This is from Public Campaign:
Tell Congress to Support the Fair Elections Now Act
When will elections be about voters instead of campaign donors? Clean elections systems have worked in Arizona, Maine and elsewhere. If we want progress on national issues, it’s time for public financing of congressional campaigns.
It’s no secret that the skyrocketing costs of congressional campaigns have turned our political system into what amounts to legalized bribery. Politicians feel compelled to raise huge sums of cash from special interests – often the very same people they’re supposed to be regulating.
Now, however, there’s hope on the horizon for U.S. Senate (and House) campaigns. Assistant Senate Majority Leader Senator Dick Durbin, D-IL, has introduced the Fair Elections Now Act, S. 1285 — the first time public financing of congressional campaigns has received such high-level support. Rep. John Tierney, D-MA, has introduced similar legislation in the House that will cover House races.
Click here to tell your Senators to support the Fair Elections Now Act.
The Fair Elections Now Act will restore public confidence in the election process by allowing qualified candidates to receive campaign funds from the Senate Fair Elections Fund instead of asking for money from private interests. In return, participating candidates would voluntarily agree to limit their campaign spending to the amount allocated to them.
This voluntary alternative to privately financed campaigns will free candidates from the all-consuming money chase that taints public perceptions of elected officials. Candidates could instead devote their time and energy to talking with constituents about the issues that are important to them.
The road to restoring our democracy to its rightful owners is not likely to be an easy one, as powerful forces favoring the status quo currently stand in our way. But we now have allies in Congress willing to take up our cause, and they deserve as much support as we can show them. Please take action today.
Consider smashing your next vote.
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Man sentenced for bashing voting machine
‘I was obligated to destroy it…’ Allentown resident tells judge.
By Debbie Garlicki | Of The Morning Call
July 26, 2007
An Allentown man who smashed an electronic voting machine because he didn’t trust it and believed that election results could be altered was convicted Wednesday of summary offenses of disorderly conduct and criminal mischief.
After a Lehigh County nonjury trial, Michael C. Young, who represented himself, was sentenced to 180 days of probation and was ordered to pay $2,910 for replacement of the touch-screen machine.
Young, 43, of 375 Auburn St., admitted that he went to a polling place at the Good Shepherd Home at Sixth and St. John streets, Allentown, on Nov. 7. He testified that he struck the screen of a Diebold-manufactured machine four times with a small figurine.
”I was obligated to destroy it to the best of my ability,” Young told Judge William E. Ford.
As a condition of probation, Young was ordered not to vote at that polling place. Ford said a probation officer will make arrangements with the county election office to have Young vote by absentee ballot.
Young said his actions were prompted by an Oct. 6, 2006, article in Rolling Stone magazine that addressed problems with electronic voting machines and gave examples of inaccuracies in results.
Young entered the article as an exhibit for the defense. Ford scanned the article and summarized it for the record.
Allentown Patrolman Edward Zucal testified that Young said that using electronic voting machines was a way for Republicans to alter the outcome of elections to overthrow Democrats. Young thought Diebold machines in particular had been programmed to commit voting fraud by Republicans, the police officer said.
Zucal said Young asked him to seize the machine and remove the memory card so that votes could not be counted.
The judge noted that the Rolling Stone article contained no references to party conspiracies.
Young testified that he thought other people might destroy machines. He said he feared that he would read the next day that ”the nation had risen” and he had not been a part of that.
Young came to court with a suitcase full of documents and thick binders. He spread papers across the defense table and often referred to them while he was cross-examining witnesses.
Earlier in the week, he had been represented by lawyer James Katz and faced misdemeanor charges of tampering with voting machines and criminal mischief. Young insisted that he wanted a jury trial.
Katz asked to withdraw from the case, and Ford allowed that.
On Wednesday, Senior Deputy District Attorney Diane Marakovits said she wanted to drop the misdemeanors and amend the formal charges to summary offenses. Defendants are not entitled to jury trials for summary offenses.
Young protested that he thought a jury should hear the case and that the situation was ”much more substantial.”
”I have my opinions,” Young said, adding they are serious ones.
Ford allowed the prosecution to amend the charges and proceed with a nonjury trial.
The judge cautioned Young before the trial that the courtroom was not a place for debate. ”This is not a forum for people to come and sound off,” Ford said.
The judge told Young that his political views on the election system and the political landscape in America weren’t relevant to the trial. ”Did you do the act or not? That is what this boils down to,” Ford said.
The damaged machine, which is the property of the Lehigh County Voter Registration Office, has not been repaired. Stacy Sterner, chief clerk of the county Board of Elections, said the machine has to be replaced because a machine that has been tampered with or damaged can only be used for demonstrations.
Ford found that there was no justification for what Young did.
”Will you ever do something like this again on Election Day?” Ford asked Young at the close of the hearing.
Young replied, ”I don’t know.”
Ford told Young that he doesn’t doubt that Young is sincere in his beliefs. However, the judge advised him to use legal means next time to express his beliefs and to try to change laws.
If Young violates his probation, it will mean jail, the judge said.