Who's Behind the Fraudulent Electronic Voting Machines?

We are.

A few years ago, I signed up for emails from Black Box Voting. Without authentic elections, what's the point of any democratic action? The paper trail-less, non source code-inspectable "black box" machines scared the hidden ballots out of me.

Yesterday, I got an email from them. Here are some worthy excerpts to get us all thinking:

(Warning: You might really hate this story.) This story represents months of original research by Black Box Voting. We went into this looking for the defense industry contractors we'd heard had lobbied for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). That legislation has been blamed for the touch-screens (DREs) that showed up all over America. Well, that's not what we found. The real story on who was behind HAVA may come as a surprise to you. It was to us..

I forgot that the voting machinery was promoted after the 2000 election by the HAVA. What I remember is Diebold's "promise" to deliver results for Bush. BBV goes further:

Many of the HAVA reformers believed that with DREs, people with less education would be more likely to fill out the whole ballot. In fact, they reasoned, the DRE machines would be easier to use for educationally disadvantaged populations, minorities, non-English-speaking voters, and the disabled.

As their report found, most of these claims were unsubstantiated or contradicted by real-world results. Black folk, for example, don't actually seem to trust the machines. This is a painful irony considering who promoted the machines in the first place:

While many election reform activists are under the impression that touch-screen (DRE) voting machines were some sort of Republican plot to take over America, the truth is that lobbying for the DRE-seeking "Help America Vote Act" came primarily from the foundation of the Democratic Party itself.

Activists throughout America have expressed surprise at the Democratic Party's unwillingness to pull DREs off the shelf. One reason is simply this: To do so would damage the credibility of those who lobbied for HAVA.

This is a painful, painful indictment. We won't demand change, because it would be embarrassing and call into question our previous actions. Hmm, where have I seen this movie before?

Tom Tancredo -- Killing the Congressional Black Caucus?

This is a novel approach notable for its daring. You had to figure that the new power and unity of the Congressional Black Caucus with one member as a presidential candidate and a few others as committee chairs has to be scary. This is a direct, racist attack that I am willing to bet that more wingnuts will be pushing as the CBC begins to assert their growing power.

Tancredo:

"It is utterly hypocritical for Congress to extol the virtues of a colorblind society while officially sanctioning caucuses that are based solely on race," said the Colorado Republican, who is most widely known as a vocal critic of illegal immigration.

Any black person will tell you -- this society ain't color-blind just yet. I hope the CBC members led by Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (a good progressive) will get aggressive out there with the message that the CBC is too black and too strong to get snowed under by a wannabe like Tancredo. The type of misdirected energy in defense of smooth criminal Dollar Bill Jefferson -- getting all up in Nancy Pelosi's face about his congressional privileges -- needs to be re-focused on fending off GOP playahate.

As for whites and non-blacks wanting to join the Congressional Black Caucus, I agree with the BlackProf -- how can we demand inclusion when we practice exclusion? Why give our enemies ammunition in the public space? Whites on the left need blacks. But you know what -- we need their support too. The CBC ultimately will need to find a way to open the door to folks who can help move the agenda forward for African-Americans. The Republican version of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has twice as many "associate" non-Hispanic members than they do actual Hispanics. How powerful would it look to dwarf that with a strong associate membership of folks who say that, despite not being black, that they want to stand with African-Americans for a country that serves all its people equally?

I'm just sayin'...

State of the Union Address - State of Katrina?

So amazingly, there was no mention in George Bush's speech about the largest humanitarian disaster the United States has ever seen. None of the dusky heroes waving from the gallery were Katrina-related, although Dikembe and Wesley's stories are admirable. There were no updates on assistance. No commitments to re-build the region. Just nothing.

Maybe if we ignore the Gulf region, they'll go away and stop asking for help. Maybe people will stop caring. I don't think that's true though. Both Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D) and Susan Collins (R) -- powerful Congressional women -- has looks of pure, barely disguised hatred/disgust smoking from their faces during the speech.

I think politicians who think that the American people have forgotten about Katrina are deluding themselves. The people of Houston and New Orleans certainly haven't forgotten. The compassion and commitment to support those impacted by Katrina, both inside and outside the black community is there. But the leadership, save for John Edwards and his announcement from the region, is not. Why is that?

Harold Ford Staying in the Game

Harold Ford Jr. and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Jackson will be speaking today at the National Democratic Mayor's Convention in Northwest DC. As Jill mentioned a little while back, it's worth keepin an eye on this brotha. If anyone gets word of how the meeting goes down, do tell.

On a side note, can anyone actually see this blog on the web? I can't get it to come up in Safari or Firefox on the Mac or IE or Firefox on the PC. My newsreader stops the feed at Jan 12. Do tell.

Southern Racism and Politics Digest

Three stories caught my attention today, and they're all about racial politics in the South.

First up, white Republicans in Atlanta are still bitter about what they call a race-baiting ad (NY Times) from the recent mid-term elections.

In the advertisement, Atlanta’s three most prominent black leaders, Mayor Shirley Franklin, Representative John Lewis and Andrew Young, the politician and civil rights leader, evoked the police dogs and water hoses of the civil rights movement to urge voters not to support a Republican candidate for the Fulton County Commission. Though the candidate was not named in the advertisement, the three leaders, who are all Democrats, warned that right-wing Republicans would “turn back the clock” on equality and undo the efforts of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others.

“Your very life,” Mr. Lewis said in the advertisement’s conclusion, “may depend on it.”

"Outrage" over this ad has spilled into the second story that caught mine eye: an effort by the upper third of Fulton County to separate from its lower two-thirds (AP). The upper part is mostly white and affluent. The other part is black and a whole lot poorer. The issue over the advertisement has fueled the move by many whites to separate.

It's more than ironic that Republicans are complaining that a campaign ad "crosses the line." This is the party of Willie Horton we're talking about. The party of Condi "those who don't support the war in Iraq would have supported slavery (WaPo)" Rice. The party of fear.

All of this brings me to story number three. Someone fired two shots (NY Times Select) into the home of Greenwood, Louisiana's black mayor, Ernest Lampkins. In this case, his very life actually was at risk.

One Small Step for Prison Reform. Collect Calls?

First of all, apologies for sleepin on the blog, yall. I'll be steppin up with Jill's announced vacation, and I'm back with this story which slipped through the radar for me, but I think it's worth a deeper look.

Costs of Inmates' Calls Cut

In what some are calling the first tax cut of the Spitzer administration, New York is slashing the cost of phone calls between prison inmates and their families, friends, and lawyers by more than half.

Governor Spitzer said yesterday that starting April 1, the state will no longer collect a share of the gross revenue generated by the state prison collect call service operated by Verizon Communications

This is very good news.

According to the article, a 20 minute call currently costs $6.20. That will drop to about $3: from 31 cents