I watched most of the new documentary Hacking Democracy on Friday. The documentary covers the poor state of our new electronic voting machines, specifically focused on how easy they are to manipulate. The film also goes through some of the recent recount efforts in 2004, showing how recount laws prevent effective recounts from happening.

The movie clearly features Gore and Kerry supporters, but they make a clear effort to explain that it’s only the Republicans this time because they are the ones in power in the two states most directly affected by these vote count issues (Florida and Ohio).

The most surprising thing to me was hearing about some of the irregularities in the 2000 election. It was either the first time, or I have forgotten the same thing. The biggest was the negative votes given to Gore in Volusia County, FL. While the correct count was discovered and used in the final tally, the movie emphasizes that the investigation into the root cause ended when the recount effort ended.

In fact, my biggest takeaway was the importance of real recount efforts. I didn’t realize how much money and effort is only available when an official recount is underway. When the recount effort ended in 2000, the investigation stopped. When Kerry conceded in 2004, little was done to follow through on a recount investigation. Even when a recount gets underway, the actual recount process presents several opportunities for people to “rig” the recount so that recounts don’t happen, whether out of malice or simple mistakes.

I’m happy to see more people talking about these things. Katrina Vanden Heuvel has a decent article listing some reforms that would benefit both parties (and even third parties). Most of them are pretty interesting, but at a minimum, I would love to see a federal requirement that recounts must be possible by hand using ballots that a voter has personally verified. In other words, you can have electronic machines as long as they output a receipt that shows your votes that you then deposit in a box. The paper ballots, not the computers, are used for recounts. Or, you can just go back to pen and paper. They still do that here in Canada (I’m in Montreal this weekend) and it seems to work well.

You can learn more about reform efforts, including what you can do this election to help, at VerifiedVoting.org and Black Box Voting. This is a non-partisan issue, and one that should be important to us all.

(found the Nation article via Atrios)

(Note: I wrote this a long time ago, but never finished it. A post over at Pandagon today reminded me of this, so I spent my lunch polishing and putting it out there… Here ya go.)

Atrios points the way to a quote in the Washington Post that bothers me (and apparently folks like Matt Stoller):

“The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections,” said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who advised Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. “The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left.”

And that’s why they lose.

Take a look at the Republican party. Not only do they harness their activists for their fundraising and energy, they have folded their activist right into the highest levels of the party. From Grover Norquist and his anti-tax crusade to James Dobson and ultra-conservative morality, the Republicans not only listen to and take money from their activist right, they hire them and work with them. The right wing activists are integrated into the Republican party at the highest levels. It has, quite obviously, been a winning strategy for them.

Activists are the lifeblood of change in our society. They have found a meaningful answer to a hard question. The kind of question the rest of us non-activists, the middle, don’t think about. Whether it’s about the health of the poor or the potentiality of an embryo, activists find a clarity the rest of us lack. They advocate their answer with passion and, with some luck, move society with them. This isn’t to say that all activists are right or that the answers are good. Just that the rest of us don’t worry about these hard questions. In general, we choose to go about our lives concerned about our family’s needs and not about these hard questions. When activists find hard questions and hard answers that resonate with society, they change minds. Without them, we’d stagnate.

Unfortunately, the Democrats have abandoned activists. All of them, of all ideological stripes. By trying to appeal to the middle, they’ve become too bogged down in the chaos of all of our personal, daily lives. The day someone sees their doctor or fills their prescriptions, they might be very concerned about health care. The day they pay their mortgage or their rent, they might care about poverty or wages. Most of us have different daily needs based on our own particular circumstances. Whether we’re white or a minority, Christian or not, poor or rich, we’re all part of the middle, and we all consider ourselves part of the middle. It’s impossible to appeal to all of us directly, by targeting our needs.

This is where the activists can help a party. The way to appeal to the middle is to pull them to your side on an issue. Get them to look up from their daily lives and say, “You know, they’re right. This matters.” Think about the broad sweeps of political power over the past dozen or so presidents. Republicans came to power based on concerns of moral decline and eroding values, eventually personified by a philandering president. Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement influenced an entire generation of Democrats. You have to harness the clarity of an activist to appeal to the middle.

The closest the Democrats got to this vision was Obama’s 2004 convention speech (on iTunes for free). In it, his litany of progressive ideals captured so well the things that activists on the left fight so hard for. That speech resonated and his stock soared so high not because he appealed to the middle, but because he eloquently expressed the ideals that best exemplify the progressives and liberals in our society.

That’s why I always get frustrated by reports like the one above. Parties aren’t “captive” to their activists. They’re powered by them. A party that fails to leverage activists is doomed to failure. I hope the Democrats are listening.

Just rumors or maybe some reality: From Political Wire:

Meanwhile, Sportsbook.com notes bettors now think Cheney might run for president in 2008, despite previous denials. The odds started to change after journalist Bob Woodward made a similar prediction a few weeks ago.

Click through to PW for more.

Is it too early to open up the Election 2008 category?

Heidi and I just watched the documentary Street Fight which covers the 2002 election for mayor of Newark between 16-year incumbent Sharpe James and young council member Cory Booker. We saw the film on P.O.V., PBS’s point-of-view documentary series (highly recommended by the way). The movie is narrated and directed by Marshall Curry.

I have grown up believing in the rule of law and, more importantly, the dominance of the rule of law over the rule of power. I follow the rules because I think it’s right. More importantly, I think it’s the American way. All of our ideas about the American dream or about fair play are all built around the idea that we are all equal before the law and other Americans. Clearly, I’ve grown up and become a bit less naive and perhaps even a bit cynical in the years since grade school, but I still believe that we should and do strive for this ideal every day.

Modern American politics makes it hard to believe this stuff, though. Street Fight goes through another modern example of power triumphing over the rule of law. Shot primarily from the perspective of the Booker campaign, the documentary shows numerous examples of outright lying by the incumbent, lying specifically targeted at hot-button issues for Newark residents. For the primarily African-American and Christian communities, James supporters claimed that the African-American Booker was white, supported by Jews and Republicans, and was a member of the KKK. James himself was quoted in major publications as saying these very things. The mayor threatened businesses that supported Booker, closing down clubs and halls holding Booker events or having police and city workers remove Booker signs while ignoring the James signs.

That’s not the America I believe in.

It seems to be modern American politics, though. Sharpe James feels comfortable about walking up to a TV camera and lying straight into it. George Bush feels comfortable walking up to a podium and lying right into it. Whether it’s about how much money his opponent is raising or whether he’s working to reduce budget deficits, both of their crimes and the damage they cause is the same. They are lies intended to muddy the debate. These lies make it easier for the next guy to lie and the next guy to ignore it. It makes the press complacent when the few reporters who stand up and report this stuff are treated like pariahs or, worse, ignored.

I know that American politics haven’t been perfect, and I know my history well enough to know of the louts and the corruption that have plagued all the major parties at some point. I just don’t want to accept it. I hope the citizens of Newark feel that way in 2006. No matter how much you like the politics of a candidate, if he walks all over our democracy he doesn’t deserve your vote.

You can always vote the new guy out, you know.

You can read what other blogs are saying about Street Fight, too.