How the Major Parties Cheat in Elections: A Primer for the Uninformed.
Jay Bates

One of the major untold stories of our democracy is how the two major political parties cheat on Election Day. Undercounts, overcounts, provisional ballots, absentee ballots, machine error…all of these play a role in how the two major political parties cheat average American voters out of their vote in order to achieve victory at the polls. The average voter is unaware of the nuances of state election laws, and probably couldn't tell you the difference between a provisional ballot and an absentee ballot. This blog is designed to educate and inform readers not only of the differences between the various types of ballots and voting methods used, but also about the documented instances of voter fraud and computer error that have plagued recent elections.

Ballot Types

There are different types of ballots used in elections. Many voters choose to use the absentee ballot to avoid long lines, or in the event that they will be unable to attend the polls on Election Day. An absentee ballot essentially allows a voter to vote in advance of an election. They request an absentee ballot through their local Elections Office (most counties have an elected official known as an Election Supervisor), and they enter in their votes on the ballot, and finally, they mail it back into the Elections Office. The ballot is then theoretically counted on Election Day with regular ballots. The appeal of an absentee ballot is obvious, as is the necessity. For soldiers serving abroad, it is the only way in which they can vote in elections back home.

A provisional ballot is a ballot that is used to record a vote when there is some doubt as to the potential voter's eligibility. When a voter's name doesn't appear on voter registration rolls, or when they have no photo ID, they are given a provisional ballot. The ballot is then counted upon verification of the voter's eligibility. Provisional ballots became far more widespread in their use following the 2000 elections and the passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

The Exploitation of Ballots: Interpretation of Voter Intent, "Spoilage", and Absentee Ballots that aren't Mailed Out.

The two aforementioned ballot types play a key role in the ways in which the two major parties cheat during elections. Simply put, many absentee and provisional ballots are lost, not counted, or simply discarded through a process in which an elections official declares them "spoiled." In addition, absentee ballots have to be mailed to voters. There are documented instances of voters requesting absentee ballots well within the timeframe that such ballots could be sent out, and yet the voters never received their ballots.

In Broward County, Florida, an election supervisor failed to send out 60,000 absentee ballots before the 2004 election. The significance of such a matter is this: Broward County is overwhelmingly Democratic. There's also a backstory: Broward County is the county whose votes were not counted in 2000 due to the Supreme Court decision which awarded the Presidential race to George W. Bush.

Also occurring in 2000 was the election of a new Supervisor of Elections for Broward County. Her name was Miriam Oliphant, and she was a Democrat who was elected with some 70% of the vote. Oliphant immediately set about outsourcing many of the tasks that had been issues in the 2000 election for Broward County. She also publicly criticized Governor Jeb Bush's plan to use ES & S voting machines in the 2002 elections.

Two holdovers within the Elections Office proved to be formidable opponents for their new boss as well. Mary Hall routinely criticized her new boss, as did Pat Nesbit. Oliphant's reforms of her office seemed to have been the major issue. Mary Hall had been an employee appointed in 1986 by the old Supervisor of Elections, a Republican named Jane Carroll.

After much hemming and hawing and many volleys through media outlets, Oliphant fired both Hall and Nesbit on October 7, 2003 after what ultimately proved to be disastrous 2002 gubernatorial election fiasco in Broward County. Hall was responsible for overseeing absentee ballots. However, in the aftermath of the 2002 state election, 268 unopened absentee ballots were found post-election.

Hall had previously been accused of altering the outcome of an election when she threw out 176 of 437 absentee ballots collected by Pompano Beach City Commissioner candidate Walter Hunter, who lost to his opponent by 236 votes. Hunter also complained to no end that Hall had publicly supported his opponent during the campaign!

Hall was predictably fired after the absentee ballot episode in 2002 and the 2003 issues with Walter Hunter. For that matter, she had spent the prior three years openly criticizing her own boss, who was elected by the citizens of Broward County with 70% of the vote.

And here is where things become very interesting: after being terminated from her position, Hall took up employment in Republican Congressman Alcee Hastings' office. The man who hired her was Hastings' chief of staff, a GOP operative named David Kennedy. David Kennedy had ties to both the governor's mansion (Jeb Bush) and the White House (George W. Bush).

After the firings of Nesbit and Hall, Miriam Oliphant felt that she was in the clear to run her office as she saw fit. She had already raised voter registration in Broward County by some half a million voters, and she was on her way to further reforms of the office. However, the day after the firings, Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood contacted Oliphant with concerns about her office. A week later, David Kennedy, the GOP operative who got Hall a job in Alcee Hastings' office, was on the phone to Governor Jeb Bush to urge him to send in an assessment team to the Broward County Elections Office.
Jeb Bush subsequently suspended Miriam Oliphant without pay for incompetence. Bush then turned around and tapped David Kennedy to help pick Oliphant's replacement. A Republican, Brenda Snipes, was chosen despite the fact that the people of Broward County had elected a Democrat with some 70% of the vote. Snipes would run for election in 2004, and her campaign would be run by William Scherer, a lawyer who co-chaired George W. Bush's campaign in Broward County.

Snipes then re-hired Hall in December of 2003, re-installing her to her position as supervisor of absentee ballots. In the 2004 election, some 60,000 absentee ballots would not be mailed out to voters, who would then lose their vote altogether.

Moreover, Snipes also brought back another holdover from the 2002 fiasco. Gisela Salas was made Deputy Elections Supervisor in time to oversee the 2004 election. Despite the objections of many Broward election workers who protested that Salas had been incompetent during the 2002 election, Snipes overruled their protests and made Salas her second in command.

Salas had presided over a primary in September of 2002 that saw polling places in Miami-Dade open late, voting machines malfunction, and workers abandoning their posts altogether. At the time, Jeb Bush called the events in Miami-Dade "shameful." Two years later, the replacement that he named for Miriam Oliphant would hire the official in charge of that shameful fiasco in Miami-Dade's 2002 primary as her second in command. 60,000 absentee ballots would not be mailed out to voters in a primarily Democratic district, and John Kerry would lose a very tight state and national election for the presidency.

However, absentee ballots were not the primary reason that John Kerry lost the 2004 election. Provisional ballots by and large accounted for the greater amount of lost votes for the Kerry campaign. In Ohio, some 155,000 provisional ballots were not counted. Another 92,672 votes were discarded, bringing the total number of uncounted votes to 247,672. This is according the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

To understand how important provisional ballots are to a Democratic candidate like John Kerry, you must first understand why they have come into vogue. In the 2000 election, Republican Party operatives headed to the polls with lists of names. The names on the lists that they carried belonged primarily to minority voters. The lists are known as caging lists.

The operatives then challenged the votes of people on the list, effectively trying to make it difficult for them to vote or dissuading them from voting altogether. The significance of such a strategy ought to be obvious: minorities vote in overwhelming numbers for Democrats. If you can jam minority voters at the polls by challenging their right to cast a vote in the first place, you increase the odds that a Republican will win.

However, the strategy did not work. Al Gore still managed to win the popular vote in 2000, though the Electoral College that ultimately determines who becomes President went to George W. Bush by virtue of the aforementioned goings on down in Florida and the Supreme Court decision that blocked any count of the votes down in Broward County.

Republicans refined their techniques, recognizing that they'd had a close call. In response to voter outrage over the polling place challenges of minority votes, Republicans offered up a compromise: provisional ballots. The voter whose right to vote was challenged could simply fill out a provisional ballot, and upon confirmation of his or her legitimate right to vote, their vote would be counted.
There was only one problem with such an arrangement. The officials in charge of the investigation and verification of voter eligibility would belong to one of two parties. Depending on which party the official belonged to, the call could and did go a certain way as you might imagine.

Republicans compiled new caging lists of voters who were largely black or Jewish (and therefore more likely to vote Democratic), and they set up their plan to challenge voter eligibility in 2004. They ran into a snag when a Republican operative mistakenly sent caging lists via email to an individual who had purchased the rights to the domain name http://www.georgewbush.org/. They were supposed to have emailed the list to georgewbush.com instead. The individual, realizing what he had in his possession then forwarded the information to the BBC.

The BBC reported on the caging lists, blowing the lid off what had previously been a covert effort to suppress the minority vote in the 2004 election. Ohio, New Mexico, and Florida were the primary targets. States with large amounts of Hispanics, Jews, and blacks were targeted and the names on the list reflected the ugly reality of the Republican Party's strategy.

The Republican Party found itself in an untenable position. Compiling lists for voter challenges based on race is a federal offense. The Republican Party had been busted previously for the same offense back in the 1980's, and as part of a court settlement, they had pledged to never do such a thing again. However, times have changed. The Republicans recognized that the makeup of federal courts had changed as well, and they decided to press on anyway. Though their announced plans to challenge some 35,000 votes in Ohio provoked the ire of the federal judges, it did not provoke substantive action by those judges.

They proceeded on their merry way, and challenged votes based on race and likely political affiliation stemming from race. They managed to achieve their aim. John Kerry lost the election in Ohio by 136,483 votes. However, 247,672 votes simply were not counted, either due to their being designated as illegitimate provisional ballots or through their designation as "spoiled" ballots.
This brings us to our other major issue: that of the machine ballot. Remember those hanging chads down in Florida in the 2000 election? Those little hole punch ballots that still had pieces of paper clinging tenuously to them…they were deemed "spoiled" by virtue of an election officials determination that the vote cast was inconclusive. If the chad wasn't punched all the way through, the candidate didn't get the vote. Or to be more accurate, the voter's vote was rendered meaningless.

Furthermore, machine balloting was proving to be notoriously inaccurate. The old hole punch ballot machines simply fail to record votes. On average, around two million votes are "spoiled" in national elections. They are not counted or they are invalidated due to challenges.

In Rio Arriba, a New Mexico county that is 73 percent Hispanic, 1 out of every 10 votes was not counted by the machines in the 2000 elections. Moreover, in one Rio Arriba precinct, not one single vote for President was recorded on any of the ballots submitted. State and local election officials left this occurrence unchallenged.

Of the two million votes that disappear in every national election, fifty-four percent are estimated to be those of black voters.

Is it merely a race issue? Yes and no. Poverty is greater in minority communities and neighborhoods, and as a result, voting equipment tends to be older and more outdated. However, don't expect Republicans to rush to bring equality in voting conditions and reliability to the precincts where they are most likely to lose.

The Responsibility of the Citizen

When faced with widespread inequity and injustice that strikes at the very core of a participatory democracy such as ours, we as citizens have the obligation and the power to fight back against those who perpetuate threats to our right to vote. Our right to vote is the most precious right that we have, the one upon which all other rights are built.

When faced with a power structure such as our current two-party system that depends on the suppression of votes in order to succeed and thrive, we must revolt against such tyranny. Our democracy depends on the inclusion of votes in order to remain a democracy. If it fails to do so, it fails to represent the very people it governs…it becomes a tyranny and a cancerous threat to freedom.

We have a responsibility to mobilize and insist that all votes be counted in a fair and just manner. We have a duty to hold our government to an account for how it manages that sacred process by which we select those who will stand as our representatives. If we do not stand vigilant, our elected representatives will pursue their own interests, because they will recognize that their employers will not hold them to an account for their actions. We the people are the employers of our government. It answers to us…we govern it with our vote.

We direct it with our input at the polls. To have elected officials essentially striking down votes or excluding votes to achieve their own predetermined objectives is a direct threat to our freedom. Their partisan power does not supersede our democratic rights. They have clearly forgotten this fact. It is time to remind them.

Mobilize. Join the movement to demonstrate against the tyranny of two party politics and election malfeasance so that we can ensure that democracy lives on. Fight for your country and your freedom. We can demonstrate in the streets peacefully, and as long as we show up in number to voice our support of democratic ideal, they will have to listen to us. Join the movement.


Jay Bates

The following are source materials used for the writing of this blog. Please read, investigate, and above all, enjoy!
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/an_election_spoiled_rotten.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_ballot
http://www.newtimesbpb.com/2004-11-04/news/vote-interrupted/1
TomPaine_com - Kerry Won.htm
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/4/224812/643

The Movement's Mission Statement

The Movement's Mission Statement
Believing that the current election laws set forth by the states of this country are arbitrary, undemocratic, and largely exclude third or alternative parties from the ballot, we seek to mount a political movement designed at forcing the states to ultimately change their election laws to allow any candidate who can collect five thousand signatures from registered voters for either a statewide or national elected office to be on the ballot with his political affiliation duly noted.
We recognize the need for current action so that we can achieve this goal. We seek to mount a volunteer effort aimed at collected signatures on the behalf of third and alternative party candidates for office, regardless of their political affiliation or creeds, so that the American voter may have the maximum number of choices available at the polls. We hold that this is beneficial and necessary to the democratic process, and that the current two party system is a tyranny that must be overturned by the effort of American voters and citizens to change the laws that govern our election process.
The Movement will work tirelessly to get any candidate from a third party or minor party who wishes to run for election the necessary amount of signatures so that he may comply with his or her state's election laws and be included on the ballot for the elected office he or she wishes to be elected to. We are ourselves non-partisan, issuing no judgement or endorsement of the respective candidates, but instead seeking only to increase democratic choices available to American voters.
We further seek to mount a protest movement aimed at raising the public awareness of the current undemocratic policies installed in state election laws by the two major political parties that are aimed at stifling third party participation and involvement in the electoral process. We believe that these policies and laws also limit voter choice and options, and as such we believe that they are undemocratic and must be overturned. We seek to raise voter awareness and public outrage so that the laws will be changed, and democracy will be upheld.
We condemn the current two party system and its election laws as undemocratic and tyrannical. We do not seek to end the two major political parties, but we do seek to curb their excessive power over the electoral process in order to prohibit them from undermining the democratic process further. We take no political or policy positions except those that are outlined explicitly in this statement. The political positions of individual members are never to be confused with mission of The Movement. They are separate.
Through protest, through tangible and effective actions, and through public debate, we seek to effect change in the election process aimed at increasing voter choice and ballot options.

How The Major Parties Cheat in Election Law

How the Major Parties Cheat in Election Law: A Guide to why Third Parties can't get on the Ballots.
Jay Bates

The two party political system produces limited voter choice, limited options for democracy as a whole, and in general provides everyone but the parties themselves restrictions on how they may function politically. From the local levels of government to the highest levels of the federal government, Republicans and Democrats have a stranglehold on the political process of the United States. While in recent years citizens have seen ethics scandals, lobbyist scandals, and campaign contribution scandals and the accompanying Congressional hearings and reform legislation that usually come on the heels of such things…and nothing has really changed.

The question readers may be asking is "How do illegal campaign contributions deprive me of my right to vote or undermine democracy?" The answer is actually quite simple. We have campaign finance laws in this country to promote transparency…so that voters can see who is supporting whom. This enables voters to make a determination as to the political motivations and goals of the candidate, since a candidate who receives millions of dollars from one group or individual isn't likely to take a congressional voting position contrary to their supporters' positions. To give a clear analogy, it isn't likely that the National Organization for Women (a pro-choice group) is going to plow a million dollars into the campaign coffers of a pro-life candidate if that candidate is truly pro-life. Campaign contributions provide a clear window into how a candidate is likely to vote on particular issues that touch on their donors' interests. If you allow candidate and donors to hide their relationship through what is tantamount to money laundering, you in essence allow for voters to be potentially deceived as to whom exactly they are voting for. When the rich and powerful in this country are allowed to skirt campaign finance laws by laundering their contributions to candidates through holding companies, relatives, employees, and various other entities, the voter is deprived of the transparency that is so essential to making an informed vote.

In the current two party political system, you have only to follow the money to see which way a candidate will vote. It costs millions of dollars to get elected to a congressional seat or to the Presidency, and it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to get elected to statewide office. Only one group of people benefit when the criteria for election in this country is directly correlated to how much campaign cash a candidate can raise: the wealthy. Making money the basis for a successful candidacy is in itself a subversion of democracy, because it ensures that those with the greater amounts of money can support candidates who will bolster their already advantageous position. It also ensures that the average voter will decrease in importance, because he or she can only vote…and a vote just isn't what it was meant to be anymore.

Money is used in campaigns to purchase advertising that vilifies, promotes fear, and in general distracts the average voters from actual issues that are relevant to them. Our real wages have fallen, manufacturing jobs have gone overseas, our educational system is underfunded in many instances, and millions of Americans are struggling to afford access to basic healthcare. In the meantime, political advertisements zero in on fringe issues like abortion and gay marriage to incite average voters. In all truth, no meaningful legislation has been passed at the federal level of government on those two issues in twenty years, and yet one would think that they consume the federal agenda given the amount of political advertisement devoted to them in an average election cycle. However, money drives the way people vote, and when people see massive amounts of advertising on those issues, they vote for the candidate that they identify with on said issues, believing that he or she stands with them on the issues. That candidate then goes off to the statehouse or the Congress and votes on a wide array of bills that have little to do with abortion or gay marriage, and everything to do with the moneyed interests of large campaign donors.
Money is the tool through which those who fund the two party political system manage to divert attention away from the actual direction of candidate loyalties. Money is the sword that cuts the average voter away from his representation, ensuring that Congressmen will only encounter lobbyists and the interests that they represent. Money is the major reason why a third party rarely ever gets on the ballot. In order to get on the ballot in many national or state elections, you have to either be the nominee of one of the two major parties or you have to have enough money to fund a petition drive that will collect enough signatures to get you included on the ballot. Most third parties strike a chord with average voters who simply don't have the sort of financial wherewithal to drop a thousand dollars or more on a plate at a fundraising dinner.

This blog is intended to show readers how both of the major parties cheat in election law and more importantly, why they cheat. It will show how the wealthiest individuals in this country shape democracy for the rest of us by virtue of their disproportionate financial influence on elections. It will show how third parties are effectively excluded from the election process by state election laws that are designed to require third party candidates to have vast sums of money to fund organizational efforts so that they can actually be included on a ballot. Finally, it will trace how all of this amounts to a disenfranchisement of sorts for average voters by denying them alternative choices to the two major parties. A solution will be presented at the conclusion of this blog that demonstrates how it is possible to correct the current system with concrete action.

State Election Laws and the Stifling of Third Parties

State Election Laws are designed by the two major parties to limit the participation of other parties in the electoral process. They are written to place the bar for party recognition quite high, high in the sense that a new party would have to meet the organizational standard of the two major parties. As I have noted in the above paragraphs, this requires great deals of money.
Take Ohio, for example. One cannot simply organize a group of voters and declare that by virtue of their mobilization and affiliation with one another they are a political party. The process entails much more than that. For starters, you have to be recognized by the state. The state determines what constitutes a political party and what does not constitute a political party. In Ohio, any potential party has to go and get the signatures of registered voters in an amount that is equal to one percent of the registered voters of the state. In 2004, that would have meant collecting 32,290 signatures from registered voters.

Sounds simple, right? But consider that when voters register, they register largely as Democrats and Republicans to prevent cross voting in primaries. The state of Ohio requires that a prospective third party go to registered voters who are already affiliated with the two major parties in order to get the requisite signatures in order to be recognized! You can then see the difficulty that third parties face.

However, there is another way for third parties to be recognized in the state of Ohio. If you want, you can nominate a candidate for governor or president in the state of Ohio, and if that candidate wins 5% of the vote for their respective office, the state will then recognize your party. However, the state won't grant the candidate political party affiliation on the ballot! That is, the state will not allow a candidate to have his party affiliation listed by his name on the ballot, and therefore the candidate technically isn't polling for a third party! There is no real way around going to registered Republican and Democratic voters in order to get the signatures necessary to start your own third party.

However, let's say for a moment that you do attempt to get the one percent number of signatures you'd need to be recognized as a political party in Ohio. You'd be going door to door in a grassroots effort to collect those signatures, and you'd largely be doing it as an unknown group. Most people in this country receive their political information from the media, and the media is largely a tool of two party politics, given that it is owned by the corporate interests who daily lobby the two party system for legislation that is favorable to their financial interests.

How likely is it that you're going to invited into a person's house to present your political party's views to them one on one in order to persuade them to sign a petition that will gain your group recognition in the eyes of the state election officials of Ohio? Essentially the laws are stacked against third party mobilization and organization in such a way that the dominant two party system is the only one that can thrive and succeed. The laws require that anyone who feels disaffected with the two party system effectively has to ask registered Democrats and Republicans for permission to mobilize so that their party affiliation can be included on election ballots!

If you don't believe requirements such as the aforementioned demonstrate a clear bias against third party political organization, consider the requirements that the state of Ohio has for independent candidates. If you wish to register your candidacy as independent and therefore free of party affiliation, you only need 5,000 signatures. The state of Ohio and the two party system that governs it clearly wish to stifle efforts to mobilize a third party alternative to their own system. By raising the bar some twenty-five to thirty-thousand votes for a third party affiliated candidate, the state clearly signals its bias against third party candidacies and alternative political parties that dissent against the dominant two party system.

An independent candidate who is less likely to present a lasting threat as far as any permanent organization that would challenge the existing two party system is allowed on ballots in Ohio with 5,000 votes precisely because he represents less of a threat to the two party system. In many states, candidates who are affiliated with the Green Party or some other such alternative party find themselves unable to put their party affiliation on the ballot because of the difference in signature requirements that separate third party and independent ballot requirements. The net result of such policies is that the voter goes to the polls and sees a candidate on the ballot but has no frame of reference to place that candidate within because the candidate's political affiliation is left off of the ballot due to restrictive state laws. In a sense, they don't know who or what they'd be voting for if they cast their vote for the candidate.

The truly irritating part of such requirements is that courts have generally upheld the state's election laws, which are designed to frustrate efforts of third parties to mobilize effectively. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals actually held in Schrader v. Blackwell that Ohio law was reasonable given Ohio's interest in avoiding "confusion, deception, and frustration of the democratic process." I would submit that Ohio's laws are designed to promote confusion, deception, and frustration of the democratic process by making it harder for voters and citizens to effectively mobilize in opposition to the two party system.
By keeping political affiliation off of the ballot of candidates who fail to obtain thirty thousand plus signatures, Ohio is attempting to confuse voters as to what a particular candidate actually stands for. It is also seeking to retard efforts by those citizens who have mobilized behind that candidate to establish a viable third party alternative to the two party system that pervades our democracy and writes such ridiculous election laws in the first place. Suggesting that those parties can go to appellate courts to overturn such laws is laughable as well, when the courts are stocked with partisan judges who are products by and large of the two party system of politics. They are nominated and confirmed by their respective parties to the very bench they hold as judges! Asking them to allow for third party political mobilization is akin to going to a National Socialist and asking him for more lenient policies towards Jews and Gypsies! Their existence and success is predicated on keeping alternatives off of the ballot to begin with because they are partisans!

Why Two Party Politics Succeeds: Follow the Money

In the 2006 elections, the federal candidates alone spent some 1.4 billion dollars on their campaigns. If you want to see just how skewed the contributions are to political campaigns, there are 222,940,420 adults in the United States. Of those adults, itemized campaign contributions of $200 or more came from less than two-tenths of one percent. Two tenths of one percent of the adults in the United States fund the two party system. Care to guess who they are? They are largely comprised of the richest one to five percent of Americans, and they get what they pay for.

The vast majority of campaign contributions in this country in the 2006 election came from businesses, which contributed a whopping 1.16 billion dollars or 73.5% of the total monies given to campaigns. They were followed by labor, which managed a paltry 66 million dollars, or 4.2% of the total monies given. Do you see why 1 out of every 6 manufacturing jobs disappeared to overseas markets over the past seven years now?

The majority of Americans favor a government that is business friendly in the sense that it creates good paying jobs with benefits like health insurance and pensions. However, in today's business climate, business leaders abhor the idea of incurring expenses like insurance and retirement plans that could eat into their shareholder dividends (again, the richest one to five percent comprise the majority of shareholder wealth in this country), and they have started contributing money to elect candidates who will stand idly by while they shuffle good paying jobs overseas and cut benefits in order to deliver the maximum dividend payout to the wealthiest Americans who comprise the investor class.
Not surprisingly, they are quite in favor the existing two party system and have no issues with its efforts to stifle democratic expression either through vote suppression or through state laws that make it difficult for citizens to mobilize a third party that can put itself on the ballot.

Given that many third party efforts begin as reactions against the injustice of such things, the corporations and wealthy classes see such efforts as a threat to their hegemonic power. They are right to see it as such. Their tyranny of two party politics produces results that are largely one sided and favorable to their position. Under the current system, their two party government gives them what they pay it to produce regardless of the effect on the middle class or lower income voters.

Tyranny is never about ideology or principles. It's about good old-fashioned material greed. The Communist Party bosses in the old Soviet Union constructed a tyranny not of ideology, but of greed and power hoarding. While the average Russian citizen stood in line at grocery stores only to arrive inside and find the shelves empty, the Communist Party bosses and their cronies had plenty of food and lived in luxury at dachas on the outskirts of the gloomy cities that they had built apartment buildings for the lower classes. The tyranny of the two party system in America boils down to material greed as well.

The upper classes have a stranglehold on our democracy, and their greatest weapon in perpetuating their less than democratic policies is the two party system. This two party system has corrupted every last vestige of our government from the local levels to the highest corridors of power, and it must be stopped if we are to reclaim democracy in a true sense. If you want your vote to count, to have meaning, if you want to vote for a candidate that truly represents your interest and political beliefs…then the two party system in its current form has to be done away with.

We cannot get justice or equality at the ballot boxes, as they are manned and overseen by partisan officials who are loyal to the two major parties rather than a democratic ideal. We cannot get it in the courts, which are stocked with partisan judges who deliver decisions that allow two party tyrannies to be perpetuated through law.

The Movement's Solution

The majority of Americans don't have a great deal of money, as the richest one to five percent of the population owns upwards of eighty percent of the country as a whole. We aren't powerful politically or socially, owing to the way that the two party system has disenfranchised us by forcing us to vote for one of two potential parties, neither of which truly represent us once elected. We have been divided by a two party system that seeks to polarize us along racial, ethnic, gender, social, economic, religious, and orientation lines. But regardless of our differences, we have one unifying motivation: the desire to be represented by a government that reflects our popular will and respects our right as individuals to be politically self-determining. We desire freedom in place of tyranny, representation in the place of disenfranchisement, and an alternative to the current system.

We have one thing and one thing only that is to our advantage. We are a physical majority. We can flood the streets in peaceful but forceful demonstrations, and we can stop the wheels of production and industry cold by flooding the streets in protest and refusing to work another day until we are given emancipation. Every single elected representative of the U.S. Federal Government must step down and resign, and free and open elections must be held. Once the elections are held, then the judges must step down from their positions, to be replaced by judges that are nominated and appointed by the new government.

We must then turn our attention to the state and local levels of government and demand the same of those elected officials. We must turn to the media and demand that the airwaves that have previously been licensed to them at minimal cost by the FCC now come with the price of free political airtime during elections. This airtime and media exposure would be open to all candidates so that they could present their views to the voter through the mass media regardless of their financial standing. Let their ideas persuade the voter. Let the voter choose!

You have the power to join your voice and your body to this movement, to become committed to the ideal that we have the right to true political representation rather than the illusory representation that we've had for too long under the two major political parties. This is a revolutionary idea only to those within the existing power structure, who believe it is their right and their entitlement to perpetuate a government that represents their socially and economically elite minority by virtue of their possession of great wealth.
If you wish to be free, if you would have a vote that counts and choice that matters, you have to fight for it. Don't assume that the individual rights that you are guaranteed on paper in the Constitution will be observed or respected automatically by those who comprise the two party tyranny. They see the Constitution as a mere rag of insignificance when it gets in the way of their accumulation of power and wealth. When we achieve a multi-party democracy that truly embodies and represents the spectrum of the American population, the fight will not be over. We must always be vigilant to fight off the encroachment of tyranny.

Join the movement. Mobilize and fight to achieve a government that represents you and your interests, and an election process that presents options to you that fit your perspective and ideals!

Major Sources:
Ohio Election Laws
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/ebook/part2/candidate_ballot04.html
Donor Stats & Demographics
http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/DonorDemographics.asp?cycle=2006
Note: I verified the statistics and facts contained within these two websites through FEC filings, and through an examination of Ohio state codes. To the best of my knowledge, they are factual and accurate. However, if you find error within the sites, please contact me here at Myspace with your findings so that I can immediately investigate. As always, I welcome your suggestions and comments.

To the Movement,

Jay Bates

The Movement's Petition!

If you agree with the following, copy and paste it into your email and forward it to others. Let's start a movement!

Jay

Be it resolved that: The current government of these United States has ceased to represent the will of the people. It has pursued policies that are detrimental to the well-being and preservation of the nation and its citizens, and has done so in pursuit of a policy and practice that is tilted towards the wealthiest citizens. We believe that the current war in Iraq is a direct result of these sorts of policies and practices and has little to do with the national security of the United States. We further allege that the current two party system of political representation is inadequate to the task of providing American voters with choices for political representation. We wish to hold elections in which candidates from outside parties may be entered on to ballots without the current requirements of petitioning. Let the people decide who they wish to vote for. We believe that the two party system stifles true democratic expression and representation and perpetuates the interests of the few at the expense of the many. We declare that the Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Supreme Court of the United States of America do not reflect our wishes, desires, and values as voters and citizens. They have ceased to satisfy our requirements for representation, and are an impediment to the will of the American voter. We believe that they are in fact permeated by the two party system to such an extent that they cannot be trusted to do anything other than stifle free political expression and alternative options at the polls. We believe that they have ceded to the will of the wealthy in our country, who have purchased the political process through campaign contributions in an attempt to buy candidates who will give them whatever it is that they require. We believe that the current system of taxation and the current fiscal policies and legislative agendas of the country reflect the total domination of our elected representatives by a small minority of wealthy citizens. We further state that the media is no longer free and independent in our country, but is instead largely owned by shareholder corporations who are dominated by the wealthiest citizens. The media has ceased to be objective in its presentation of events and facts, and has become a tool of corporate propaganda and misinformation. We believe that the media has intentionally engaged in misrepresentation of the current political and social climate of our country in order to collaborate the interests of the wealthy and politically powerful. Such a media is incompatible with a healthy democracy in which all men and women have a vote that counts and cannot be unduly influenced through media manipulation. Just as our government has become a organ through which the wealthiest citizens affect policies and programs that benefit their interests in a disproportionate manner, our media has also become the tool of the wealthy. We reject this arrangement as undemocratic and unhealthy. We protest the current state of affairs in our government at the national level, and ask that every elected official in the Congress resign their post immediately so that new elections can be held. We ask that the President resign as well. We further require that upon the completion of new elections, the current Supreme Court justices resign en masse and new nominations and appointments shall be made by the President and the Congress. If you as a citizen feel that our government needs to be overhauled in the interests of democracy, I ask that you affix your name to this petition. I further ask that you circulate this petition via email. Let us attempt to affect change through our free political expression.

1. Jay Bates (author of petition)
2.