An Open Letter to Congress: Do Your Job, Investigate the Voter Fraud Allegations

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Sun, 14 Nov 2004 12:19:31 -0500

Subject:An Open Letter to Congress: Do Your Job, Investigate the Voter

Fraud Allegations

 

An Open Letter to Congress:

Do Your Job, Investigate the Voter Fraud Allegations

by Carol Norris

 

Published on Saturday, November 13, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

 

Dear Members of Congress:

 

As you are no doubt aware, concerns about possible voter fraud abound.

Irregularities have been well documented in many states, more than

enough to raise legitimate questions. Is it widespread or in several

isolated places? Might it change the outcomes of any of the races?

What changes need to be made to protect our vote? We need you to

investigate. But more than that, we need you to understand that this

issue is not a partisan one. It's not another round in the sparring

match of Democrats vs. Republicans. Nor is it post-election sour

grapes or the machinations of conspiracy theorists. Ultimately it

isn't even about the outcome of the election. To relegate it as such

is myopic and lazy and dangerous because the scope is much larger.

 

This is about Democracy. And all of us - the gun toters and the bible

thumpers, the tree huggers and the pro-choicers, Republicans,

Democrats, Independents and Greens - we all live under the laws and

promises of our democratic system. And one of the most important and

cherished promises of this system is that when we come of age every

one of us (well, most of us, but that's another story) can participate

in our Democracy by voting and then resting assured in the guarantee

that our vote will be on the whole fairly and transparently counted.

This principle is one of the defining features of our country, and,

theoretically, part of what separates us from dictatorships and banana

republics.

 

The voting process is a public right, a sacrosanct civic event. It

isn't a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder or most

well-connected corporation. That we have private corporations in our

public election process at all should be astounding and illegal, but

instead it's a perfect, dismal metaphor: corporations run our

Democracy. And that one of you in Congress could even entertain the

notion, much less argue out loud that there is no need for a paper

trail or paper receipts of electronic votes, that there is not a

serious need to rethink our voting system's checks and balances, is

not only arrogant and dismissive and undemocratic, it's absolutely

flabbergasting. Yeah, that's right: flabbergasting.

 

It's disheartening to say the least, but somehow not surprising that

it doesn't occur to many of us that private corporations having more

and more control over our public elections (some claiming they are

beholden to nobody, no less) is inappropriate or wrong or scandalous.

A complicit media who often fail to report, and hence, comment on such

things, coupled with the fact that we have become incredibly

desensitized to the ever-present corporate hands down our pants make

us too numb to stop and think that maybe those hands shouldn't be

there in the first place. Corporations have permeated our schools and

nearly every sports team out there, right down through grade school.

Their products are carefully placed in our movies, and their logos are

plastered unabashedly on every item of our clothing. And as we sit in

our public bathroom stalls their ads stare us in the face as they

slink onto the airwaves of what were once our untouchable " public "

television stations. Why should our vote be any different, many must

unconsciously conclude? " Election 2008 brought to you by Nike: Vote

for Our Guy. Just Do It. "

 

Congress Members, we beg of you, don't make speeches or put out press

releases filled with phrases like " I have every confidence " and " above

reproach. " We don't want platitudes. We want action. If ever there was

a time to wrest yourself from the shackles of partisan politics and

self-interest and corporate lobbyists and actually do the job, we,

your employers - we, the people - hired you to do, it's now.

 

Because if there is a possibility - no matter how small or dubious -

of voter fraud, a chance that our precious, inalienable right has been

tampered with in any way, at any point in the process and you did

nothing meaningful to intervene, your lack of action would be a direct

affront to the very essence of Democracy and a big 'screw you' to

every single citizen of the United States.

 

We need a truly independent investigation. No sham investigation. No

closed door, off the record " chat. " No dog and pony show filled with

sound and fury signifying nothing. We want an investigation that says,

'We are willing to unearth whatever is there and bring it to the light

of day, regardless. We fathom what's at stake.'

 

Not to investigate will leave us and the rest of the world (still

reeling from our unilateralism and bullying and treaty reneging)

wondering and doubting, suspecting that our Democracy has become one

in name only. Not to investigate would leave many of us believing what

we already fear: that you very much don't want us in the process, that

the saying, " Democracy is not a spectator sport " makes you cringe. Not

to investigate would be a metaphor for what we, in our most jaded or

perhaps our most lucid moments suspect - that all but a handful of you

have become mouthpieces for corporate interests and blatant

self-promoters.

 

Prove us wrong. Show us we're full of it. Show us you're better than

that. Disprove the claims of the disenfranchised, disillusioned

millions who don't vote because they think their voice and their vote

don't matter to you beyond Election Day. Show them they can trust

their votes will be counted, literally. Be our voice; not yours, not

the corporations', not your party's intractable line, but the voice of

the people, of conscience, and of a true Democracy.

 

You're busy; I know. Many of you have admitted you don't even have

time to thoroughly read the majority of the bills you sign, allowing

little phrases and paragraphs, obscured in a sea of jargon, to slip

right by. Those few seemingly negligible words affect every single one

of us, often in unspeakably negative ways, be it through legally

allowing venomous toxins near our homes and our children's playgrounds

to disallowing our right to sue those who create those toxins.

 

The demise of a fair and transparent voting process would be yet

another ugly toxin that in fact could prove fatal to this country. So,

Members of Congress, if you aren't willing to do whatever it takes to

protect this most fundamental _expression of our Democracy, then our

leadership has sunk lower than low, and you have failed the people of

the U.S. miserably.

 

If those of us who work for social justice, opposing an agenda of the

elite few, have learned any lesson at all, particularly in the last

four years, it's that we must take a stand again and again and again.

Through grassroots efforts we have won many struggles outside your

congressional halls and outside the judicial system, taking to our

computers, our living rooms, and our streets. Hear us when we say we

will continue standing and protesting and e-mailing and organizing,

whether you choose to do the job we hired you to do or not.

 

But, it is no less than a tragedy for our country and our children's

future that we are forced to do such things amidst the very system, as

deeply flawed as it is, that was created to attempt to give everyone

an equal voice. So yes, we'll take to the streets if need be because

even during these difficult post-election days for some of us, we know

that people across the country came together and mobilized in a way

not seen in decades. There is momentum amidst the mourning. We'll

peaceably and raucously protest in front of your offices if we must.

But come time, we'll also take to the voting booths. And we'll

remember that the biggest fraud of all pulled on voters was your

promise to stand up for the people and for Democracy and your failure

to do so.

 

Sincerely,

 

Carol Norris

 

Carol Norris is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and organizer

with CodePink: Women for Peace. www.codepinkalert.org