We might get a crook in an honest election, we are certain to get one from a crooked election.

IT WASN'T UNTIL I went back and looked at this post that I wrote almost twenty years ago about the urgent need to secure our elections FROM REPUBLICAN-FASCISM that I was reminded just how corrupt Little Bobby Kennedy is.   But being the kind of person who, if I have time,  I like to look into the topic I'm writing about and, in this case, mentioned as the inspiration of a post I wrote twenty years ago,  I  looked into that.  I'll post on that later.  

This has become far more urgent than it was even in 2006, I agree with Keith Edwards that it's clear trump and the Republican-fascists are actively trying to take over the mid-term election this year in order to prevent Democrats, especially those in targeted groups from voting or having their vote counted. 

Note that since 2006 and having expeienced both voting by mail and, especially, rank-choice voting - THAT IS VOTING TO GET YOUR SECOND CHOICE INSTEAD OF YOUR LAST CHOICE - I think both are absolutely essential to securing American democracy and improving that into an egalitarian democracy.   Of course, part of that is taking control of the postal service again, as is mandated in the Constitution, and making sure that a corrupt appointee and a corrupted board can't ratfuck the mail to the Republican-fascists advantage and to the advantage of the private corporations the likes of the putrid and blatatnly corrupt Louis DeJoy.   The half-century of Nixonian privitization of the postal service has been a corrupt failure, one that should never have been allowed. 

As for what I said then,  I warned you.  

Friday, June 02, 2006

OUR VOTE OUR BLOOD

Let me be clear, I am not being coy or ironic or clever. This is it folks, this is real, as real as we are going to see it in our lifetimes.

The Rolling Stone article by Robert F. Kennedy jr. and the headline article by Greg Pallast posted today on Buzzflash.com lay out the evidence that Ohio was stolen by the Republicans. Anymore reading them who says they don't believe the 2004 presidential race was stolen would have to have some conclusive evidence or they are lying. If they do, they must lay it out in its entirety for the world to see now or be forever judged as liars. But if that evidence was there they would have shown it already. They haven't so it isn't there.

We can't ignore this any longer. It's not exciting, it's not trendy, it's not sexy, it's entirely clear how it could be fixed so no one is going to gain a reputation for brilliance and become the toast of the scribbling class over it. It's only a question of whether the United States is a nation of laws and not of men, a democracy of a despotic oligarchy.

[Note 2026:  You will probably know by now that I've entirely lost any confidence that any kind of democracy except an egalitarian democracy will endure as any kind of a democracy.  American liberal democracy has not only proved to be incapable of fighting off the fascism which has been building and gathering strength since the 2000 election theft of Bush v Gore,  its holdings and character have contributed to that fascist takeover.  That is due in no small part to liberal democrats being entirely unwilling to address the problem and take the urgently needed steps to fight the fascists, especially the lawyers among them.]  

- We need one national ballot form for the national constitutional offices, President, Vice-President, Senator, Congressman. These are the only four offices that have a direct impact on us all. The citizens of the entire country have a right to these four offices being filled in a completely honest way. Everyone has a right to know that every congressman was chosen honestly, even in the district farthest from where they live. There is an overriding interest in the citizens of the entire country having an honestly chosen government strong enough to overcome constitutional objections. This is THE question of national integrity, not a detail of petty federalism.

- We need one form of ballot for those offices, no butterflies, no esthetic tampering. One form that a child learns in fourth grade and that doesn't change for as long as our form of government doesn't change. President, Vice-President, Congressman, Senator. One ballot for each office if there are that many candidates in a district but one form that is as familiar to a voter as a Lincoln penny. [Save the Lincoln penny and make it worth something, again.] 

- We need those ballots to be on paper, marked clearly by hand with an X or a check mark, either a valid mark. One ballot form, one thing for the voter to do. Both have worked for decades and there is no reason to fool with it.

- We need them to be counted by hand with observers from all parties. Those ballots are to be counted honestly, everywhere, every time. If local officials can't run a clean election it will be run by a higher level of government. If you don't like that, look at those clean, honest, simple and quick elections they've got in Canada run by Elections Canada. You can go to their web site and see how those practical people have managed simple methods for dealing with problems of disabled voters. Look now before the Conservative government starts trying to copy cat the United States to steal elections for themselves.

No electronic voting for the federal constitutional offices is to be tolerated. We have seen that electronic voting and vote tabulation is certain to give an inaccurate count and that's even when it isn't rigged to steal the election.

The results of two stolen presidential elections in a row are all the proof anyone needs that a crooked election gives us a crooked government. We might get a crook in an honest election, we are certain to get one from a crooked election. The elections of 2000 and 2004 have given us the disaster of Iraq and will produce at least one more disaster, probably in Iran. The Republicans who stole these elections are costing us in blood, in honor and in money. We cannot afford to nickel and dime democracy, the cost is staggeringly high if we continue to cheat ourselves out of honest elections.

Computers and modern research have allowed the Republican Party to destroy the last and best hope for a free people to govern themselves. We aren't living in an age where genteel comity and a bit of indulgence of petty theft can be smiled at. If the DC-NY scribblers and the law professors had the blood of their children and themselves at risk they might see it more clearly. There is nothing ironically amusing about it.

Update 2026:  I will have more to say about a lot of this, especially around the collapse of faith I once had in honest lawyers.   You can't have anyone who is relialble, even an honest lawyer who has conformed to an essentially crooked profession.   Or:  Why Greg Palast Didn't Go Bad While Little Bobby Did.