I propose we make our society of women and men of all races and cultures who also suffer from various incidents of sexism, racism, and rejection because of their race or gender part of our election reform fight. Civil rights are keyed to the protections of our individual Constitutional rights. The right to vote privately is not a protection of our privacy or identity, but a reaction to our fear of having our Constitutional rights violated. The secret ballot is the choice to protect the offender who would violate the voter’s right to verify how their vote cast was counted. Now, as in the sense of justice and liberty are always an immediate and present right, now as much in the past and in currently in the present, is the need we have now to have our rights protected with clear consequences for violation of our Civil Rights and our right to govern ourselves through elections, as stipulated in the Constitution.
Instead of giving rights to the offender and criminals who prey on voters-individuals or the people, we should criminalize any offender who shows bias and discriminates against a voter for their cast vote. This is an egalitarian tone for family members to mature and treat each other as equals, as we do with other cultures and genders socially, but a criminal action when an employer discriminates against a voter for the way they have voted, just as racist or sexist discrimination laws have matured our society. Selling or buying votes should also be a crime and a violation of all voter’s Civil Rights. Elections are the transfer of power from the people to the government. Today party loyalty is publicly listed with party registration and party activity from bumper stickers, lapel pins, to vocal support. What is the problem with being honest about the way you voted and defending your right to vote that way?
We need to give the right to the voter to verify how their vote was counted in an open and verifiable election based on our social security number or other personalized identifying number. We need to be able to check our elections, as voters, as we verify what our banks have done with our money, checks, or check card charges. We have to be able to verify by identification of our votes on the published data base recorded that is used to determine election results, and verify if our vote cast was counted as cast, without fear of retaliation, intimidation, or discrimination in any way. To protect individuals from unfair discrimination you do not remove the rights of the individual, instead you prosecute the offender.
Criminalize the offender, instead of silencing and removing the rights of the victim to verify their most precious and powerful connection to our government, as stipulated in the Constitution, our right to govern through elections. The principles of democracy are at stake. If we are going to let corporations dictate our media content, count our votes, we cast our votes on corporate made, maintained, and lease programmed software for the election and dominate our legislators to our secretary of states with their lobbies and conventions, then we should expect corporations to be controlling our legislation and government, and we do have that condition today. The war, global warming, health care, the transportation technology are all maximized for profit not the people, for corporations not the people. Our elections are determined by corporations and the people can not verify how their vote cast was counted. Is that democracy? Clearly not.
We need a Constitutional Convention NOW.
