This Blogs Virgin Post!

I Thought I'd Launch my Blog on "Election Eve"...

Simply amazing!

I heard this morning that in my little Texas County, of the 78,000 registered voters, 24,900 have already voted… Almost a third… I can’t wait to see how the turnout is tomorrow…

That gives me hope that there are far fewer “Sheeple” this year…

Now that people are taking responsibility, we need to use that momentum to address the “OTHER” Issues…

Let’s talk for a few minutes about the charges (and I don’t even think it could be called “Alleged”) of Fraudulent voter Registration and the Counter-Charges of “Voter Suppression”…

In the last couple of months, I’ve read up on the Voter Registration problem… Stories from a little Mississippi County that has 486 registered voters over 105 years old, 30,000 convicted Felons registered to vote in Florida… 4,000 Dead People still registered in Houston… ACORN being investigated in 14 states…

I never thought I’d say this, but perhaps we need Election Observers here from the Putin/Medvedev Government, Chaves, and maybe Yasser Arrafats old Cabinet… If you want to catch Rats, you don’t “Think like a Pidgeon”… The Election Observers I mentioned probably have experience than anyone in the world at Election Rigging, Ballot Box Stuffing, Vote Suppression, etc...

The “Help America Vote Act” of 2002, after the “Condo-Commando/Hanging Chad Fiasco” of 2000 was supposed to address some of these Issues, but, your Representatics yet again subscribed to the Government/Military problem-solving protocol #1 before they truly understood the problem:

Government/Military problem-solving protocol #1
“There are no problems so large or difficult that they can’t be solved with a suitable application of Funding or High Explosives…”

Government/Military problem-solving protocol #2 “In the event of unanticipated situations or difficulties, refer to Government/Military problem-solving protocol #1…”

Hundreds of Millions, if not a Billion or more have been spent on new technology in six years, and I find the results extremely underwhelming!

I can take my credit card and spend 8 bucks at Quizno’s, and by the time I get back from lunch that charge will be posted to my account, and I will have walked out of there with a receipt that shows me what I bought… Why THE HELL can’t we have a “Cash Register style” Voting Machine that keeps an internal “Paper tape Log” and print a voter “Receipt”… But even with that, (and this is where the House and Senate have failed Miserably), the real problem isn’t addressed… What good does the “Newest Technology” provide if “The VOTE of the Individual", a Sacrosanct part of our process can be tainted by these charges?

I was greatly relieved when I voted here last week, to see that even with a Voter Registration Card in hand, each and every person in line also had their photo ID in hand, and expected to have it checked against their Voter Registration…They were checked! Kudos!!!! But technically, it’s not a “Requirement”…

Does a “Photo ID” requirement suppress Low income Voters, the underprivileged, etc…?

NO. Those who want to vote, and are eligible, will vote… Any low income voter, who has a bank account, a job, received government assistance, participated in a “Job to Work program” (or any other State/Local/Federal program of any kind)etc. has at some point had to verify their Identity in some form… But we don’t REQUIRE a Photo ID for the most important aspect of the process… One Individual, One Vote!!!!... If you’re eligible, and can’t produce an ID, then cast a Provisional Ballot until your Identity can be confirmed…

The ACORN chicanery, where I believe the goal was to help Barack Obama, ended up hurting him, and devaluing the sanctity of the individual vote…

Will it supress votes? Most definitely! It will suppress the votes of the Fraudulently Registered, Felons, the Ineligible, and Dead People…

Your Representatics have thrown away 6 years of opportunity, instead using that time, and hundreds of millions of hard earned dollars to foster a “Symbolism over substance” PR campaign that produced no real fix for the problem…

Campaign Financing and Earmarks!
I don’t know if you all are as concerned about this as I am, but are you aware that the two leading Candidates have generated OVER ONE BILLION DOLLARS IN CAMPAIGN FUNDS IN THE GENERAL ELECTION ALONE! If you include all the campaign contributions swept up in the primary Races that number verges on 2-2.5 Billion…
This is freaking obscene…

One of McCains favorite Obama Earmarks was the “ 3 Million dollar Overhead Projector” for a Chicago Museum…I wished that he would have gotten off that line, because it was a Planetarium projector (as an educational project, couldn’t this have been submitted as a Grant request ethically instead of being used as political leverage?), but the Obama Campaign could have totally funded the project “Out of Pocket” and not suffered a single hit in the Checkbook, infact, His campaign could probably by a new projector for every planetarium in the United States, and still have a Surplus of a hundred million in the “Warchest”…

$10,000,000 Dollars of that surplus could hire 200 Elementary School teachers for a year, or improve the payscale and benefits of those we already have… How many School lunches does 40 million dollars buy? How many free healthcare clinics could be opened with 25 Million… That’s how you “Earn Votes” rather than “Buy Them”….

Do we really need this much money in politics? I say either Cap fundraising, or put the surplus to use in a POSITIVE Manner… E-mail your Representatic… Tell them that you want the same “Freedom of Information Act” transparency applied to Campaigns and Campaign contributions, that are applied to The CIA, The FBI and the Military…Again, the lack of “Positive” Identification is leading to abuses, providing “Plausible deniability” cover for Senate, Congressional, and Presidential candidates to take “Grey Area Donations”… We need Transparency in this process… Every donor and their donation should be published in a database that is public, and if you’re going to verify online and credit card contributions “on the back end”, you know, take the contribution, report your fundraising “Record”, and then confirm whether some of those need to be “returned”, then you shouldn’t be able to include those contributions in your “Monthly Gross” until all of them have cleared and been confirmed as Legal and Valid… Again, “Positive Identification” and Transparency would reduce the "Level of probability” of corrupting and manipulating the system…

Up Next! Confronting Congress!!!