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Senators Boxer and Clinton and Rep. Tubb-Jones are sponsoring some excellent legislation on election reform to help prevent the crooked shenanigans of the last two presidential elections that looks much more effective than the Help America Vote Act. You can help support the effort by signing moveon.org's petition here.
However, my main reservation with this legislation is this part:
In particular, the bill restricts the ability of chief state election officials as well as owners and senior managers of voting machine manufacturers to engage in certain kinds of political activity.
I'll hold these reservations until I see the actual legislation and exactly what political activities it is restricting and how effective the solutions it proposes are in this regard. The electronic voting machine companies are all Republican affiliated, and being big bucks, they're always going to be affiliated with whoever is in power. If the audits and mandatory paper trails do turn out to be effective enough to detect and rectify any fraud, they can't prevent breakdowns, planned or unplanned, that will have the same effect on limiting voter enfranchisement that all the tricks of these last couple elections allowed.
There needs to be a provision that no electronic failure is acceptable--including the claim that the company can't write the new program in time for the election (which is part of what made the Help America Vote legislation a complete joke) and an election will not be called until all problems in that election are rectified no matter how many months it takes--because coordinating electronic malfunctions, genuine or planned, and the judicial process takes that long. Without that clause, there is no way we can prevent the rigging of electronic voting and all this legislation will be moot. The attempt to "rig" must be assumed when dealing with private industry--it translates as "competitive business practices". That's what capitalism is about. To harbor such suspicions does not make one a conspiracy theorist, but merely someone who isn't a complete sucker and mark.
I'm still an advocate of the paper ballot, moreso after this past election than before, to get electronic business interests out of the equation of voter enfranchisement, but you know, not a capitalist here to begin with.
However, my main reservation with this legislation is this part:
In particular, the bill restricts the ability of chief state election officials as well as owners and senior managers of voting machine manufacturers to engage in certain kinds of political activity.
I'll hold these reservations until I see the actual legislation and exactly what political activities it is restricting and how effective the solutions it proposes are in this regard. The electronic voting machine companies are all Republican affiliated, and being big bucks, they're always going to be affiliated with whoever is in power. If the audits and mandatory paper trails do turn out to be effective enough to detect and rectify any fraud, they can't prevent breakdowns, planned or unplanned, that will have the same effect on limiting voter enfranchisement that all the tricks of these last couple elections allowed.
There needs to be a provision that no electronic failure is acceptable--including the claim that the company can't write the new program in time for the election (which is part of what made the Help America Vote legislation a complete joke) and an election will not be called until all problems in that election are rectified no matter how many months it takes--because coordinating electronic malfunctions, genuine or planned, and the judicial process takes that long. Without that clause, there is no way we can prevent the rigging of electronic voting and all this legislation will be moot. The attempt to "rig" must be assumed when dealing with private industry--it translates as "competitive business practices". That's what capitalism is about. To harbor such suspicions does not make one a conspiracy theorist, but merely someone who isn't a complete sucker and mark.
I'm still an advocate of the paper ballot, moreso after this past election than before, to get electronic business interests out of the equation of voter enfranchisement, but you know, not a capitalist here to begin with.
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Yeah--I think I've heard that one, but I might be confusing it with Dorothy Osborne's comment to William Temple. I'm not at all familiar with Lady Ranelagh--was the comment in a letter? Have you seen Dorothy Osborne's comments?--what I remember is hilarious, along the lines of, "Oh that Margaret Cavendish is so outrageous for writing such crazy things! BTW, William, when you go to London could you pick me up the latest edition of her poems?" LOL!
It sounds like you've got some nice collegial people to work with--that's great--and the Perdita Project!!!. And I love your description of your reaction to encountering a real First Folio--heeeee!
From:
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Keep up all your good political work though! I'm impressed that you have time to do all this on top of being a PhD student, but it's really an inspiration to me. :)