Oct. 29, 2002 - 17:48 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

If That's What It Takes

A lady, Maria Elena Salinas, has a column in today's Rocky Mountain News titled, "Observers Will Provide Security In U.S. Elections."

She has covered the election process in South American nations for on the order of twenty years. She mentions the what and why of the observer process down there. She cites the reasons for same.

She says, "That's life in the Third World. I never thought that it would be necessary to have elections supervised by outsiders in the United States. We are supposed to be the leading democracy in the world. I guess this proves that democracy is not perfect."

M Salinas goes on to say, "We got our first wake up call during the 2000 presidential elections, when the Supreme Court ended up calling the shots after the Florida fiasco." She goes on to say further, "The September 2002 primaries showed us that improvements made to the voting system didn't improve it all that much. Dozens of polling places opened late. Hundreds of volunteers never showed up to work. New voting machines malfunctioned and some EVEN DISAPPEARED." (Caps mine)

It is a laughable thing in a way, to me. She indicates that every body and his goat will be observing the coming elections in Florida. Quote, "The police department will be out in full force. The Justice Department will be sending civil-rights monitors. And the Miami-Dade County Commission will be paying those same observers from The Center for Democracy who oversaw elections in Latin America $92,000 to make sure no irregularities prevent people from casting their ballots."

I wonder how much campaign money will be spent on subverting the present system ?

She speaks from her experience, "I have been in many of those so-called Banana Republics and I can assure you that the presence of neutral eyewitnesses to an electoral process, in most cases, made all the difference in preventing major fraud and the disenfranchisement of voters."

In my own quibblerous opinion the new practice of mail in ballots sets us up for fraud and any other move made to "expedite" the electoral process seems to leave us open to mischief also.

The old way, prove who you are, that you are in the right precinct, that you have a right to vote and have previously registered some time ago seems to be tried and true. The factions that say, "Well we don't have time to do all that," I think are laying the groundwork for hanky panky. Sheesh, disappearing voting machines ? ? ? ? ? ? ? What kind of chads or short circuits will determine another Republican victory ? ? ? ? ? Rigged voting machines next ?

So I say, get good, honest, dedicated observers and give them the power to see to an honest election all the way. Seems to me to be a good thing to see that it is firmly done, If That's What It Takes . . . . . . . .

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