Montgomery County, MD Green Party Blog

Broder opposes Democracy at the Federal level of U.S. Government.

That’s right, folks: The Washington Post Columnist David S. Broder opposes the principle of one-person-one-vote at the Federal level. If you do not believe me, then check out his column for yourself. It does not make for just interesting reading — it makes for incredible reading. He justifies his opposition to one-person-one-vote at the Federal level (Although, given the way he frames the issue, he almost certainly opposes one-person-one-vote at the state level as well.) on the grounds that the two party system might suffer. It is quite obvious that he is contemptuous of any voter who supports an independent/third-party candidate. This does beg the following question: Is he an elitist? Does he support the interests of the wealthy at the expense of the common people? Before reading this column, I would immediately have dismissed this question from my mind as being ridiculous; but now I can no longer do so. All of his rationalizations come straight out of the elite playbook: Say that you are opposing this in order to protect minorities (while at the same time opposing any allocation of any meaningful resources to assist said minorities that are discriminated against in the popular culture); Say that you are opposing this in order to protect the family farmer (while at the same time supporting corporate farmers at the expense of the small stakeholder); in short, say and do anything in order to maintain your political hegemony in this country — and indeed, throughout the world.

I never before would have argued that Broder is an elitist — but now I wonder.

There’s two kinds of fame in my world:

1. The 15 minutes of fame that accompanies things like the Nobel Peace Prize (I just saw Wangari Maathai speak at Busboys and Poets this past Friday. Her remarks included the significance of a environment being recognized by the Nobel committee, and it’s role in contributing to peace.) and
2. Being the lead story on Slashdot

Linda Schade and TruevoteMD achieved the second honor tonight. By the time you read this, they will have moved down the page, but the permanent link is at the end of my post. You will also find the characteristic Slashdot discussion of the issue dense with entries by computer savvy professionals on a topic they care about and have deep knowledge of.
Slashdot sez:

opencity writes
“The Washington Post reports on the two Diebold source disks that were anonymously sent to a Maryland election official this past week. Further investigation has lead individuals involved to believe the disks came from a security check demanded by the Maryland legislature sometime in 2003.”
From the article:
“Critics of electronic voting said the most recent incident in Maryland casts doubt on Lamone’s claim that Maryland has the nation’s most secure voting system. “There now may be numerous copies of the Diebold software floating around in unauthorized hands,” said Linda Schade, co-founder of TrueVoteMD, which has pressed for a system that provides a verifiable paper record of each vote.

Read the rest of the Slashdot story here.