Uncounted Clip of the Week: It Ain’t Heavy, It’s My Election
In response to the 2004 electronic voting machine debacle, hundreds of locally-based Election Integrity groups were formed in cities across the country by brave patriots who knew they could no longer trust our electoral system. The formation of these groups – and accompanying journalists, bloggers, activists, filmmakers, and writers - was grass roots citizen vigilance at its finest. And even though by 2006, as this clip from UNCOUNTED shows, the mainstream media (including MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Joe Scarborough, and CNN’s Lou Dobbs) had caught on to the electronic voting machine problems, the heavy lifting of protecting our vote was left up to the men and women who started the Election Integrity movement.
It’s no different now as the manufactured false narrative of “voter fraud” by community-based organizations like ACORN spreads like wild fire through the 24-hour news cycle. What is different, though, is that after four years of these amazing grass roots activists spreading their knowledge through web sites, articles, emails, books, movies, and comics, the power is back in the hands of the people who are sharing the heavy load of protecting our democracy. Every day, in response to stories of systematic attempts of voter suppression in precincts all over the country - voter roll purging, intimidation, etc., - additional stories are reported of these attempts being thwarted.
It’s three weeks before an historic election – an election that could once again have Keith Olbermann reporting that the “final outcome could rest on compromised vote counts.” But knowledge is power, so use the power your knowledge of our compromised election system gives you to question, to challenge, and to never, ever let anyone tell you that you can’t vote.
October 21st, 2008 at 7:39 pm
It is scandalous that we don’t have integrity in our voting system.
Private partisan companies gain unregulated access to insufficiently secure untraceable machines… that’s just absurd! And the height of national idiocy to tolerate it.
We need open source systems so the security can be peer reviewed. Proper security is not based on obscurity, it is better to have the mechanism very well thought through and bullet proof/
There must be paper trails for all votes. Nothing less is even a little acceptable and only one intending to commit fraud would should put up with paperless voting. There needs to be a way to verify the accuracy of the vote. That’s fundamental.
The company that promised to deliver OH to Bush didn’t see fit to put a paper trail on their voting machines like they do on the ATMs they make. That seems criminal.