I am writing today in an appeal to all Democratic Primary Voters to carefully consider their choice when selecting the candidate to support. Primaries are always hard, it's a pit of brother against brother, and the difficulty of setting yourself apart from your opponent without destroying relationships with your own allies approaches impossibility. We find ourselves in the State of Texas this year not only in the rare position of a primary that not only matters but could in fact prove decisive, but also with two exceptional candidates for office. For some time, I wavered in my support for a single candidate, trying to cut through the media bias and the inevitable campaign rhetoric, trying to discern for myself which candidate would in fact make the best President. While I certainly have been both moved and impressed by Barack Obama and his ability to motivate a crowd to action, I have to ask myself if this a great President makes. One can never dismiss the value of being able to motivate people, it's what gets people to the polls and gets people engaged both in politics and the world around them. Just words? No, words have power, there is no more effective tool than words to influence the hearts and minds of men and to motivate them to action. However, does the ability to stir a crowd make for a good judge of policy or the wisdom to develop such policy?
eSlate Machines Disenfranchising Some Texas Voters
(Austin, TX)-Today, the Texas Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in United States District Court challenging Secretary of State Roger Williams' failure to require electronic voting machines properly record and tabulate votes, particularly straight-ticket votes. According to Texas law, every county must record and tabulate votes the same way, but voters who reside in counties that employ eSlate electronic voting machines have their votes recorded differently than voters who reside in counties employing other voting systems.
"With this lawsuit, the Texas Democratic Party is taking steps to safeguard the accuracy and security of each voter's ballot and ensure Texas voters have confidence in our election system," said Texas Democratic Party Chair Boyd Richie. "Protecting the integrity of the electoral process is not a partisan issue. Every voter deserves to cast their ballot with full faith that their voice will be heard, regardless of their political affiliation."
On the eSlate machines, when a voter chooses a straight-ticket vote and then continues to select candidates of the same political party to "emphasize" their vote, the machine actually records the vote for that race as a no vote. This is inconsistent with the tabulation of absentee paper ballots in those counties, as well as electronic voting machines used in other counties across the state. The irregularities relating to the eSlate voting system have affected the outcome at least one race, located in Madison County. However, there are 101 other Texas counties that employed these machines in the 2006 election.
Additionally, the Secretary of State's office is required to test all voting machines used in Texas elections and knew of the irregularities related to the eSlate machines, which are manufactured by Hart Intercivic. Yet Secretary Williams allowed the machines to be used anyway.
"As the State's Chief Election Officer, Roger Williams is responsible for upholding the integrity of our electoral process. But presently, some electronic voting machines in this state actually ignore voter's choices and fail to meet basic standards of fairness and accuracy," said Richie. "I call on Secretary Williams to restore the rights of Texas voters by reprogramming the eSlate machines to accurately record voters' choices or discontinuing their use altogether."
As a one of the two major political parties in the state and an entity responsible for administration of primary elections, the Texas Democratic Party is seeking a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Secretary of State from certifying or permitting the use of eSlate voting machines without first requiring the system to be reprogrammed in a manner that is consistent with law and other voting systems that are in use throughout the state. If the system cannot be reprogrammed properly, the TDP is also requesting an order to prohibit the use of eSlate machines in any future election.
(This week's well-read, researched paper comes from one of our longtime readers. - promoted by Burnt Orange Report)
There has been much debate in the past couple of weeks as to the sneaky "insider" nature of the TDP and its' "ugly little secret" euphemistically termed targeting. In many instances, the strategic decision by the TDP to target certain races has been criticized, in favor of a more comprehensive approach, sometimes termed the 254 county strategy; an obvious allusion to Howard Dean and the DNC's 50 state strategy. The implication seems to be that with the limited resources of the TDP, they should attempt the same sort of grand leave no candidate behind approach that the DNC pledged with the 50 state strategy.
In the process of analyzing races in my home area, I have been putting together some maps in order to visualize what happened in Tuesday's elections. I have come to some preliminary conclusions, but I'd prefer at this time to reserve comment and allow people to look at some of these basic maps in order to draw their own conclusions. In this effort I decided to do some maps of the entire state in addition to the maps of my area to share with BOR readers.
Honesty and integrity seem to be at a long time low in politics and in this country as a whole. The most disturbing part of this is not the willingness of the individual to deal in dishonesty, but the willingness of society at large to accept it as “business as usual”.
This article on Fox News highlights how the dishonesty of the holder of the highest office in the land may affect our society and our security, but I think fails to recognize how nonplussed many Americans are today at the revelations of dishonesty by their elected officials.
(Two frontpagers had this tagged so I'm promoting it. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
While the passage of this bill by U.S. Congress does not affect Texas or Texas politics exclusively, I believe as a border state it certainly affects us enough to make it topical on BOR. While reading this snarky comment Really, these people have nothing to do with each other
(Place Tongue Firmly in Cheek) Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff have nothing to do with each other. The Republican leadership is doing the best job they can under the harsh circumstances imposed on them by the witch hunters aka truth seekers. This is not an ethical issue, they just hate our Christian values which we have expanded to include murder, deception, theft, racism, intolerance and general outright bad behavior. God bless "our" America
It occurred to me. How exactly in the upcoming house elections will the individuals who voted in favor of HR-4437 justify this vote, which would make it a jailable offense to provide water to individuals who are literally dieing for a drink, continue to soapbox about the sanctity of life?
(This editorial-piece is very well written, and since KT and I had both recommended it, I wanted to go ahead and promote it. - promoted by Phillip Martin)
From the time the republicans have taken control in Texas, they have been waging war against education. A war they have now taken nationwide and from education as an institution to the educated as a group. Funding both for primary, secondary and now post secondary education has stagnated then declined. With a continued inability of the state to provide funding to institutions of higher learning coupled with the current administrations slashing of programs that help the poor and middle class attend universities, a college education is becoming less and less realistic for those who are not part of the socioeconomic elite. Furthermore NCLB has transformed public education into a test prep program.
An accident, I don’t think so. If it was, then the Republicans surely plan to profit from the brilliant side effect of selfishness. Not only does this buy votes with lower taxes, but un-encumbers money that can be used for war profiteering and oil speculation by their donor base. With the added benefit of a growing uneducated populous it will become more and more easy to sell the idea that lower taxes which amount from zero to a few hundred dollars difference to the majority of tax payers is a fair trade for thousands of dollars worth of education. As we all know, an ignorant populous is easy to control.
As we move from the primaries into the general election, our focus shifts from internal dissention regarding what it means to be a good Democrat to how we differ from our opponents. I believe this is the year to rather than string the Republicans up, running the potential risk of putting off voters with yet another vitriolic campaign so soon after what were some truly nasty primaries, to allow the Republicans to hang themselves. Our jobs will be to make sure the voters see them swinging.
Some of the major bills that have been recently passed as well as the stances our opponents have taken on many issues fly in the face of their mantra promoting an ownership society. I believe our candidates should contend that ownership implies a certain level of choice, the current administration is taking away choice at every turn.
There has been a great deal of discussion concerning swinging Texas back towards blue in 06, so I think it is time we start figuring out what, beyond rhetoric must start happening in order to make this a reality. While working toward this end we should keep in mind the potential impact that GOTV efforts in the 06 elections may have on the 08 elections. While having more Democrats in state offices will certainly help, and certainly we have an opportunity to potentially unseat some Republicans in the U.S. congress this cycle, the effects of what we do here, in 06, to build a voter base will likely impact the 08 elections more strongly than it does even the upcoming elections in November.
(I continue to be impressed with some of the quality writing that shows up in the Journals. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
And more reasons why the party of gloom and doom continues to lose.
The recent publicity surrounding V.P. Cheney’s hunting accident, and Democratic Party members’ insistence on making this an issue has made me wonder. Why do we as Democrats insist on being the heavy, why in this case do we have to make an issue of what amounts to an old man having a terrible accident and nearly killing his friend? This was not a policy activity, and should not be an issue for us as Dems. If the citizenry and the press have a problem with the timeliness of his release of information, let them carry the banner of that disappointment. In this case, it was obvious they were more than willing to do so; the press corps has had a long standing problem with the tight lipped attitude of the Bush White House. This was not our battle to fight, and yet we seem unable to resist picking up every available stone and giving it a toss.
