REMINDERS OF KATHERINE HARRIS AND FLORIDA’S INFAMOUS 2000 ELECTION
Nancy Tobi, who writes on voter integrity says “Congress is about to ‘just say yes’ to permanent secret vote counting,” in an article for OnlineJournal.com. She quotes Joseph Stalin on centralized control of voting: “Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” With this said, Congress is about to pass an election reform bill, HR811, that turns over vote counting to the White House. I couldn’t fathom giving Bush this control, but it isn’t the kind of authority that should be given to any president. Kenneth Janda, professor of political science at Northwestern U., compares our decentralized structure of government with less-fortunate countries around the world. He said, “The Framers of the U.S. Constitution were extremely wary of the potential dangers of concentrating power in any single political institution, and so deliberately undertook to divide authority among different branches and levels of government.” In 2002, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) gave total control over voting system standards to four presidential appointees. In keeping with GWB’s already established reputation, these four people are the “deciders,” and they answer to the president. Tobi tells us about VoteTrustUSA, a grassroots organization which is one of the biggest supporters of HR811, and who has ties to ChoicePoint, the guys who helped launch the identity crisis. They were also instrumental in the 2000 Florida election supplying flawed data to Secretary of State Katherine Harris’ office, on potential felons on the voter registration list who weren’t. ChoicePoint already has several government contracts, and the wife of the president of ChoicePoint, Doug Curling, is a big supporter of VoteTrustUSA. Proponents of the bill say it is the best they can get passed by Congress, not that it is the best for the American people. Are these the kind of congressional leaders we want running the greatest country in the world?
1 comment:
The phrase "greatest country in the world" is one we have heard, referring to America, all of our lives. To some the phrase means "We are rich, and we are powerful, and our economy makes us great". But as with people, what makes a country great is not wealth and power, which can be transient, but the principles we live by. Those principles for the U.S. are precisely those expressed in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. It is those principles alone that make us great. That is why we must guard them zealously and understand that they above all diffuse power through checks and balances. Properly maintained, checks and balances can allow us to sustain our greatness. Without them we will decline as all authoritarian societies always do. Americans will become subjugated either internally by our own government, or weakened so much that outside forces will take us over. Checks and balances start with voting. No cheating, no stealing can take place when human eyes, citizens, are watching the process each step of the way. That cannot happen with the use of technology.
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