Discussion On Voters’ Bill of rights

> 3. Hold It Right There, Dan!!
> From: Al Gray

>Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2004 14:12:44 -0700
> From: Al Gray
>Subject: Hold It Right There, Dan!!
>
>
>Stop this nonsense talk right now. We don’t need a voter’s bill of
>rights. And we for sure don’t need mandatory voting. I will fight to keep
>my right to NOT vote. They already have mandatory voting in Australia.
>Talk to the Aussie man on the street and see if it has brought them good
>government. It ain’t what I’m hearing!!
>
>
>What matters it if 40 thousand people or 40 million people vote, if all
>they have to choose between is two representatives of the Skull and
>Bones? Just suppose for a moment that we all had voted in this last
>election. What would that have changed? Bush would simply have stolen
>more votes.
>
>
>The problem is systemic, Dan. The system has to be changed. More laws on
>top of the laws we already have won’t fix the system. Especially when
>those who are charged with protecting the rights we already have are the
>ones who are the violators of those rights.
>
>
>Dragon
>

Al,

Maybe the mandatory vote thing is too far, but yes we do need constitutional level vote reform. These items in particular eliminate the two party system and special interest funding of candidates if applied at the constitutional level, especially number 6. You would have far more than two choices at the ballot box. That particular provision would break down barriers to citizens running for office and numbers 5 and 8 gut the special interest involvement.

The ideas I outlined are a good place to start the debate, but vote reform must be added to the constitution in such a fashion that it can not be misinterpreted and such cheating as thie past elections are rendered illegal and very severely punishable. You need the most basic voting law in the land to go all out against influence, barriers, and cheating, and not necessarily in that order.

Given our recent experience and the current gross vulnerability of our election process, we need to address this in the legal structure of our society even if other measures are taken.

I’m still not convinced that voting shouldn’t be mandatory, in conjunction with a legal structure that makes cheating all but impossible. Certainly education in the basics of how to vote as people come of voting age should be done at the least, including why to vote. Voting is our most basic right and duty once we take ourselves back to an actual representative democracy.

In hindsight, strict constitutional law preventing gross interference, influencing, and tampering with the vote is an omission in our constitution that has greatly jeopardized our nation’s foundations.

In addition to correcting the legal structure of voting in this country, we are now faced with the daunting task of getting corporate influence out of our sitting government. Both are equally critical, the latter without the former just garners a "reset" instead of tilting the system away from the potential for a repeat of this same problem a few decades further down the line. The former without the latter leaves us with no real enforcement of and obstacles to enacting the necessary legal reform.

We are in deep hooey, and not only does the pit need to be washed clean, but the spigot that lets it in needs to be closed forever.

And no I will not stop "this nonsense talk". It is not nonsense and I have the right to freedom of speech in this country as of yet. We need to change the laws that govern our elections to prevent corruption of the system and then vote the corporate cronies out. Otherwise we accomplish nothing lasting.

Dan

2. Make it impossible to cheat. Get rid of the electronics and
mechanicals, period, and go to hand counted paper ballots with multiple
and multi-partisan witnesses to the count, and multiple multipartisan
witnesses to the tabulation counts. No machines, no computers. We need
un-hackable vote counts much more than we need instant results. We do
not need a McVote, we need home cookin’. Anything less is worthless. All
paper ballots are sealed after the election and retained and secured in
their proper jurisdiction for no less than fifty years.

5. Require the media to give equal air time to each candidate for office
at each level for free for the two months preceeding the election in
return for the right to do business in this country.

6. Eliminate all requirements for a candidate running for office to be
on the ballots other than age, citizenship, and not be a felon currently
serving their sentence. (When you’ve served your time you can then run
in the next election.)

8. No one can donate one red cent to any candidate for office on pain of
life in prison. Each candidate gets two million dollars or the
equivalent in 2004 dollars from the US Treasury to run their campaign
six months ahead of the election, and must return any unused funds to
the US treasury of face felony theft charges. Anything over $2 mil, they
pay out of pocket.