(Title poached from this lovely collection by Ray Bradbury.)
Rather wiped out after a long day in the belly of the Big Orange One and walking the 5.3 miles between every event and every other event at Planet McCormick Place (A fine facility, but from some internal angles, feels like the love child Albert Speer and a dentist’s waiting room.)
Still, if you stretch, stay hydrated, pace yourself and don’t wander off the trail where you can be mauled and eaten by Shriners, you’ll be fine.
The conference itself is interesting and a rich vein of raw bloggy material, but for now, before I crawl into my spider hole under the bridge at Columbus and Roosevelt and sleep for three hours, let me just say that Howard Dean was, as always, rousing, two-fisted and hopeful. He announced that Democrats are finally getting serious about having a fucking ground game, and part of it involves you.
So for those of you who long to do something practical and effective that A) projects your power as a citizen from right where you are sitting and yet, B) requires virtually zero capital outlay, Dr. Dean asks that every progressive out there get in touch with their federal elected officials and asked them to push H.R.811 (The “Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007”)
It is not a very long bill (you can “Thomas” it here) but the lean, center-cut heart of it is this: The radical notion that we should count and verify every fucking vote
...
`(i) VERIFICATION- (I) The voting per ballot of the voter's vote that shall be created by or made available for inspection and verification by the voter before the voter's vote is cast and counted. For purposes of this subclause, examples of such a ballot include a paper ballot marked by the voter for the purpose of being counted by hand or read by an optical scanner or other similar device, a paper ballot prepared by the voter to be mailed to an election official (whether from a domestic or overseas location), a paper ballot created through the use of a ballot marking device or system, or a paper ballot produced by a touch screen or other electronic voting machine, so long as in each case the voter is permitted to verify the ballot in a paper form in accordance with this subparagraph.
`(II) The voting system shall provide the voter with an opportunity to correct any error made by the system in the voter-verified paper ballot before the permanent voter-verified paper ballot is preserved in accordance with clause (ii)
No, not a speck of complicated, tax-and-spend, terrorist-luvin' or Socialist to be found anywhere in it, and just about the best low-personal-risk/high-reward project you could ask for.
Just a call.
A letter.
Maybe ask a pal to send one too.
Literally costs less than the change in your pocket, and no more perilous or exhausting than ordering a pizza. And you get to Do Good on the cheap!
Because, as the good Doctor pointed out, as we approach the 40th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, it’d be kinda nice if, among other things, we actually counted every vote.
Seems to me like the least I could do.
And never let it be said that I wouldn’t to the least I could do.
11 comments:
I was wondering if you were gracing YK07 with your esteemed presence, while remaining true to you driftglassian self. ;-)
At the very least they could put you on their front page blogroll! Perhaps a little Chicago-style conversation with Sub-Commander Markos...
us blues,
I'll stick with the groundlings and the serving wenches: they're always interesting, and always know where the best parties are :-)
Are you staying undercover?
jinx
leigh,
Yes. Staying stealthy and peripheral.
Pinch a wench for me DG.
pwapvt
Watch out, Kossacks!
I won't argue over the virtues of partying with the serving wenches. (Controls rising flood of envy).
It's just that, as a loyal reader, I'd love to see you get the R-E-S-P-E-C-T you so rightly deserve.
Party on, dude!!
Hidey Hi! The lone blogger transcends again...
Slainte' ya lucky sob!
If you don't come back with a torrid tale or two, well, you'd better have a good excuse.
-skunqesh
DG: I'm sittin' on the floor squeezing the last few mins of free wireless outta this conference. Sorry you stayed incognito, but at least I knew we shared the same space for awhile. Just like I feel at a Springsteen concert.
Hey, re: the Holt Bill - I work in elections and the bill has some very serious flaws in it, not the least of which is the requirement to throw out the DRE baby with the bath water before Nov 2008. Election systems are like the Titanic - they're cumbersome and hard to move. And many states have just spent most of their meager budgets to buy them.
Voter confidence must be restored. You got that right. But moving quickly to be reactive and trying to reconfigure elections systems before the next election just opens up the system to even MORE shenanigans by the wrong folks. Secure what they've got, test the machines, increase security now and - by my lights - start moving to the most secure voting system in America: vote by mail.
Check it out at: www.oregonvotes.org. Every ballot is signed on the outside envelope. Every signature is checked by an actual trained human being against the signature on that person's voter reg card BEFORE THE ENVELOPE IS EVEN OPENED... Our centralized voter registration database - a requirement of HAVA which few states have gotten around to yet because they're lacking funding - means nobody can vote twice, unlike "hybrid elections" (those with polling places and absentee voting).
I could go on and on. If you're interested, also go to: www.votebymailproject.org.
We've done a lot of crazy things in this country out of fear. Let's think about our elections systems before tossing them out. Every state is different and the Holt Bill has sections that don't align with laws in many states. It would create a very sloppy and inept series of dominoes falling.
I love Gov. Dean but he's wrong on this one.
Still love you, however.
MAC
MAC,
Thanks for the good information. This is exactly why I love the blogosphere :-)
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