Delegitimizing Our Government

Crossposted at ConyersBlog.us

Our democracy always hangs in delicate balance between tyranny and freedom.

The constitution is and has been, since 1787, the guideline that has protected our freedom, and with few exceptions, those entrusted by our people and political system have worked diligently to protect this precious document and its protection of our citizens.

This is one of those exceptional periods where those in power in Washington and in our state capitals, have actively sought to weaken the protections and limitations on government power to the detriment of the freedom Americans, and indeed the rest of the world, hold dearly.

I have argued that the most precious right that Americans have is the right to vote. The ability to select those who will lead our nation, states, cities and towns is the ultimate power that controls the ability of our elected officials to do our bidding, not the other way around.

Since 2000, there have been significant challenges to the ability of our elections officials to count our votes accurately. There has been significant interference with the right of individuals to register and to cast their votes, and to have them counted accurately.

Since 2000, when the national scandal showing an inability to count votes accurately became apparent in Florida, and the inadequacy of punch card voting became abundantly apparent to America, and to the entire world. The reaction to that was a legislative move to eliminate punch card ballots, and to move toward a greater reliance on electronic voting, whose stated purpose was to improve the voting process, and ensure more accurate counting.

This move to electronic voting means has been fraught with problems. In many cases, the electronic voting machines have been proven to be hackable, which can cause undetected vote shifting to one candidate or another. The mantra now is to use voter verifiable paper trails with the machine. This is a step in the right direction and has been implemented in over 20 states, (by my recollection).

Testing and hacking attempts by computer security professionals have uncovered security flaws in new voting machines and systems. In some cases, so-called "back doors" have been found by security experts, and they have been acknowledged by the manufacturers, including at least one admission that the back doors were placed there intentionally.

All of these items have been extensively documented elsewhere, and I will not go into the details.

The point which must be made is that the failure to fix our systems of voter registration, access to voting places for all voters, the reduction of voter lines to a predictable and reasonable waiting time before entering the booth to cast your vote, and the accurate counting of votes risks delegitimizing our system of government.

It appears that the process of delegitimizing our voting process is now a strong trend, and it is accelerating.

The reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act is a strong step in the right direction, but much more remains to be done.

Delegitimizing our government through the failure to count votes, and the failure to permit eligible voters their right to vote, the purging of eligible voters from the rolls, are all methods that are moving us to illegitimate government.

If we allow this to happen, the rest of our lives, and the lives of our progeny will be in tyranny, not freedom. We cannot let this happen.

If we allow ourselves to descend into tyranny, with its attendant loss of freedom, with an unchecked government creating "law" that permits government intrusion into every aspect of our lives, our privacy, our freedom of speech and association, our political freedom of choice between candidates and philosophy, what we do in our bedrooms, or what we tell our lawyers and doctors, or priests and clergy, or counselors, our phone and internet conversations will all be fair game for those who think they know better than you do what you should do and think.

If we give up our rights to select our leadership, then all of the above is inevitable. If we give up our rights, America has already lost the war on terror. The terror will be perpetrated by our government.

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