Confronting remaining voting issues - Part V in a series

The two remaining subjects in this series are electronic voting and what the Democratic National Committee (DNC*) is doing to reform the Presidential primary process.
Electronic voting has been an issue since the first voting machine was used in an election. I was not familiar with one the most significant leaders in the fight against the dangers of electronic voting, Lynn Landes. A trusted source introduced me to her work via several links. According to my source,
"There are a lot of voting reform efforts going on around the country and many dedicated dems are involved. Unfortunately, many of these efforts will actually make the situation worse by not fixing the root cause of the problem…..electronic voting in all its forms. I’m suggesting you become familiar with analysis of the 2002 Election in (11/8/02) from Forum on risks to the public in Computers and related systems. Here is the Landes article 4/13/04 'Republicans walk out of Federal hearing on voting machines, while some civil rights groups support 'paperless elections'. Landes has also been a poster at Bev Harris’ website. Bev has also worked tirelessly on these issues for a long time now and like Lynn, deserves a medal. This 3 part article, by Sharona Merel, has enlightening info about other entities involved in election outcomes. This is a scary and eerily familiar 'who’s who” list from the Landes site, of some of the friendly folks in the 'election biz'. Get familiar with the players as many of them have their fingers in multiple pies for the right wingers."
What the DNC is doing to improve their presidential primary process: A commission appointed by the DNC has been working on what changes need to be made. Their recent commission meeting was broadcast on C-Span twice Sat. Oct. 1.
Here are my notes on what I saw: "The Co-chairs did a very good job of including all voices. They all agreed that the country will be really ready for a change. One member reminded the commission that the Democratic Party is now in the minority by the numbers, but not by much.
Caring, respectful and congenial, even in their disagreements, their task was to come to consensus on two main issues:
Issue 1) How to change the Democratic presidential nominating process for 2008, given the constraints of timing and the law. There is more room for change in caucuses than primaries set by law, so the commission focused on what the overall goals and strategy. The group was able to agree to a few things: 4-6 states will comprise a pre-window group of contests, including Iowa and New Hampshire. As many other contests as possible and practical will be moved back on the calendar to spread them out. The problem of front-loading results in too long a general election period.
Issue 2) How to increase the actual diversity capacity of the party. Diversity might mean elements of, economic, racial, union needs, and geographical.
Lawmaker participants that made some very good contributions include Senators Carl Levin of Michigan, and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. This southern senator reminded the members that she was the only Democrat reelected from the South in 2004. She told the group that Democrats ignoring the faith based community would do so at their peril.
This group included some fairly high-up heavyweights in the party. “Old lions” Harold Ikes and Donna Brazille had the respect ear of the group.
The final portion of the meeting focused on miscellaneous issues that individual members wanted included in the report language.The dissenter from the Carter-Baker Commission, Spencer Overton, attended and contributed, briefing members on some of the recommendations of the Commission of which he was a member. A member from North Carolina talked about that state’s new law requiring paper documentation/receipt capacity in any voting machines purchased for their elections. Delegates were reminded that the voting rights act is up for renewal in 2007, before the election. The party will be encouraged to meet regularly with Republicans to coordinate and resolve counter-productive conflicts.
The commission will convene again December 11, 2005, one week after the rescheduled Democratic National Committee’s next meeting. That meeting had to be postponed because of Hurricane Katrina. The December commission meeting will be to adopt the commission report and recommendations. It will then be passed along to the Democratic National Chairman, the DNC, and ultimately their rules committee for finalizing and implementation."
Additional helpful resources on voting include: Fairvote - an advocacy website, Voting in Texas, and the FirstGov site-a great place for finding overall voting information.
*Title linked to yahoo! search list about the meeting, a copyrighted AP article-Dems Agree to Recommend Early Primaries-by Will Lester