X'posted to Dailykos

Not all of us who advocate for verified voting are doomsayers who do no actual work.

Some of us have been doing work at the grassroots level before 98% of the people in the blogosphere even knew or cared what these machines were. I'll use myself as an example, years ago when Diebold was still considered "hunky dory" in California, I led a letter writing campaign to then Democratic Secretary of State Kevin Shelley. This letter writing campaign consisted of a clear and reasoned argument against the security of these touch screen machines. They run off of MS Access, are ridiculously easy to hack and have proven flaws that are always patched and never fixed. Speaking as somebody working within the IT field I came up with a reasonable set of "talking points" and distributed them to friends and colleagues who were also concerened.

Of the dozens I distributed them to, perhaps 1/10th actually wrote letters or did anything about it. Hardly taking the world by storm... However Shelley's office listened and promised to look into it further. We went back and forth with the SoS until he said that he was considering decertifying the machines.

Now as it turns out Shelley was ousted by allegations of campaign finance allegations, allegations that were proved false by the way, and propagated in part by Diebold and the touch screen consortiums (follow the money... remember?). These guys had done everything possible, including setting up an astroturf "handicapped" advocacy group who claimed that touch screen machines were the greatest thing since sliced bread and if you said otherwise you were anti-handicapped people. Truly a reductive argument since the whole point is that you can't guarantee ANY vote is secure.

I digress though, here in California Arnold's replacement Bruce McPherson has recertified the machines, and only through the skin of our teeth are we not fully back where we started. Within a few weeks McPherson had layed hands upon this beast and ressurected the problem.

(as an aside, this is also one of the many things that makes me livid at Kos for his whining apathetic assesment of the CA governor's race, hello?! Secretary of State is an elected field and Debrora Bowen is one of the good guys.)

Chris said:

There has always been something that bothered me about the "stolen election" dairies that have a tendency to rocket up the diaries at Dailykos. I'm sure that part of it stems from how the "stolen election" sentiment online began by calling me, and several other bloggers, cowards for not blogging about it all the time after the election.

Chris, the problem, in my mind, is not because you and others like you aren't "doing enough", it's that there is no discussion at all over an issue that... somehow has become divisive, but is obviously very important to a large amount of folks here in the blogosphere.

Even if it was a monthly: "state of verified voting" front page post running down different states and regulations and progress, etc. hell between VerifiedVoting.org, Votetrust and all of the other sites, it should be pretty easy to aggregate all of that, and I would even help.

It isn't that there isn't enough discussion it's that there isn't ANY, other then a dismissive roll of the eyes at all of the "fraudsters" out there.

Do you understand how livid this makes some of us?

I can't speak for everybody, but the reason I get so concerned about this isn't because of the past, it's because of the future... and yes, having people take care of things at the local level is good, and necessary and leads to greater things, but an absolute blackout, intentional or not, on discussion on an issue where there is no argument against it is just foolishness.

And there IS no argument against it, by anybody... not if it is framed correctly.

Think of it this way:
Imagine if you will, every Democrat on the sunday talk shows, reframing the debate for the integrity of our elections.
Slick ol' Sen. Biden talking about how Democrats believe every vote should be counted, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, etc, and that we know that there are serious flaws within the system.

Where is the argument against that?
Tie it into civil rights, allude to Chicago ballot box stuffing and LBJ, that'll get the wingers attention.
Even if just for a week, get EVERYBODY talking about this.

We all agree in verifiable voting right? Even if we disagree on how... when the issue is exposed to the light of day, The Republicans will as well, look at the Republican co-sponsors to Holt's bill.

There is great work at the state level, but we have the ability to make a non-partisan winning national issue out of this if we just band together. I'm not talking about an afterthought bone thrown to the base... i'm talking about a WINNING national issue.

Let me put it another way:
Want to see all of these diaries go away? Then let's have a reasoned and intelligent discussion on verified voting with direction towards action and resolution. And if we could do that without all of the normal sneering, namecalling, and superiority power trips... even better.

-C.