proof before taking action does not seem reasonable.
2. "Get over 2004-- it's 2006."
Okay, you say, so election day in Ohio saw a broad range of electoral anomalies, not one of which resulted in a loss for Bush, and some people who were involved in tampering with the recount have even admitted it (see Miller's first chapter for affidavits etc.). It's 2006 now. The illogic of this response is clear: the Iraq War started in 2003 and most of us are not "over it." It's only if things have improved that the passage of time has any relevance.
3. We will be smeared as part of the lunatic fringe (or invite the charge of sour grapes) if we focus too much on this issue.
I'm sorry, but this is DLC-thinking. As people here point out every day, Repugs will call us names no matter what we do or say. It's wrong to be more concerned about being called paranoid or part of "the loony left" than with the future of our democracy. We just have to bust these frames and make new ones.
4. Republicans can't falsify a landslide.
This objection makes the most sense to me. It's why I keep donating time and money to campaigns. But given what we're up against in terms of the media, corporate interests, and the Christian right, it's foolhardly to pin our hopes on wide margins. In fact the MSM had no problem explaining away the unprecedented gap between the exit polls and the official tallies in 2004; the poll results were adjusted and everyone started pontificating about how Dems "just didn't get it" about values or gays or whatever.
At the very least, can we refrain from the easy caricaturing of people concerned about election integrity as fatalistic do-nothings? Why assume that, as a group, they are less active than other people who post here? The assumption has no empirical basis. I can't help but think its basis is psychological-- that it's projection: the community's response to its own (uncharacteristic) passivity where this issue is concerned. Accepting these machines is fatalistic; resisting them is not. "Roll up your damn sleeves and get to work and stop bellyaching about Diebold. Fuck Diebold" one poster said. I love the spirit behind this, but in fact we really do need to roll up our sleeves to "fuck Diebold." Nobody is going to protect our right to vote for us; we have to do it ourselves.
In one exchange I had here, someone said that he needed more proof before assenting to the idea that all his work was meaningless. But there is no amount of proof in the world, (of anything) that can compel us to assent to the idea that our efforts are meaningless. There is no reason why we can't pursue an integrated approach-- working like hell to get out the vote AND to protect each vote we deliver. At the very least, we can commit to shining a bright light on this issue and stop treating it as a trivial or crackpot concern.
I am not saying that every individual on this site should be working to protect our voting rights. I am saying that this issue deserves more attention from us as a group. I am relatively new to it, and I registered to attend yearlykos largely because I was hoping to talk to other people who care about it. Are any of you going to be there?