#electoral transparency

[abhi-views]

Electoral Bonds Downfall: Key Points & What Lies Ahead

Electoral Bonds Downfall: Key Points & What Lies Ahead

In a landmark decision on February 15, 2024, the Supreme Court of India declared the Electoral Bond Scheme unconstitutional. This scheme, introduced in 2018, aimed to bring transparency to anonymous political donations through bearer bonds purchased from designated banks. However, the Court found the scheme flawed and incompatible with several fundamental principles. Arguments against the…

[ivygorgon]

An open letter to the President & U.S. Congress

Immediate Investigation Required: Election Integrity Threatened

16 so far! Help us get to 25 signers!

The recent wave of bomb threats at polling sites, delayed ballot counts, and technical malfunctions are raising significant public concerns about this election. With over 30 threats reported at voting locations, alongside signs of foreign interference and operational disruptions, a thorough investigation is essential for transparency and accountability.

To uphold the integrity of our democratic process, we urge immediate action to examine potential interference or fraud. If necessary, a recount or even a revote should be considered to restore voter trust. Addressing these concerns directly will reassure Americans that every vote is secure and counted.

Thank you for your commitment to the principles of our democratic system.

▶ Created on November 7 by Ret. SGT Guild

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My guilty pleasure.

Who would vote for Trump and then vote for Democrats in House/Senate?

Tabulation machines were hacked and a simple hand count of the ballots could help solve the mystery.

Interesting how quiet things are when all this could be investigated very easily.

👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

[townpostin]

East Singhbhum Unveils Updated Voter List for 2024 Elections

18,54,767 voters registered; near-equal gender ratio with 999 women per 1000 men East Singhbhum district administration releases revised voter list under SSR-2024, revealing key electoral statistics. JAMSHEDPUR – East Singhbhum’s updated voter list shows 18,54,767 registered voters, including 9,27,747 males, 9,26,883 females, and 137 third-gender individuals. District Election Officer Ananya…

[dailyworldecho]

[streetreporters]

Kogi Guber: Civil Society Group Urges Supreme Court to Ensure Justice and Fairness

A Civil Society Organization, Electoral Integrity and Good Governance Initiative, has appealed to the Justices of the Supreme Court of Nigeria handling the Kogi State Governorship election appeal to ensure a thorough and fair review of the case. The group’s spokesperson, Prince Kolawole Abiodun, expressed concerns over the inconsistencies in the Kogi State Governorship case, particularly in…

[ivygorgon]

End Gerrymandering! Pass the FAIR MAPS Act!

AN OPEN LETTER to THE U.S. CONGRESS

593 so far! Help us get to 1,000 signers!

Rep. Wiley Nickel has introduced a bill, the FAIR MAPS Act, to combat partisan gerrymandering by establishing independent, non-partisan redistricting commissions in every state. I’d like you to support it.

Across the country, partisan gerrymandering has been used as a tool by politicians to manipulate electoral outcomes with almost surgical precision. This leads to hyper-partisanship, a lack of trust in government, and disenfranchised voters. In America today, politicians too often choose their voters instead of voters choosing their elected officials. It's troubling and anti-democratic.

Independent redistricting commissions, which the FAIR MAPS Act promotes, are a common-sense solution to gerrymandering that puts power in the hands of the people – where it belongs. When districts are drawn fairly, all voters – Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike – have a fair shot to make their voices heard.

For that reason, please co-sponsor and work to pass the FAIR MAPS Act. Thanks.

▶ Created on April 25 by Jess Craven · 593 signers in the past 7 days

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[kesarijournal]

A Modest Proposal for Strengthening Democracy, or How to Win Friends and Influence Elections

In an era where the mere mention of “free and fair elections” sends waves of laughter through the corridors of power, we find ourselves beholding the masterclass in governance offered by none other than the Supreme Leader Shri Sir Adarniya Modiji Maximum Authority, affectionately known as SLSSAMAM. The SLSSAMAM approach to democracy is not merely a strategy but an art form, a nuanced ballet…

[awesomengers]

Extortion

In the land of vibrant hues, where democracy should thrive,A shadow looms, casting doubt, where truth struggles to survive.Quid pro quo whispers softly, through corridors of power,Bribery’s scent taints the air, in this ominous hour. Extortion’s grip tightens, squeezing hope from every pore,Blackmail’s poison spreads, staining justice to the core.In the midst of this chaos, a government stands…

[jimbotimes]

California leads the States in donations to Trump through Quarter 3

When governors Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis held their “debate” this past November, one minor fact missing from the discussion was that donors in “the Golden State” have actually led the nation in supporting Donald Trump’s re-election campaign so far. Data from the Federal Election Commission shows that since August 2022 – September 2023, Californians have made at least 167,000 donations for the…

[worldwatcher3072]

Is It Time to Fix the US Political System? Experts Weigh In

The United States political system has long been a topic of debate, with many citizens and experts alike arguing that it is in dire need of repair. From gridlock in Congress to concerns about money in politics, the issues are complex and multifaceted. But what are the solutions? We spoke to a range of experts to get their take on the best ways to fix the US political system.

Campaign finance reform One of the most commonly cited issues with the US political system is the role of money in politics. According to a report by the Brennan Center for Justice, spending on federal elections has skyrocketed in recent years, with $14 billion spent on the 2020 election alone. This has led to concerns about the influence of wealthy donors on the political process.

To address this issue, many experts recommend campaign finance reform. This could include measures like increasing transparency around political donations, limiting the amount of money individuals and corporations can donate, and implementing a public financing system to help level the playing field.

2.) Electoral reform Another key issue with the US political system is the way in which elections are structured. The Electoral College, for example, has been a source of controversy for decades, with critics arguing that it gives undue influence to certain states and undermines the principle of one person, one vote.

To address this issue, some experts recommend reforms like ranked-choice voting or the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would ensure that the winner of the presidential election is the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide.

3.)Redistricting reform Gerrymandering is another issue that has long plagued the US political system. By manipulating district boundaries, politicians are able to effectively choose their own voters, making it more difficult for opposition parties to win elections.

To address this issue, many experts recommend redistricting reform. This could include measures like creating independent redistricting commissions, implementing strict criteria for redistricting, and using computer algorithms to draw district lines.

4.)Strengthening democracy Finally, many experts argue that the best way to fix the US political system is to strengthen democracy itself. This could include measures like expanding voting rights, ensuring fair representation for all communities, and promoting transparency and accountability in government.

Ultimately, the US political system is complex and multifaceted, and fixing it will require a range of reforms and initiatives. But by working together and implementing smart, evidence-based solutions, we can create a political system that truly represents the people it serves.

[tchaikovskaya]

You’re really failing to understand the point here.

What the College Dems tweet is expressing (quite succinctly, I must say) is the idea that the left-of-center of the Party’s base is being taken for granted, because there are no better viable options on the table.

This is effectively what would be in a parliamentary system a vote of no confidence.

Doing whatever the fuck you want because [your] half of the country knows that the other side is going to do the same but to a greater degree is absolutely what I would consider “holding democracy hostage.”

I don’t think that both parties are the same, no. But the Democrats feel that they have license to act similarly enough to the GOP on a great number of issues as long as they maintain some distinction. The difference is used as something to dangle over the electorate’s heads as a looming threat of something worse to come, as a consequence if they don’t fall in line. And party-loyal voters have had enough of it at this point. THAT is what’s happening here.

Yeah biden is fucking toast lol

[reasonsforhope]

"The South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, has announced plans to ban political donations from state elections, paving the way for nation-leading electoral reforms.

The state’s electoral amendment bill announced on Wednesday [June 12, 2024] night will ban electoral donations and gifts to registered political parties, members of parliament and candidates. The state will provide funding to allow parties and candidates to contest elections, run campaigns and promote political ideas.

Malinauskas said his bill would put South Australia on the “cusp of becoming a world leader in ending the nexus between money and political power”.

“We want money out of politics. We know this is not easy. These reforms may well face legal challenge,” Malinauskas said.

“But we are determined to deliver them, with this bill to be introduced in the parliament in the near future.”

In a subtle challenge to his federal and state counterparts, the premier told Guardian Australia he thought it was “something that democracies everywhere should be pursuing”.

The Albanese government pledged to introduce spending and donation caps, and truth in political advertising laws, as revealed by Guardian Australia after the 2022 federal election and confirmed by a parliamentary inquiry that reported last July.

The special minister of state, Don Farrell, said last month an agreement between the major parties and the crossbench had not yet been reached. An amendment bill is still expected by the middle of the year.

In order to level the playing field for newly created parties and independent candidates, the South Australia bill will allow candidates to receive donations up to $2,700, although they will remain subject to campaign spending caps.

Those spending caps have been set at $100,000, multiplied by the number of candidates up to a maximum of $500,000.

If the bill is passed, a registered political party will be entitled to a one-off payment of $200,000 before 31 August 2026. Whichever is lower out of $700,000 or the number of party members of parliament multiplied by $47,000 will also be given to parties for operational funding.

Membership fees will be allowed to continue but will be capped at $100 or less a year.

To deter attempts to circumvent the proposed changes, a maximum penalty of $50,000 or 10 years’ imprisonment will apply.

The guide acknowledges the proposal would lead to a rise in the cost of South Australia’s electoral system, but says a tightening of expenditure and party registration rules will keep costs to a minimum.

The Albanese government is under crossbench pressure to introduce electoral reforms before the next federal election.

Lower house independents, including Kate Chaney, Zali Steggall, the Greens, David Pocock, Lidia Thorpe and the Jacqui Lambie Network, joined forces to introduce a bill for fair and transparent elections in March [2024].

The bill contained a suite of reforms including truth-in-political advertising, a ban on donations from socially harmful industries including fossil fuels, and tightening the definition of gifts to capture major party fundraisers, including dinners and business forums."

-via The Guardian, March 18, 2024

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Occupy the Democratic National Committee

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

Back in 2017, the Democratic National Committee's lawyers submitted a legal brief that didn't just say the quiet part out loud; they bellowed it: "[The DNC can] go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the [presidential] candidate that way":

https://observer.com/2017/05/dnc-lawsuit-presidential-primaries-bernie-sanders-supporters/

The brief was submitted in the lawsuit between Bernie Sanders and the DNC. Sanders sued over the DNC changing the rules midway through 2016 process in order to sideline him and give the nomination to Hillary Clinton. The DNC's response boiled down to, "Sure, we cheated. So what? We, the committee, are ultimately answerable only to ourselves, and we can choose anyone to lead the party into any election."

The DNC is a weak institution, in other words. There's a universe in which that would be OK. After all, there's a lot of overhead that comes with making strong institutions, all those checks and balances and oversight and transparency soak up resources that you could be using to do other stuff. In an ideal world, a badly run Democratic Party would be spurred to improve after it lost elections, which would result in the defenestration of bad party bosses and the ouster of bad candidates:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

But the US political system is not an ideal world. In the real world, it's possible for party bosses who pursue disastrous strategies that result in key electoral losses to remain in power. The Democratic Party still rakes in massive donations from people who hate Trump more than they hate the Democratic Party's incompetence. Candidates in gerrymandered safe seats can be wildly incompetent and still hold onto power for improbably long timescales, despite the manifest evidence of their total unfitness for office:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Lipinski

In the absence of real consequences for corruption, incompetence and utter moral turpitude, the Democratic National Committee needs some other form of discipline to get it into fighting form. We need to occupy the DNC, strengthen its institutional safeguards, and turn it into an election-winning, fascism-fighting, extinction-rebelling, worker-defending powerhouse.

Three weeks from now, the DNC will meet in National Harbor MD to elect its new president and officers. Who gets to vote on that? The 448 members of the party's national committee. Who are they? As Micah Sifry writes for The American Prospect, it's a secret, even to the committee members:

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-01-10-opening-dncs-black-box/

No, really. While nominally, members can request a list of their fellow members, the DNC stalls and stonewalls and does everything it can to prevent the committee from communicating in any way they can't control. This is incredible, but it's true. Which is why Sifry has published a leaked list of all 448 members:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bQKIP3W1NWChRjSbsE0O5k5s7OdgXrJi5-CMfFECIBU/edit?gid=0#gid=0

Looking at the spreadsheet of members, we get a rare glimpse inside the Democratic sausage factory. There's te 73 "at large" members who were voted on as a single block after being handpicked by outgoing president Jaime Harrison. These members are a mix of great people and terrible people, and that's by design: it meant that Sanders and Warren voters could only get their people onto the committee if they voted for some of the most disgusting corporate shills you can imagine.

The fact that the national committee's membership is secret and their communications must pass through a DNC chokepoint means that they get up to all kinds of shenanigans, like at the 2023 summer meeting where they voted themselves the power to throw out any bylaw amendments passed at a national party convention. The vote was whipped by paid DNC staff, creating an atmosphere so poisonous that Jessica Chambers (a rep from Wyoming) called the DNC "the least democratic organization that I’m involved with."

Sifry's breakdown is really useful: he identifies the minority of members who are elected by the party rank-and-file, calling them "the people most responsive to what the base of the party cares about." He also calls out the corporate shills who "buckrake as lobbists," like Donna Brazile, "a partner at “corporate reputation strategy firm.”

But even where state party organizations have elections for their committee members, some states keep the results of those elections a secret. Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have 69 members, but the identities of all but 14 of them are a secret.

This is a rotten institution, and that's by design. If you want to know why we can't have nice things – or, you know, a world that's not on fire and haunted by creeping fascism – this is why. The takeover of the DNC won't be easy, but it can't start until we know who the DNC is.

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/10/smoke-filled-room-where-it-happens/#dinosaurs

[tanadrin]

Wouldn't it be fun if one election cycle everyone got to vote for someone else's representatives. Probably not anything important like federal elections but maybe like every city draws another city out of a hat and gets to vote for their mayor. Then we could go back to normal after one term but it would be a fun way to get people excited about local politics maybe

I mean, if you’re American, sometimes your elections do decide who is leader of another country! Unfortunately they do so through the CIA, which makes the electoral college transparent and simple by comparison.

[ivygorgon]

An open letter to the President & U.S. Congress

Immediate Investigation Required: Election Integrity Threatened

13 so far! Help us get to 25 signers!

The recent wave of bomb threats at polling sites, delayed ballot counts, and technical malfunctions are raising significant public concerns about this election. With over 30 threats reported at voting locations, alongside signs of foreign interference and operational disruptions, a thorough investigation is essential for transparency and accountability.

To uphold the integrity of our democratic process, we urge immediate action to examine potential interference or fraud. If necessary, a recount or even a revote should be considered to restore voter trust. Addressing these concerns directly will reassure Americans that every vote is secure and counted.

Thank you for your commitment to the principles of our democratic system.

Source: https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-statement-on-bomb-threats-to-polling-locations

▶ Created on November 7 by Ret. SGT Guild

📱 Text SIGN PQNCWD to 50409

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Can I use text from your election interference post to make an open letter/petition using @resistbot?

Sure thing!

[hotvintagepoll]

At the end of the Dracula poll, will you explain how each of the cast influences the final tone of/ any minor plot changes to the movie?

oh I’m happy to do that right now!

-Jimmy Stewart grounds the movie and is a terrific pick for Jonathan because his career was full of stories of ordinary men set into slowly unraveling, reality-challenging environments that irrevocably change their characters and push them past their limits—there are sketches of what Jonathan goes through already present in It’s A Wonderful Life, Rear Window, even the Thin Man sequel he was in. Jimmy brings the tone of boy next door, Capra-esque hometown normalcy that slowly gets turned upside down as he meets…

-Gloria Holden as the Count! who is pure gothic horror but laced with psychological complexity, wants and needs that push beyond the typical Universal horror aesthetic. She’s a perfect transition into the fantasy side of the story because she can meet Jimmy in his reality world….but chooses not to.

-the brides can’t possibly meet Jimmy in reality! They’re Betty, Lauren and Marilyn! They’re ethereal next level bombshells and the first sign this movie might trend a little camp. I expect their scene to dip into dream sequence imagery, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Vincente Minelli is brought in just to stage their entrance.

-I am hugely embarrassed to say I have not seen enough of Setsuko Hara’s work to tell you how her Mina impacts the tone, though I suspect she brings a quiet, steady, subtle quality that contrasts with Judy Garland’s mannered but sincere Lucy. There is absolutely an unnecessary talent show scene early on that gets Lucy singing in front of a crowd of adoring concertgoers.

-Toshiro Mifune needs no introduction. His Quincey is blindingly sexy and always finds the good lighting in every shot.

-Vincent Price’s Seward and Veidt’s Renfield up the, ahh, bisexual undercurrents of their scenes together into new dimensions. I fear again the movie tips a little into camp here.

-Sidney Poitier’s Holmwood brings us back to grounded reality; his performance is rooted in calm, subtle realism, with only the occasional explosions into grand emotional sweeps. This balances him really well with Judy’s Lucy, where she brings a flighty magical transparency and he brings the depth, intelligence, and calm.

-Mary Philbin suddenly tips the movie into silent film territory and goes a bit avante-garde as the agonized mother. It would be nice to have a shot here where Jonathan realizes, in some way, that he is suddenly soundless as pipe organ music ramps up over the scene and he’s left voiceless: he can only speak again when it’s too late to save her, and the movie switches back to talkie mode.

We haven’t cast some other players yet but this is what I’m seeing so far from the electorate’s choices :D