Democracy at Risk: Voting in America

First off, the US has never been a Democracy (close, but no cigar), but for all that it’s worth (if you thought that our Electoral Voting System was corrupt, this is equally worse or even more so).

Here’s an example of how the Republicans are attempting to rig the election.

This comes as no surprise. Our system has been like this since forever! But Lou Dobbs from CNN covered it today on TV.

Some Swing States Not Prepared for Voting Problems in November

A survey of 10 swing states suggests Florida, Georgia and Virginia may have the most problems on Election Day.

As election officials brace for record-breaking voter turnout on Election Day, a close examination of voting preparedness in 10 swing states shows that significant problems in the basic functions of the American election administration system persist, and in a few cases have worsened over the last few years, a new report by Common Cause and The Century Foundation shows.

[Snip]

“While some states have taken steps to improve their election procedures, several still have a number of structural and statutory weaknesses that put voting rights at risk once again this year,” said Tova Wang, Common Cause’s vice president, a Century Foundation fellow and the report’s author. “In an election that we hope and expect will see unprecedented turnout, we are hopeful that steps can still be taken to make the election process a fair one for all Americans.”

[Snip]

As hundreds of thousands of new voters have been added to the registration rolls just in the last few months, one troubling finding is that problems with voter registration issues in many instances have gone unaddressed, or even worsened in the surveyed states. Many states have flawed procedures for matching the information voters give them when they register with other state databases, and some have no established protocols for doing so at all. Uniquely, Florida will continue to require that prospective voters prove eligibility by providing the exact information that appears on existing state databases. This policy often results in rejections of valid registered voters if the voter provides a variant of his or her name instead of a full name, a clerical error is made on the election administration side, or a voter makes another minor mistake.

[Snip]

Another problem in 2006 was state laws made it too easy to challenge a voter on a slim basis. The most famous example of this was the challenge to 35,000 voters’ eligibility to vote in Ohio prior to Election Day. There are already indications that with all the new voters registering, challenges to eligibility will be a major issue again this year. None of the seven states reviewed in this report have changed their laws since 2006 to lessen the chances of this occurring, and of the three new states included, Colorado and New Mexico have acceptable, though not ideal provisions to handle challenges to voters, while Virginia’s is fairly troubling.

Read the full article here.

The neocons have no problem listening to phone sex of private citizens in the name of “The Patriot Act”. So, Big Brother is OK there. But god forbid we universalize our election system. That would be too Communist and too “Big Government” for our leaders to take charge. With that said, the neocons need to quit whining about ACORN and “voter fraud” since they don’t support a federalization of one of our most basic, fundamental and important processes!

Good for you, Oklahoma, New York, and New Hampshire for keeping the old machines.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Sometimes, it pays to be pokey. Going slow has paid the state of New York about $27 million and counting. New Hampshire and Oklahoma, too, are sitting on a pile of federal money.

How did it happen? After the contested 2000 presidential recount, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act, giving about $3 billion to states to replace old punch-card and lever voting machines. A lot of states, including California, Ohio and Florida, plunked down vast sums of money to buy shiny new machines, many of which were quickly deemed unreliable and mothballed.

Read the rest of the story here.

More on our Democracy being hacked mercilessly:

America is beginning to look more and more like a third world country in my eyes:

• No democracy regarding the voting process
• Becoming a third rate economy and depending on other nations to clean up after our messes
• Our Health Scare
• Our products and food are losing quality day by day
• The diminishing of the middle class
• No separation of church and state (can’t become a president here unless you are a Christian)
• Freedoms being stripped away from the Left and Right Wing

If you examine the above, those are qualities of living in 3rd world countries.

Soon, we’ll be jumping the fence to find solace in Mexico, Cuba (by way of Mexico), and parts of South America. Sounds funny now, but just give it another few decades, and you’ll see.