Video the Vote!

Like many of you, I am entering the 2006 elections in a spirit of highly tempered optimism.  Poll after poll shows that this is going to be a rout of unprecedented scale.  But having already been burned in 2000 and 2004, my confidence in a free and impartial electoral process has been sharply diminished.  Assuming, for argument’s sake, that partisan operatives already have mechanisms in place with which to manipulate the results (can’t imagine where I would get that idea), I think they would be playing with fire not to allow for some Democratic gains.  Otherwise, I think people would start asking too many questions.  However, those gains don’t have to be enough to surrender either house of Congress. 

Yeah, I’m cynical, I know.  But even without a direct counting manipulation, the structural flaws are already in place to drastically affect the outcome of this vote.  According to a recent report from the non-partisan electiononline.org [1], at least 10 states “have a combustible mix of fledgling voting-machine technology, confusion over voting procedures or recent litigation over election rules -- and close races.”  Add to that the report from Truthout [2] today that a computer “glitch” in the particularly tight Virginia race means that the Democratic candidate’s name will not appear on the ballot [2].  Yeah, you read that right. 

Well, there is something we can all do about at least some of these problems besides passively hoping for a clean election – we can assume the worst and help gather evidence on election day.  VideoTheVote.org is now registering volunteer videographers to spend November 7^th at your local precinct videotaping the process which will then be spread online.  Yeah, that’s right – long lines, intimidation, missing computers, undermanned polls – all the anecdotal problems of 2004 can now be caught on camera with an army of citizen journalists.  Watch the video [3] and signup [4]!