Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [OT] facism gaining ground in US

[Robin Green]

>     > From: "Pierce T.Wetter III" <address@hidden>
> 
>      http://www.eac.gov/annualreport_2003.htm#sec1
> 
>      The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) requires the
>      establishment of an Election Assistance Commission (EAC) headed
>      by four commissioners, who are appointed by the President.

The HAVA was what set in motion the current e-voting craze, I believe.
And the EAC seem rather wedded to e-voting, Diebold-style. :-( Is this
the kind of statement we want to see from a body entrusted with "helping"
states to conduct elections?

  "Most importantly, the proposals requiring a voter-verified paper record 
would force voters with disabilities to go back to 
using ballots that provide neither privacy nor independence, thereby subverting 
a hallmark of the HAVA legislation. There must be 
voter confidence in the accuracy of an electronic tally. However, the current 
proposals would do nothing to ensure greater trust in 
vote tabulations."

The final sentence is the one I find Orwellian.
A more frighteningly ignorant and/or duplicitous statement on e-voting
I have never heard. Everyone who cares about democracy should be
concerned at these type of attitudes (which seem to be depressingly
common among elections officials in the US). As one Slashdot wag put it:

  "I wonder if they'd let me take control of their personal finances
without a paper record - because the paper record would do 
nothing to ensure greater trust in the financial calculations."

Isn't that a valid analogy? I think it is.

Either they do not understand even the more elementary problems (and there
are many problems, some elementary, some subtle) with current paperless
e-voting systems... or they are actively and knowingly complicit in the
electronic corruption of the election process!

And remember, just because someone's Black, doesn't mean they're automatically
a "good guy", or automatically care about racial disenfranchisement.[1] Really,
that's obvious to a five year old, but Pierce seems to tacitly assume this.
Likewise, just because a commision is "bipartisan" (Oh! So it's got Republicrats
and Demopublicans! How wide and all-encompassing a spectrum of opinion is that!
We clearly have nothing to fear!) doesn't automatically imply it's neutral.
The frightening quotation above demonstrates that bipartisan commissions - 
gasp, even when Black people sit on them! - can come to the wrong conclusions.

-- 
Robin

[1] Racial disenfranchisement usually benefits Republicans the most, where it
benefits anyone at all, I believe.

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