EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Rachel Garner
Organization : | N/A
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
General Comments
Comment : | (Quoted by Rachel Garner, who submitted this comment.) [More on admission] WATCH THIS COMPANY They actually WANT us to use a voter-verified paper trail! Avante produced the first voter-verifiable touch-screen voting machine, called Vote-Trakker. Harris interviewed Kevin Chung, Avante's founder, and though she's not finished yet * she is putting this company through the same investigative process she used with ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia * Harris noticed something different. This company actually seems to welcome disclosure. Voting machines can be a good thing, IF the right safeguards are in place. But most voting machine companies (and many state officials) fight paper trails and hand audits tooth and nail. It's refreshing to see a company with enthusiasm about safeguards. (Paper trail? Hand-count audits to verify accuracy? Full disclosure of known errors and key people?) All for it, says Chung. What's the catch? State officials get so enthused they sometimes stand up and applaud after Avante's Vote-Trakker demonstrations, but when lobbyists step in, all the checks get written to companies with no paper trail, secret owners, and obstructive behavior. Stay tuned. SENATE ETHICS DIRECTOR RESIGNS Special coverage by The Hill On May 23, 1997, Victor Baird, who resigned Monday as director of the Senate Ethics Committee, sent a letter to Sen. Charles Hagel requesting "additional, clarifying information" for the personal financial disclosure report that all lawmakers are required to file annually. Among other matters, Baird asked the Nebraska Republican to identify and estimate the value of the assets of the McCarthy Group Inc., a private merchant banking company based in Omaha, with which Hagel had a special relationship. [Full story by Alexander Bolton] @ @ @ Unequal Protection: The rise of corporate dominance and theft of human rights a new book by Thom Hartmann click on the book to order In Unequal Protection, author Thom Hartmann tells a compelling, can't-put-it-down story that tracks the history of the modern corporation back to the founding of the East India Company in 1600, through the Boston Tea Party revolt against transnational corporate domination of the early American economy, the rise of corporations during the Civil War, the ultimate theft of human rights before the Supreme Court in 1886, and into the modern-day theft of human rights in the US and worldwide by corporate interests and the politicians they own. Because of a mistaken interpretation of a Supreme Court reporter's notes in an 1886 railroad tax case, corporations are now legally considered "persons," equal to humans and entitled to many of the same protections guaranteed only to humans by the Bill of Rights - a clear contradiction of the intent of the Founders of the United States. The results of this "corporate personhood" have been: Unequal taxes Unequal privacy Unequal wealth Unequal trade Unequal media Unequal regulation Unequal responsibility for crime Unequal protection from risk Unequal citizenship and access to the commons To remedy the legal blunder of corporate personhood, Hartmann offers specific action steps that can be taken by citizens, courts, legislatures, and local communities.