Our votes WILL count…and, this is how we will do it - PICTURE YOUR VOTE!

I have a plan and like most plans that are destined for success, it is very simple. On November 4th, election day, when you get into the voting booth, take out your camera phone, take out your driver’s license or government issued photo ID and once you have made your selection on the electronic voting screen, TAKE A PICTURE OF YOUR VOTE. That is it. Nothing similar to the theory of cold fusion or anything remotely related to rocket sciences or physics. Just a simple plan, PICTURE YOUR VOTE. (Please note that the picture at the left is for illustrative purposes only.)

Ok, I will admit it. Some of the pundits have gotten to me. I am already a little left of center, however, my policies and beliefs are shaped by my steadfast belief that God gave us a free choice of will for a reason, but we will talk about that in a future post. I am usually able to see both sides clearly and can honestly say that both Democrats and Republicans have valid points. However, this week, I have done a little research and believe that writer Andrew Gumbel (“Steal this Vote: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy”) and director David Earnhardt (“Uncounted - The New Math of American Elections”) have earned a prominent place in my blog because they have inspired - PICTURE YOUR VOTE. With private companies producing the technology that counts our votes, there is some concern that the voting machines can be manipulated to produce whatever results are desired. In the past, there have such allegations; however, there is a problem with proving this as almost all of these machines HAVE NO AUDIT TRAIL. After you make your selection, the screen says “SUBMITTED” or “COMPLETE,” however, several organizations call these black boxes, in that once your vote goes in, they could well be a black hole that swallows your vote.

Most states do not have auditable electronic voting systems, and because they do not, I believe that it is the citizen’s right to find a workable stop-gap. And just as an aside, my previous comment about “most states” is just an attempt to be generous as I have not come across a state that uses an electronic voting system that provides voters with a print out or paper ballot in order that voters can verify the accuracy of the electronic voting system. I am not suggesting that any impropriety may occur during the 2008 elections, however, I just caution every citizen and make them aware that there is a possibility that your vote may not count. And, this occurrence is not acceptable in a democracy such as ours.

I am a resident of Virginia and in my state we have electronic voting machines. I do not know the manufacturer of the machines used in my state and I will not go into a long narrative about how these machines can be manipulated, but let’s just go with the belief that not only can they be manipulated to produce results that the voters may not have intended (which is a reprehensible and nefarious possibility), but that the machines can break (not such a wicked proposition, but still in the realm of possibility). Really, readers, voting machines are simply computers run by code that are written by brilliant techs and programmers who can write, re-write and hide any type of code that they desire. Further, the voting systems are just machines that can and do malfunction... In 2004, there were between 4 and 6 million uncounted votes and the blame was squarely placed on broken voting machines. I am a little bewildered that the companies who manufacture voting machines are unable or unwilling to develop a voting system that prints out a paper receipt of your vote. But, what really boggles my mind is that these same companies are in the business of the development, construction and technological implementation of ATM machines, which are able to spit out receipts for each and every transaction so that the user can confirm what they deposited and receive a record of their use. This is in support of audit and has the added benefit of reducing ATM fraud or theft; however, the same technology that protects our deposits cannot or has not been implemented to protect our vote.

As citizens, we have a right to demand an audit trail. We have a right to demand that our vote is counted. If your vote is not counted, how can you have a voice? How can we ensure that for every citizen that exercises his or her right to vote, there is a verifiable vote attributable to that citizen. The electronic voting machines do not have this capability, therefore, I suggest that we do our part to reduce allegations of voter fraud and restore confidence in the belief that our vote will count. Let us not wait until the morning of November 5th and begin to vilify the state election officials and scream at various government officials for not doing their jobs when we have no proof outside of exit polls that we voted in any particular fashion. We need an audit trail and if we demand one, our voices will be heard.

So until our states respond to our demands for voter ballot verification, I think we should follow this simple plan on election day (and as an aside, why isn’t Election Day a federal holiday like it is in other nations…just asking):

1. On Election Day, make sure you have your state issued photo ID and if possible your Voter Registration Card (if you do not have one, request a copy because it will tell you where you are registered to vote and the location of your polling place) to speed verification of your voting status.

2. Stand in line, be patient and wait. (Do not be surprised if the voting machines breakdown or malfunction, they are just machines. Be kind and considerate to poll workers, most of them are volunteers trying to help your voice be heard.)

3. Go into your voting booth with your camera phone at the ready;

4. Make your selection (now here is where it can get tricky, depending on your state’s voting machines, your voting system may not have a confirmation screen that indicates who you voted for, so this step may need to occur before you hit submit/confirm or whatever button appears on the screen for you to make your final selection)

5. Take a picture of your selection with your state issued ID clearly, making sure that whoever sees the picture has a clear image of your selection and your ID (I used my sorority membership card for illustrative purposes, but please use your state issued identification).

6. Save the picture.

That’s it. That is the brilliant plan to provide an audit trail of our vote. Please note that this is not a rant against electronic voting. I believe that the technology can and does work. The upside of electronic voting is that it is much easier for our state officials to declare a winner in a race, the downside is that the system is not infallible, they can breakdown, be hacked in to and the results can be manipulated. Without an audit trail to show how each citizen in an election voted, there will always be those that decry the technology and rail about fraud each time the election does not produce the results that they desire.

Remember, it is your vote and your right to have your voice heard. Please be aware and regardless of whether you are RED or BLUE, make certain that your vote counts. PICTURE YOUR VOTE!

Just a final note, please check with your state and/or local election officials to ensure that you may take pictures inside the polling locations. There are different rules for each municipality or state.

If you want to know more about these issues, please visit any of the following sites:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/
http://www.truthout.org/

For questions about your voter registration status go to the following website and click the link for your state -
http://www.eac.gov/voter/how-to-contact-your-state-election-office

Can we all agree that sometimes, some statements are just “PEJORATIVE”?

I realize that sometimes I am a little sensitive to certain things. Maybe it is because of my upbringing or my cultural background. Maybe it is because of my gender or my race. Quite frankly, I do not know what makes me sensitive when men call me girl (or when I am further south and “girl” turns into “gal” or “guhl” or when someone referred to me today as a “cute chiquita”) or when someone refers to me as something other than my name. Such comments are meant to be pejorative as their sole purpose is to disparage the hearer or belittle the person to whom such commentary is directed. I have no problem with “miss” or “ma’am” or even a “hey you.” Presumably, the intent of the latter is to get my attention or refer to me in a non-combative manner, while the former are pejorative.

Last night, I was watching the second Presidential Debate and the attitude of Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama. During the course of this debate and the first one, I do not recall Senator McCain calling Senator Obama by his name. Rather I remember McCain indicating that he was referring to Obama by motioning with his hand or head or using “he” or “him” which was fine. Last night however, McCain when discussing energy resources did not motion with his hand or call Obama “him” or “he,” instead he said talked about a bill he voted for and said something to the effect of “you know who voted for it? You might never know, THAT ONE” and pointed to Obama (as if we did not know who he was referring to). In reality, this is just one of the issues I have with McCain based on his performance in the debate. The other is his response to an African American man who had a question about the economic crisis. McCain's response was "but you know, one of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I'll bet you, you may never even have heard of them before this crisis." Why would a person who is concerned about the woeful state of the American economy NOT have heard of Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae? However, I am not about to go there...

While I would expect McCain to be frustrated and disappointed with recent poll numbers, I would not expect him to act like…well, like THAT. What he did smacked of hostility and utter contempt towards someone who has served as his colleague in the Senate for the past two years. It is ironic that someone touts his ability to reach across the aisle could not even look across the foot and a half expanse that separated them and refer to him as anything else but “THAT ONE.” While the majority of the debate was forgettable, that one statement will be remembered and debated for some time.

Guess, what? It’s STILL the economy, stupid…

About 16 years ago, a brilliant man said “it’s the economy, stupid” and began a campaign to unravel the presidency of someone who I will refer to as B1. B1 paid attention to all sorts of foreign policy issues, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end the Cold War and created others, such as the Persian Gulf War. What he failed to do was address important domestic policies in a time when the country was struggling to get out of a recession. It feels almost like déjà vu, but today, we have another president, B2, who has created and helped further havoc and chaos on the world stage by starting wars, destabilizing regions, tumbling the economic markets and destroying what was left of domestic tranquility by turning our budget surplus into a deficit of over $50 TRILLION DOLLARS (a number so large that even the nimblest economist has trouble fathoming the length of time it will take us to get out of this muck).

B2, governmental appointees, elected officials and their collective knowledge bases when coupled with all of these modern day plagues, have helped create the environment for a perfect storm that could result in an economic meltdown of the world financial markets. Not to preach doom and gloom, but right now, America and the economy has been bushwhacked, bamboozled and led astray. Our politicians are struggling with ways to change what seems to be our ever expanding debt and economic trouble. Unemployment is up, the financial markets are down, foreclosures are up, savings are down…look, I could go on and on with my ups and downs (all of which are negative), but I presume my readers are getting the gist of what I am saying. We are going through some stuff and I believe that it will get worse before it can get better.

Now here is where I get to ranting -- the $700 BILLION DOLLAR economic package recently passed by Congress is just a small percentage of the U.S. deficit, and some would ask, what’s the big deal? The big deal is that we, the American taxpayers cannot afford another penny, that’s what. We are footing the bill by spending more than $10 billion dollars a month (which in case you are wondering, this works out to approximately $2.4 billion dollars a week, more than $340 million dollars a day, $14 million dollars an hour and $238,425 a minute) in Iraq when that country has a budgetary surplus (guess they are smarter than us because we are footing the bill for their government and infrastructure when they have money and we do not…we can only hope that China will be as benevolent when it comes time for us to repay some of the money we owe them). We are losing our homes. Our 401k accounts are in the shrinking at an alarming rate and for those who have retired or hope to retire in the next 3-5 years, they do not have the time to wait for the economy bounce back. Our children are having a more difficult time getting student loans, so they are cannot afford an education in order to get a job, which is somewhat moot anyway since unemployment is up. Our savings are non-existent. We are losing our jobs. Our credit cards that we relied on to help bridge the gap between what we brought in and what we needed have dried up. The big deal is that the majority of Americans are catching hell. And, let me add a bit of a qualifier to my previous statement. I realize that many believe that there are some Americans who will not feel the effects of this economic down turn because they are have money to burn, however, it is one thing to burn your own money and quite another for some CEO to burn it for you.

It’s STILL the economy and our economy is teetering on the brink. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Recession is natural, depression is not. If we can just have our politicians and their appointees do sensible things and make the necessary changes in budgetary spending, we can emerge as a better, stronger America. However, we need a change and we cannot afford to wait because it would just be stupid to do so…