Since the courts and state legislatures will probably not support open voting any time soon (if ever), it's up to the voters to lead the way. The best thing to do is to hold your own Parallel Elections outside the polls. See - http://www.ecotalk.org/parallelelections.htm
However, if that's not possible, then you can send the candidate(s) of your choice a brief letter certifying that you voted for them (include your name, address, and signature). They may be able to use your letter as an affidavit in an election challenge. You could send your letter after the election, but ideally, the letter should be sent at least a week or two before the election. That way candidates can have as good idea as possible as to how the "official" election results should go, and therefore, will not to tempted to concede prematurely. (Keep in mind that vote fraud and/or system failures have produced false election "landslides" in the past). In the case of referendums or initiatives, send it to organizations or individuals who have a vested interest in the outcome.
Something similar to this idea was put into practice last winter in North Carolina. According to a February 6, 2005 editorial in the Ashville Citizen-Times, "...a voting machine error ...caused 4,400 votes to vanish in Carteret County. As (candidate) Troxler led in the count by 2,287 votes in a race that saw more than 3 million votes cast, the missing votes threw the outcome into disarray. Troxler's campaign rounded up affidavits from more than 1,400 Carteret voters who said they had voted for him." As a result, his opponent conceded.
Our Founding Fathers set us a timeless example of courage under fire. John Hancock's large and flamboyant signature on the Declaration of Independence was an act of bravery in the face of certain hardship and possible death. We cannot continue conducting elections under a cloak of secrecy, behaving more like cowards than conscientious citizens. Today, more than ever before, it is our right and obligation to stand up and be counted.
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Lynn Landes is one of the nation's leading journalists on voting technology and democracy issues. She has also written on the subject of the environment and health. Readers can find her articles and research at EcoTalk.org. Formerly, Lynn was a news reporter for DUTV and commentator for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Contact info: lynnlandes@earthlink.net / (215) 629-3553Next Page 1 | 2
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Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.
Check out his platform at RobKall.com
He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity
He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com
more detailed bio:
Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, (more...)
