Although there continues to be quite a bit of debate as to whether the 2004 presidential election was 'stolen', there are few who can say that the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections were shining examples of democracy in action.
Whether or not you are convinced that electronic voting machines have been hacked, you cannot deny that they could be in the future. Also, there has been widespread documentation about various conspiracies (i.e. phone banks misleading voters about voting times and/or locations, limiting the number of machines, etc.) to suppress the rights of people to vote.
Here's the catch, though, as highlighted in the Supreme Court decision in the 2000 race, we don't have a right to vote (or at least to have the votes counted)!
more after the hump...
While there are many speculating about the return of the House and/or Senate from the dark side and the possibility of impeachment (of at least Cheney), we need to be concerned with all of those who no longer believe that their votes actually mean anything.
The first and most important issue for reform is the electoral process itself. If we have any hope of regaining the House and/or Senate we must not only encourage more people to vote, but also to discourage those who feel their votes didn't count in 2000 & 2004 from becoming inactive.
My suggestion is to propose a constitutional amendment to guarantee a right to vote, and to have that vote counted (and recounted) securely.
Amendment 28: The Voting Rights Amendment
1. Whereas passionate participation in the democratic process is the lifeblood of democracy, the right of each and every United States citizen to vote in public election is inviolate, and any conspiracy to deprive citizens of their right to vote either through deception, threat or physical force is to be considered an act of high treason.
2. Whereas the existence of a democracy demands that no one vote carries more weight than another, and the need to preserve democracy outweighs any perceived damage to candidates for office from the lack of an expedient counting, no federal election results shall be certified until all legible legitimate ballots have been counted.
3. Whereas the right of every voter to have their vote counted accurately and to preserve the integrity of their ballot supercedes the right of candidates and/or local elections officials to an expedient counting process, a standardized paper ballot must be available to any voter who requests one, for advance balloting or on election day, in all federal elections. A separate ballot will be issued for each state, and will consist of a single column, separated into individual offices, containing all candidates in both print and in braille, plus a line for a write-in preceded by a box for the voter to record their intended vote. The ballots must be available for public inspection one month prior to the day of the election.
4. Whereas the sanctity of the ballot must be preserved, all ballots cast in federal elections are the property of the federal government, and any alteration, concealment, or destruction thereof may be considered evidence of conspiracy as per section 1.
