Steal This Vote

Erin Shaw
palast large.jpg

Robert Kennedy Jr. and investigative journalist Greg Palast collaborated to make Steal Back Your Vote, a comic book that illustrates how to combat the insidious efforts of the Help America Vote Act. HAVA allows partisan Secretaries of State rather than nonpartisan election boards to maintain lists of voters. That could lead to a "Catherine Harris effect," meaning votes could be thrown out at their discretion in crucial swing states. Kennedy and Palast point out more voter requirements that disproportionately impact Democrats, such as the "perfect match" rule. Under the perfect match rule, government officials are required to check registration information against existing government databases. If there is a minor difference like a middle initial, apostrophes or hyphens in your name, then your registration can be thrown out. Fortunately, Steal Back Your Vote helps you avoid these voter traps. It is available to download for free here, and donations go towards getting more copies out to reclaim the right to vote for all.

image: "New Steal Back Your Vote cover!" by Greg Palast on Flickr courtesy of Creative Commons licensing

 

Comments

I appreciate the good

Submitted by Bob Gnarly on Fri, 10/24/2008 - 14:19.
I appreciate the good intentions here, however, it is an essentially futile and pointless endeavor. As long as the two party system is allowed to flourish, voting is nothing more than mass delusion.

Agreed.  It is the opiate

Submitted by Alan Scheurman on Fri, 10/24/2008 - 14:35.

Agreed.  It is the opiate of the masses.  However,  in the case of local elections and referendums voting could still be very important and impactful.  But, our awareness is steared toward the distraction and away from where we could have real change - at the local level.

 

If you're jaded stay home because we're building it.

myspace.com/alanpatrick

 

Steal Back the Country

Submitted by McNuggetz on Thu, 10/30/2008 - 08:43.

"The politicians in Washington and our state capitals have led us away from the principles of individual liberty and personal responsibility which are the only sound foundation for a just, humane, and abundant society."

"Government at all levels is too large, too expensive, woefully inefficient, arrogant, intrusive, and downright dangerous. Democratic and Republican politicians have created the status quo and do not intend to change it." Libertarian Party

 

Republicrat- it represents 2 aspects, no difference

Submitted by highryder on Sun, 10/26/2008 - 15:08.
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n968/a11.html?1042 All North American medical marijuana activists will be praying the Monopoly will be broken, and the sick will be able to obtain their medicine despite the powers of prohibition doing all it can to destroy.

too cool for school?

Submitted by Tim Parish on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 11:24.

seriously, I'm so tired of hearing too cool alternative Americans who use that line to justify their lack of a willingness to vote. Coming from Australia where voting is compulsory and no one complains, I really think you guys should pull your head out of your ass if you don't think it's worth making an effort to contribute yr tick in the box.

I appreciate that you've got a really bad democratic system over there which doesn't let you choose preferences; a media that ignores independents and minor parties like The Greens; and on top of that is trying to muzzle your voice, but that ain't no excuse not to try and change it or to just call the whole thing a delusion. Bush in the White House for the last years was no delusion, and the rest of the world has to deal with the karma your country is creating for us all.

Sorry if I'm blunt but I can't tell you how many alternative minded Americans I've met over the years who see themselves as being too cool to actually get involved in their own democracy, or at least try to make it better like Greg Palast here is doing (and might I add, Obama).

If you don't get inspired by the possibility that something might actually change with an open minded, non-white, non-homophobe, non-christian fundamentalist in control who actually thinks we can create peace and develop a clean energy economy while President of the US, then I guess there ain't gonna be no paradigm shift that will. Coz from where I stand if you guys let another Republican Government get in, many in the world are not going to be lamenting America's inevitable decline.

xx

Tim Parish

Aust.

undergrowth.org

"we live not underground, but in the undergrowth"

I didn't say that I don't

Submitted by Alan Scheurman on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 12:23.

I didn't say that I don't vote.  I just don't vote for democrats or republicans.  Unfortunately, this is not "cool" or popular in the states.  Coming from a radical/labor perspective, I simply cannot cast a vote for anyone who

 ignores 1/5 of the popualtion, who supports violent war, the bailout, the death penalty, and nuclear power, or who deliberately deceives the public by lying about "clean coal," which is an oxymoron.  My consciense would never allow me to throw away my vote to someone who is committed to expanding US hegemony.  That doesn't make me cool.  I think, given the "inevitable decline" of the US, the best thing that I can do is start building the future.  The abolitionists didn't wait for a president to foster in a new reality, they created the Underground Railroad - the most elaborate activist network the US has ever seen.  I think that's what we need to be thinking about doing globally.  

 

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/27/why_dont_barack_obama_and_john http://counterpunch.org/mowrey10242008.html

http://understory.ran.org/2008/10/08/a-real-debate-mike-brune-v-clean-coal/ 

http://www.ilovemountains.org 

 

If you're jaded stay home because we're building it.

myspace.com/alanpatrick

 

fair 'nuff

Submitted by Tim Parish on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 20:27.

fair enough mate, perhaps i jumped to conclusions from previous experiences and long held debates with yankee cohorts. I also wish that Nader and Perot could have been involved in the elections, as I wish that Australian Greens leader Bob Brown could also be. I suppose, what I got from the article though, is that the ability for so many people to not even get to vote is a huge problem which needs to be tackled head on, not passed off as worthless anyway.

 It does sounds like a fairly archaic system of Democratic process though, and US citizens should really be pitchin' for the preferential voting concept to help people who want to support minor parties as well as make sure the Republicans don't get in anymore. In case you haven't heard of it, thats where you get to place more than one number in the ballot, or the dodgy chad, or the voting machine or whatever new fangled way to make the simplest act more complicated. Seems to me that if this were in place in 2000 there wouldn't have been the same bitchin' about Nader stealing Gore's vote, and Bush grinning all the way to White House flying on a tight right wing.

Just a thought.

 

can't win

Submitted by stephenneujahr on Wed, 10/29/2008 - 01:48.

Do you really think those with real power (the international bankers) would let someone run for president for the most powerful nation in the world if they weren't going to play their game of global dominance? It seems the last president to stand up to them was assassinated, JFK. Obama wins, economy collapses, terrorist crisis, blamed on "left" thinking(people don't care about politics anymore, just personalities), martial law, websites like this are censored. ???

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/6-the-homegrown-terr...