STEALING OUR VOTES
We’re told that the beauty of America’s political system is that we the people have the right to vote. Yes … but do we have the right to have our votes properly counted?
In the old days, corrupt political bosses would sometimes stuff the ballot box, or even steal the box. In today’s modern, computerized age, however, such thievery can be done by sophisticated software manipulation without anyone even touching the ballot boxes. Indeed, most states no longer have ballot boxes at all, having replaced them with touch-screen technology that (they promise!) digitally records our votes in cyberspace.
Swell … except, how do we know that our digital votes on these computers actually are recorded in real space? There’s growing evidence that not only can these machines be manipulated by hackers or unscrupulous sellers of these machines, but that such corruption of our votes already is taking place. In Georgia, for example, 22,000 touch-screen machines had to get emergency fixes in 2002 because a “rob-georgia” software bug was found on the seller’s site.
The computer providers, however, refuse to let election officials examine their computer codes, claiming that the codes are proprietary trade secrets. “Trust us,” they say. “No,” I say. One reason we shouldn’t trust them is that the two largest sellers of the machines also happen to be major campaign donors to George Bush’s Republican Party. In Ohio, for example, the CEO of Diebold, a major seller, sent out a fundraising letter asking for $10,000 donations to Bush’s re-election bid — just one day prior to getting his touch-screen computers approved for use in Ohio.
To stop electronic-vote theft, support HR 2239, requiring a paper audit of all electronic votes. For info, call the office of U.S. Rep. Rush Holt: 202/225-5801.
CONGRESS PRIMES ITS OWN ECONOMIC PUMP
With major corporations punting 200,000 American workers out the door every month, with middle-class wages being depressed in every economic sector (from service jobs to high tech), and with the consumer economy sputtering due to lack of public confidence that things will get better anytime soon, it’s very reassuring to see the Congress step forward and intervene directly to pump new money into our economy by raising the wage floor.
You say you haven’t noticed any increase in your wages? Well, that’s because you’re not in Congress. Yes, by a bipartisan vote, our public servants have now lifted the wage floor for themselves by another $3,000 each. I say “another,” because this is the fifth year in a row that these champions of fiscal integrity have hiked their own income at the expense of us taxpayers. In the past five years, their self-adjusting annual paycheck has risen more than $20,000 — now reaching $158,000 per Congress critter, per year.
Of course, our so-called representatives can’t even do this honestly and aboveboard. Instead, they play a game called Hide the Pay Raise. Here’s how it’s played — years ago, Congress quietly snuck a provision into law that awards them an automatic cost-of-living raise every year … unless they vote each year to deny themselves the increase. As you might imagine, they’ve shown remarkable restraint in that regard, refusing to deny themselves a raise for five straight years.
Congressional leaders even insult our intelligence with absurd claims like this one by Dick Armey, then the former Republican house majority leader: “The Congress didn’t vote themselves a pay raise. We just simply did not deny ourselves that normal increase in our cost of living that every other worker in America not only expects, but insists upon.”
When I hear a doofus like Armey, I think: 100,000 sperm, and you were the fastest?
This article appears in October 10 • 2003.