To the Editor:

The most significant long-term outcome of the nationwide vote last Tuesday may be the coming of age of a grass-roots election-protection movement.

Based on the experiences of Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, citizens across the country contributed intense scrutiny of electronic voting machines, voter registration requirements and other essentials of our modern democracy.

By and large, their efforts have been well respected and reported.

There is no way to know exactly how this volunteer police work might have affected the results of Tuesday's election. And it is disturbing to see the use of exit polls severely restricted, as they were in reporting the results.

But it is gratifying to see both Republicans and Democrats refusing to concede close races until the last vote is recounted. And it is reassuring to know that a salutary national debate has begun in earnest about exactly what is needed to guarantee a full and fair electoral process.

In the long run, this could make American democracy itself the election's biggest winner.

Harvey Wasserman
Bexley, Ohio, Nov. 8, 2006

We've all been hearing about President Chavez in the news lately. In his recent speech to the UN he described President Bush as "the devil" and "Mr. Danger." Quite dramatic. Well, he may not be as educated as some of Venezuela's elite but perhaps that is what makes him so powerful. Proud of his Indigenous and African roots, Chavez signed a "historic commitment" to govern on behalf of Venezuela's half-million Indigenous people in 1998 during his presidential campaign. This is a promise he has kept and earned him undying support.

His plan is called a Bolivarian Revolution, named after Simon Bolivar, the 19th century liberator of Venezuela, Columbia, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. His ideas are that natural resources are for the benefit of all citizens, the state is guardian and promoter of civic and social human rights, and that the citizens are fundamental protagonists on political life.

"We have a lot of work to do," says Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif), shown here at a Capitol Hill news conference on the Federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina in February. "Hurricane Katrina was a stark reminder of the failure of our government to address the challenges of inequality and poverty that still confront our nation."

Don’t buy all the crap coming from GOP talking-point memos or the blather from mainstream pundits. The midterm elections do not signal a move to the center. Yes, a few conservative Democrats were elected, but the big gainers were progressives. In particular, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is on the rise.

I became a voting machine judge so that I could see first hand if there were obvious problems with the machines or otherwise. There were definitely problems on Tuesday but not too many with the workings of the machines and they were easily corrected.

The first problem of the morning was that we were asked to be there at 5:30 AM and the supervisor didn't show up until 6:15 AM. The training we had was not adequate without experienced help and should have been more hands-on so a late supervisor was a negative. However, she really was not very knowledgeable and in my opinion should not have even been a supervisor. She also had the keys for the machines so little could be done before she arrived. Fortunately, we all managed to be up and running on time with a little extra stress being the main problem.

The supervisor had a special cell phone so the election commission could call in with info. or we could call them. It was not charged and had to be studied on the spot to use. Calls all day long to the election commission were put on hold for 10 minutes or so and some of the problems dealt with waiting voters so this created some anger.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfield will resign, reportedly to be replaced by former CIA director Robert Gates.

Gates was on the board of directors of VoteHere, a strange little company that was the biggest elections industry lobbyist for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). VoteHere spent more money than ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia combined to help ram HAVA through. And HAVA, of course, was a bill sponsored by by convicted Abramoff pal Bob Ney and K-street lobbyist buddy Steny Hoyer. HAVA put electronic voting on steroids.

You can find copies of the VoteHere lobbying forms here:
http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/m_opr_viewer.exe?DoFn=0

I can't get them to save to pdf, perhaps you can. Enter search terms in both "registrant" and "client" fields and put in terms "Rhoads" "Livingston" and "Votehere" (one at a time.). Then look at the gravy train while it was in the process of derailing American democracy.

I first became acquainted with VoteHere when I met a source, Dan Spillane, who is the wonderful guy that identified the Diebold source code modules for