I have gotten to the point in this election and this last two decades when like a cat in a Skinner Box I want to just sit and shiver. Why even bother jumping to the box without the electric shock?
I vote. I always vote. I will vote this time but I have this feeling that it will make entirely no difference. And it is not the campaigning which has been dirty on both sides, or that the GOP tea party was so obstructionist that Obama was not able to effect any change beyond ACA. Or that I am scared to death of what Romney/Ryan will do to this country if they win.
It is that at my heart of hearts I know it will not be fair. For once in my life I totally understand what people under repressive regimes felt when forced to go to the pools and cast a vote they know will not be counted. I have absolutely no faith in a fair election in this country unless the United Nations is called in to oversee the registration of voters, the voting and the counting of those votes.
At is a cumulative effect. First came 2000 and Florida and hanging chads. But that also had a black voting district with major street construction and detours put into effect that morning of the vote. And the strongly Jewish district that supposedly voted for GW after in uttered a slur against their religion.
In 2004 the UN asked to be allowed to monitor our election process and GW refused to let them. The BBC sent over investigative teams and found 11 states with questionable returns. And hundreds of precincts where the exit polls did not match the voting tally. In 2008 I was one of the volunteer poll watchers. And in 2012 we still have voting machines that can be altered from the parking lot with a cell phone. And the Republican Attorney general of NM didn't order enough voter registration forms and those she sent to predominately Republican districts.
Across the nation they are altering voting laws to exclude women, seniors, minorities, etc. Not since the fight for civil rights in the early 1960's as so much been done to exclude people from their right to cast a vote whether or not it is accurately counted. I fear violence on election day. And maybe that is a good thing. I was proud of our people in 2000 when we did not riot after the Supreme Court did what it had not constitutional right to do. But I figured law and justice and right would prevail. But 2004 showed that was wrong. Today I think if there are any irregularities at all in the 2012 vote we should riot. We should overthrow the government. Democracy is dead. It has been a slow death but I do think that what the Taliban wanted to do on 9/11 we have achieved for them.
The trouble is we were always the country that rushed into emerging young democracies and helped them keep the peace. Who will help us? This morning a political commentator said it isn't even about red states and blue states any more. Because of an out dated and abusive electoral college system it comes down to seventeen counties in the entire US. And Mitt Romney has enough money to buy every single one of them.
But even scarier is that he thinks God want him to do it.
And don`t forget that much of Obama`s base is so utterly disappointed in his pro-military, pro-corporate stance that they can`t get excited enough to fight. Yes, it CAN get worse.
ReplyDeleteHow, in a country that is forever touting democracy throughout the world, can people be prevented from casting their vote? I really cannot understand how anyone with citizenship can be excluded.
ReplyDeleteIn Australia voting is compulsory and if you live here, even without taking out citizenship, you are obliged to cast your vote on pain of being fined. All schools in the local area are used as polling booths and you can attend any one to cast your vote.
How can America not practice what it preaches and be taken seriously?
We did it in the 1960's to prevent blacks from voting but we have gotten more sophisticated these days. States have passed laws demanding unreasonable requirements to vote. Sure the supreme court might overturn it but it takes a trial case and by the time it works through the system the falsely elected official is probably in and out of office.
ReplyDeleteAnd in the 2000 election they put up detours and construction sites in certain neighborhoods to delay people going to the polls after work.
In the 2004 election the voting machines used in most of the major electoral states could be "flipped" from the parking lot with a cell phone. On any straight ticket a Democratic vote could be flipped to Republican. BBC doing an investigative report on voting discovered huge irregularities between the counted votes and the after voting polling in the parking lot. New Mexico was one of those states where normally heavily Democratic precincts went heavily Republican.
And then of course there are hanging chads. We did never elect GW Bush. It is widely believed he cheated himself into office twice.