Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"Steel has its own voice." -- silmaril, 2004-05-01 (in-person conversation)

silmaril wrote about the trashing of new voter registrations in Nevada (which I first read about via a link from twistedchick), included other links (including a clearinghouse of voter registration fraud stories), and provoked some discussion. In the comments, desdenova pointed out reasons why it's Republicans, not Democrats, employing such tactics (and it's not as simple as "our side is nice" -- to quote the final sentence of that comment (emphasis added), "There are good, practical reasons why one party takes the high road (enlightened self-interest) and the other takes the low road, more often than not.").

I've seen various stories about attempts to game the upcoming election, from various sources, linked from various other places, and have been seething. Starting with the whole "whoops, we did it again" problem in Florida regarding people with names similar to those of convicted felons; continuing with police intimidation in various places to make minorities and the elderly afraid to vote or afraid to be seen talking to get-out-the-vote volunteers; including fraudulent change-of-address cards sent in so that voters wind up surprised to be told "this isn't your polling place" on election day; encompassing attempts to find excuses to disqualify batches of registrations (being careful of fraudulent registrations is one thing -- making up new rules about what kind of paper the registrations have to be on so that you can reject a mostly Democrat pile is another); and all with the whole "Paper trail? We don' need no steenking paper trail!" electronic voting machine issue in the background.

Propoganda tends to annoy me. It annoys me more when it comes from the folks I disagree with than from the folks I support, of course, but I'm bothered by what apears to me as excessive spin. But anyone would be a fool not to use it. Unfair propoganda (it has an "I know it when I see it" definition) pisses me off ... but I understand that lies and distortions are a part of American politics that I'm not going to be able to undo, and try to channel my frustration into spreading the debunking counter-memes. Shady tricks to manipulate coverage and/or sympathy, such as the fellow who ripped up his campaign signs and then said, "Look at what those nasty Democrats did to my campaign signs and how they upset my daughter!" (and then was discovered to have pulled the same stunt in previous elections) disgust me. But there's a special flavour of rage reserved for the people who try to keep people from voting, whether by intimidation or fraud or identity-theft or by administrative fiat.

The thing is, and I do mean this in a considered way, not as hyperbole, such maneuvers surpass merely "shady" and have a character so anti-democratic, so fundamentally *counter to American principles*, as to be the next thing to treason.. (I've chosen my words -- "the next thing to" -- carefully. Others may disagree and wish to use even stronger language, and I can see arguments for doing so.)

nancylebov predicted that if the election is at all close, roughly half the country is going to think it was stolen. I'm starting to wonder how many people will think that even if it isn't close.

I understand that there is a "win at all costs" mentality in American politics. I understand that both sides see the stakes as being higher than usual this year. I even understand that some folks disagree about some important aspects of our traditions and our Constitution. I get the bit about dirty politics, and Mr. Rove, and low blows. I comprehend (and deplore) the "politics of personal destruction" of today. But disenfranchising citizens through fraud is so blatantly a rejection of the "one person, one vote" principle we were all taught in grammar school, such an undermining of the very notion of democracy, of representative government, so contrary to the concepts upon which our government was founded, that there can be no other interpretation of it than anti-American. It is against the very nation that the folks who employ it are attempting to lead.

It harms us thrice. First by preventing a fair election now -- we may never know who the majority of those who intended to vote (or who thought they did vote) actually wanted to elect. Second by eliminating any credibility of a "mandate" for the winner. Third by undermining confidence in the very idea that we even have a representative democracy, that voting even matters. In short, it is inherently destructive to this country that so many of us love (and nearly all of us claim to). Actually, it harms us in a fourth way: it makes us look like a banana republic at best and the next heavily-armed out-of-control state at worst, to the rest of the world. So if our elections cannot be trusted, if we do not actually have a democracy, then internationally we are either a joke or a terrible menace.

Y'know, it sucks to lose. It sucks even more to lose when it matters a lot. But here there has always been the mantra, "Well, we get another shot in four years." And there's always been merit to the idea of preserving the system so that there would be that next shot four years later. Attempts to fraudulently disenfranchise citizens, and to impose unverifiable means of gathering votes, show a serious disregard for the idea of democracy. It's supposed to be about convincing enough voters to want you, not about finding ways to ignore what the voters want. The dirty propoganda tricks are bad enough, but this is another level, a level that dismisses what it means to be American.

We cannot afford to treat these things as "business as usual", whether they've happened before or not. They must be held up to vociferous public disgust and denounced as unacceptable whether perpetrated by one's own party or by the opposition. Those who perform or orchestrate these acts must be held up as repugnant to all who care about democracy, and exposed as the enemies of the people that they are, fired by their parties or candidates and ostracized from participation in politics above the level of ordinary voter in the future -- our disdain for these tactics must be so high that nobody will use them for fear that no-one will ever desire to have his name linked to theirs afterwards. When discovered, these wrongs must be noised in the media and at the watercooler and on the street, that all may know of them and others will be motivated to remedy them. Whether incidents like this are novel or have been used before on smaller scales, or in smaller races, or merely unreported in the past, we cannot treat them as "business as usual", for they undermine democracy, and that which undermines democracy undermines America.

And deliberately undermining democracy, if it is not treason, is the next thing to it.

Get out the vote. Maybe it won't matter because "the fix is in", but maybe it's just a thumb on the scales and not an outright fix, and enough extra votes from those who would ordinarily not take the trouble can still overwhelm that thumb. Spread the word about the intimidation, the fraud, and the adminstrative shenanigans, so that others will know not only to be as upset as you are, but to take the time to make sure their own registrations have not been tampered with.

One side is using these techniques as far as I know[1], but both sides should care about this. Because this is about having a voice at all. Agree or disagree with my vote, I want you to have the opportunity to vote.

[1] But if the other side does these things as well, then everything I've said still applies. I want there to be more Kerry voters than Bush voters at the polls next month, but I want it to be because there are more people who want Kerry, not because would-be Bush voters were intimidated, deceived, or defrauded out of their votes. I sincerely hope that something similar can be said by most Bush supporters and that they will denounce the actions of what I hope (despite a Rove-related bad feeling) are a few rogues [Edit: See comment from doubleplus -- at least one group isn't rogue]. And I'm saying that as someone who is quite frightened by how close this race is and how high I perceive the stakes to be.

Too crisp not to spread around:

On a mailing list a significant number of my LJ friends read, we're discussing the Diebold electronic voting machines. One person wrote, "Not having an audit trail is just really, really stupid,", to which another replied, "Consider it a random number generator."

%wince%