The United States now stands at one of the lowest points in our 230-year history. Everything is broken, what should we fix first? (We could fire Don Rumsfeld, but the only person who can do it is the only person who doesn’t get it.)
We have some influence over the process that got us into all these messes in the first place. In 2000, election tampering in Florida gave the White House to George W. Bush. In 2004, election tampering in Ohio kept him there.
After the 2000 debacle, any number of citizens realized we need to 1) wrest control of our elections from the Republican-aligned makers of computer voting machines and 2) every citizen’s ballot must be recorded on a voter-verified paper ballot.
Those types of ballots are now required by 26 states, so if there’s a question about the outcome of an election in those states, an accurate recount can be made. No such guarantee is available in other states (mostly states that went for Bush in 2000 and 2004. Hmmmm…) In Congress, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) introduced the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 550) in February 2005. Mr. Holt’s bill would set a national requirement for verifiable ballot technology. Good-government groups across the country have called the bill the “gold standard” for electoral transparency.
For over a year, the Holt bill has been kept far from the light of day. Republican leaders of Congress assigned the bill to the Committee on House Administration and its chairman, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) locked it in a procedural dungeon.
(Is it a coincidence that Mr. Ney is from Ohio and that suspicious Election Day activities in 2004 gave the race to George Bush? The Ohio Republican Party is awash in fraud. The outgoing governor, Bob Taft, and his top fundraiser are tangled in a mesh of ethics violations, gold coins and $12 million in missing state funds. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who hopes to be governor soon, is dogged by his own ethical problems, many relating to election oversight. Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis of the Columbus Free Press have been breaking news on all these shenanigans. http://www.freepress.org/index2.php)
In January, Mr. Ney was subpoenaed in the Jack Abramoff influence-buying case and subsequently resigned his chairmanship. (Mr. Ney has not resigned from Congress and has announced his intention to run for re-election. An Ohio newspaper this week quotes Mr. Ney as telling Republicans at a fundraiser, “I’m not going nowhere.” His subconscious seems to be undermining his grammar. By using the double negative he’s trying to tell us he IS going somewhere, probably to jail.)
The House Administration Committee’s new chairman, Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) has said he will schedule hearings on the Holt Bill. Meanwhile 168 members of Congress have co-sponsored the bill. A majority in the House is comprised by 218 members, so Mr. Holt needs 50 more of his colleagues to sign on to make his bill a slam-dunk.
It would be nice to have Mr. Holt’s bill become law before this year’s elections, but there’s little chance of that happening. The House is in recess now and since this is an election year, it will be recessed frequently, so incumbents can shake down corporations for cash in the months ahead.
While Mr. Ehlers may allow hearings to go forward in the next few months, it’s unlikely GOP leaders will let this come up for a vote and also unlikely that Mr. Integrity in the Oval Office will sign it. Another reason to take back Congress.
There will be town meetings between now and November, so if your rep isn’t on the co-sponsor list for HR 550 (see below), grab his or her coat sleeve when she or he’s in town and let your feeling be known.
Where to Start
The United States now stands at one of the lowest points in our 230-year history. Everything is broken, what should we fix first? (We could fire Don Rumsfeld, but the only person who can do it is the only person who doesn’t get it.)
We have some influence over the process that got us into all these messes in the first place. In 2000, election tampering in Florida gave the White House to George W. Bush. In 2004, election tampering in Ohio kept him there.
After the 2000 debacle, any number of citizens realized we need to 1) wrest control of our elections from the Republican-aligned makers of computer voting machines and 2) every citizen’s ballot must be recorded on a voter-verified paper ballot.
Those types of ballots are now required by 26 states, so if there’s a question about the outcome of an election in those states, an accurate recount can be made. No such guarantee is available in other states (mostly states that went for Bush in 2000 and 2004. Hmmmm…) In Congress, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) introduced the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 550) in February 2005. Mr. Holt’s bill would set a national requirement for verifiable ballot technology. Good-government groups across the country have called the bill the “gold standard” for electoral transparency.
For over a year, the Holt bill has been kept far from the light of day. Republican leaders of Congress assigned the bill to the Committee on House Administration and its chairman, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) locked it in a procedural dungeon.
(Is it a coincidence that Mr. Ney is from Ohio and that suspicious Election Day activities in 2004 gave the race to George Bush? The Ohio Republican Party is awash in fraud. The outgoing governor, Bob Taft, and his top fundraiser are tangled in a mesh of ethics violations, gold coins and $12 million in missing state funds. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who hopes to be governor soon, is dogged by his own ethical problems, many relating to election oversight. Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis of the Columbus Free Press have been breaking news on all these shenanigans. http://www.freepress.org/index2.php)
In January, Mr. Ney was subpoenaed in the Jack Abramoff influence-buying case and subsequently resigned his chairmanship. (Mr. Ney has not resigned from Congress and has announced his intention to run for re-election. An Ohio newspaper this week quotes Mr. Ney as telling Republicans at a fundraiser, “I’m not going nowhere.” His subconscious seems to be undermining his grammar. By using the double negative he’s trying to tell us he IS going somewhere, probably to jail.)
The House Administration Committee’s new chairman, Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) has said he will schedule hearings on the Holt Bill. Meanwhile 168 members of Congress have co-sponsored the bill. A majority in the House is comprised by 218 members, so Mr. Holt needs 50 more of his colleagues to sign on to make his bill a slam-dunk.
It would be nice to have Mr. Holt’s bill become law before this year’s elections, but there’s little chance of that happening. The House is in recess now and since this is an election year, it will be recessed frequently, so incumbents can shake down corporations for cash in the months ahead.
While Mr. Ehlers may allow hearings to go forward in the next few months, it’s unlikely GOP leaders will let this come up for a vote and also unlikely that Mr. Integrity in the Oval Office will sign it. Another reason to take back Congress.
There will be town meetings between now and November, so if your rep isn’t on the co-sponsor list for HR 550 (see below), grab his or her coat sleeve when she or he’s in town and let your feeling be known.
© Mark Floegel, 2006
List of HR 550 co-sponsors:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d109:550:./list/bss/d109HR.lst:@@@P%7CTOM:/bss/d109query.html%7C