Why Is It Always Greed That Triumphs Over All?

I was one of those optimists who cheered when the new Health Care bill was passed and signed into law last year. I know, it certainly wasn't perfect - far from it. But I honestly believed that it was a starting place and that we could expand the good parts and fix the bad ones and gradually, hopefully, wind up with something that looked sorta, kinda, like health insurance that everyone could afford. And I am do want to clarify here. This was never a health CARE bill - it was and is only a health INSURANCE bill.

But it is a year later. Implementation has begun. People who know stuff have been reading all the fine print. The new Republican majority in the House has been taking a budget axe to the thing. And I am becoming more and more dismayed the more I learn.

I get that the thing was about compromise to get it passed. I do. But it seems that the compromises were always about greed and never about what was best for the actual people this bill affected. And you can be sure that the people making the decisions were not and never would be affected by this. Congress is automatically exempt from every single piece of legislation they ever pass. Yup, you read that right.

I won't go into a recitation of all the crap I've been reading lately of all the failures of this bill to do what it pretends to do. Google is your friend. But here is a little story.

I have some friends - a young couple with two young children ages one and three. This young couple both happen to each be very talented artists. But as you can well imagine - making a living doing art is a stretch even when the economy is not in the tank so each of them does another job in order to earn money to support their family. Last year, the wife made a big decision to leave a paying job and work full-time at home so she could spend more time with her children, the youngest of whom had a life-threatening episode shortly after her birth. She came up with a creative business that she is doing in her basement and now employs two part-time workers to help her with the work. The husband is just finishing up with his apprenticeship to be an electrician - a four-year grueling stint of school and work that leaves him little time for his art, but he continues his painting after the kids are in bed and after his long days.

As you might well expect - health insurance for this family is not very good. They have some through the husband's work. But the youngest daughter has already had a major health problem. So they are considered "high risk" and after his apprenticeship he will have a difficult time finding work unless the employer who supported his apprenticeship is willing to hire him permanently. That is not a done deal at this point.

In the last few weeks, their older child has had a couple of normal, childhood accidents. She got her thumb caught in a slammed door. It's broken. It took an ER visit and two visits to two different orthopedists to get a decision whether to put a cast or just a splint on her tiny thumb. (She got the splint). Then, just a week later, she was playing on a chair, somehow tipped it over, and smashed her face on a picture frame. That required another trip to the ER and four tiny stitches in her forehead. And just three weeks before this happened, the husband had a first-time ever migraine episode/panic attack that was apparently brought on by what his neurologist told him was 'lack of sleep, overwork, and stress'. Gee, ya think?

So...where is the health INSURANCE for this family? I had arrived at their home just after the older child's second accident to find the wife sobbing as she tried to get the baby ready, wondering how they were going to pay the medical costs for all this stuff, the child wanting to know why her mommy was crying, and I am holding both of them thinking yes - why is this happening? This is the richest country on the planet and only here! If this family lived in Canada...or England, France, or Germany...or even CUBA for crying out loud, she would not have to ask that question. She would not have to worry about the money. Her husband would not have to keep doing a job he doesn't particularly care for so he can keep a piddly amount of health insurance for his family. He could spend all his time on his wonderful, exquisitely detailed and yes, saleable paintings instead of crawling under houses in the middle of a Montana winter. She could take time off from her business to care for her babies instead of having to take them to day care because she has orders to get out and they need the money to pay the doctors and the hospital - EVEN WITH THE INSURANCE!

This business of every single person in Congress only looking out for their personal bottom line - what's in it for them in the form of campaign cash - instead of what's in it for the good of the country is so apparent right here in this one little story. The sad part is that this one little story is not the most extreme, nor is it the most heart-rending, nor is it unusual. It just happens to be the one that is happening right here to someone I know right now this minute. I'm sure you know someone too. Or you are someone.

I guess my question is when are we going to demand better of our politicians? We sigh and complain. But then we just shrug and walk away because "that's just the way things are". Well, they don't have to be that way. We say, well, we don't have any choice - they are all corrupt. That is only partly true - we currently don't have any choices because we don't organize around making other choices available. A well-organized campaign can be done - if you don't believe me just ask Senator Lisa Murkowski! She not only defeated a well-funded Tea Party candidate in her own party - she spent most of her campaign cash on advertisements that taught the electorate in Alaska just how to properly fill in a ballot for a write-in candidate so that all the votes for her would be correct and would count in the face of what was sure to be legal challenges. It can be done!

So if we truly believe that our politicians are corrupt - we need to figure out a better one - fund them ourselves so that special interests (read big corporations and rich jerks) don't, and get them elected. And then, we need to stay involved by continuing to contact them with information about the issues and demand that they vote the way we want them to. (Another of my pet peeves - pols who vote the opposite of what their constituents want and claim they were sent there to do just that!).

So get active - if there is a fair elections group in your district, community or state - get involved. Let's get the private money out of elections and make them publicly funded. That's the only way to overturn the Citizens United decision. If you think your Rep or Senator isn't doing the job and you aren't happy with the opposition - get your friends together and find a different candidate to run against both of them. And get out the vote! We have the lowest voter turnout of almost any democracy. We complain about who gets elected - but less than half, and in many cases only a third of people actually vote. If everyone votes - the outcomes might just be really different!

When Are We Going To Fix Our Voting Mess?

Watching the recount in Minnesota this past week has been very interesting to say the least. On the one hand, the optical-scan paper ballots make the recount open and accountable. Minnesota law is also good in that 'if the intent of the voter' can be determined, the ballot counts. On the other hand, there needs to be a limit to the challenges. In one example, the vote was challenged because the vote for the Presidential candidate was of the opposite party as the vote for the Senate candidate. The ballot was correct and clear. The challenge was stupid.

On the other hand - many of the challenged ballots present quite another face. While the Minnesota ballot is a simple 'fill in the circle' style that is very common among optical-scan systems, apparently we still need to do voter education on how to properly mark a ballot - and what to do if you mess up (ask the election official to give you a new one!)

People are always complaining about these voters - they are stupid and shouldn't be allowed to vote, etc. The fact is that almost twenty percent (yes you heard that right) of our adult population is functionally illiterate. These people are bright, intelligent and hard-working individuals who may have a learning disability, or who have left school early for one reason or another and did not learn (or were not taught properly) how to read. They have managed to hold down jobs, raise families, get a drivers license, and are productive members of our society. But they don't know how to read - and our society demeans and belittles people like this with the result that they go to great lengths to hide this fact from everyone - including even their families. As a result, yeah the directions are posted on the wall. So what? They do their best. But elections only come around once every two years - and in some states, there have been different methods of voting for every election since 2000 (Florida is a case in point) so they don't get the process down.

My personal feeling is that there are a number of issues that need to be addressed.

ONE: The federal election system needs to be overhauled and made consistent from one state to the next. This applies only to US House of Representatives, US Senate, and President/Vice President. Congress should mandate one and one only, system of ballots. The design and layout of these ballots should be decided by a NON-partisan election board. Further, the software in the optical scan machines should be open-source, easily verifiable by computer information systems technicians, and in no case, should 'computerized' results be provided to any private firm on election day. The systems should provide results and data breakdown by precinct in an easy-to-understand format that does not require the intervention of any corporate programmers or technicians. While Congress has no authority to mandate state and local elections, states would fall in line with this or face having to maintain two systems, or two separate ballots (that is done in many countries anyway).
Layout of ballots becomes an issue in a lot of instances. The layouts should include 3-6 options with the candidates names in different placements. A code box at the top would tell the scanner which version it was. The reason is that in races that are not publicized well, or where the candidate may not have a large campaign fund, they may remain relatively unknown.
In the most recent election primary in Montana for instance, one of the Democratic candidates announced that he planned on not campaigning, would not accept any campaign funds, and was just going to sit home and wait for the voters to elect him. Another one raised money, campaigned around the state and really made an effort to get his name out there. (This was a race against a very popular Republican Congressman). On all the ballots, the stay-at-home guy was the first name on the list (alphabetical order) and he won. Most election analysts say that is very common when people don't know (or care sometimes) who any of the candidates are they vote for the first one on the list. In this case, it was assumed that it really didn't matter because the Republican incumbent would win anyway. Rotating choices would eliminate this type of 'winning' since it would spread the votes around among all the candidates, and the one who really did have name recognition would then have a slight edge.
TWO: Since voting is supposedly a right, every voter on their eighteenth birthday, should receive a voting card. All males now get a Selective Service Registration card - all adults should get a voter card. If you have a voter card - and some proof of your address - you should be able to vote in the closest precinct to your home. This business of matching registrations, and voter challenges is a major impediment to some groups. Universal voting cards would solve that problem since everyone IS actually entitled to vote. This would clean up the different registration requirements and eliminate registration drives (saving millions) and all the attendant mess that goes along with that.

THREE: I worked as a poll-worker in Florida with the ESS touch-screen voting machines in 2006. Thank goodness they are gone now! But an election judge/poll-worker actually went with each voter to the booth and physically showed them how to use the machine. This should happen with the optical scan ballots. A demonstration ballot should be available at the check-in table with picto-graph instructions, or someone demonstrating how to mark the ballot properly. Each voter should be verbally advised that if they make a mistake or change their mind, to simply come get a new ballot.
Additionally, some states (California is one) provide a sample ballot with pre-election voting materials that looks just like the real one (except it has 'sample ballot' printed in large red letters across the face of it!). That way people can 'practice' and/or mark this sample to bring with them to the polls as an aid in quick voting. This practice is not only allowed, it is encouraged in California since their ballots are usually heavy with propositions, federal, state, county, city, and special district election choices.
A lot of states have already gone to optical-scan ballots. They already have the equipment. The software needs to be changed to meet the above mandates. States who are still using touch-screens must acquire the new equipment.

Those are just some ideas I have. Feel free to add more in the comments!

Vote Early, then Volunteer

This election seems to be more dogged by voter disenfranchisement activities by the Republican Party than in years past. Although Obama is now polling in double digits in a lot of so-called battleground states, those states are where huge voter purges and other unethical and sometimes outright illegal suppression activities are focused.




Robert F Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast have a new comic book out called 'Steal Back Your Vote' for tips on how to get around some of these activities.


You can download the comic book here: GregPalast.com

for a small donation or for free if you can't afford to give anything. If you can give even a dollar, it will help them distribute print copies to people who may not have access to computers etc. (like on Indian reservations where there isn't even actual electricity!)

Anyway, vote early if your state allows that. This will save time and money for the GOTV (Get Out The Vote) workers and campaign since they will not have to call you on Election Day.

Then volunteer to be a poll watcher, or to transport others to the polls on Election Day!
Every vote is important. Let's get as many as we can!

After the election, join one of these organizations to put pressure on the Obama Administration to do some real election reform by mandating a nationwide standardized voting system for federal elections. There will be pushback from the 'states rights' people that elections have always been under local control. That is fine for local elections - but it is about time that voting across this country should have a single set of rules for federal elections. (Hint: this will force states to fall in line because it will be a lot easier and cheaper to just go along with the federal stuff than have two elections or two sets of rules on the same day!)

www.nationalcampaignforfairelections.org/
www.fairelections.us/
http://www.votetrustusa.org/

or you can participate with your state's fair elections groups.

We need to figure out ways to stop the systemic voter disenfranchisement practiced by the Republican Party and remember that
VOTING IS A RIGHT, NOT A PRIVILEGE!
Our Democracy can only succeed when voters are encouraged to vote, and obstacles are not being put in their way.

UPDATE: Michigan is reporting that 98% of it's eligible voters have actually been registered!
Wow! Incredible. Now all we need to do is get them ALL to the polls!