Excellent article! And so right on. The “blame Joe Voter” theme is bothersome, especially as these same folks doing the accusing give a free pass to privatization of the vote tabulation mechanism and believe a centralized computerized voter registration database (also privatized or in the control of partisan secretaries of state) will end all problems encountered on election day. It’s hogwash. The centralized database will disenfranchise more voters in the upcoming elections than lack of machines. Not only will they (private voting corporations/supporters of GOP & wealthy elitist Dems too) control the vote count, but they’ll control who gets to vote. The provisional ballot was another band-aid that failed miserably to protect voting rights.
A centralized database will provide them with an easier way to manipulate voting stats as well. As they tried to claim that 9 million “value voters” came out in support of Bush in 2004, they were hard pressed to find the stats to support the claims. Well, it’ll be much easier for them to say change party affiliation from now on, and they of course have targeted the
Hispanic vote (easily identified by last name in many cases) as they want California real bad next time around. California’s Secretary of State Kevin
Shelley helped prevent the “upset” in 2004 by removing thousands of Diebold electronic voting machines last April from the election for having
installed “uncertified software” without approval, which may have cost him his job (he resigned March 1 after coming under fire in December for supposedly
mismanaging federal election funds; he has not been charged with breaking any laws).
Received Mar. 15 in reply to CounterPunch article on “The Fix-It Guys and their Electoral Filters”. See more of Kat’s work at http://www.donotconcede.com/
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