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I refuse to participate in a process I know from personal experience to be corrupt at the local level. When the people responsible for investigating are the same people responsible for the illegal acts and the state and federal agencies tasked with enforcement won't even take the complaint -- well, there's nothing that's going to convince me that there is any hope for this county's process. In 2004, our ballots had the presidential candidates as the first item. I personally witnessed ballots being sorted at the polling location and placed in different boxes based on that first item. The boxes were identifiable as to which was which ("GWB","JK" and "AO" - all others), placed into the back of a sheriff's car, and driven to the election board's office. The "GWB" box remained in the back seat of the car while the "JK" and "AO" boxes were taken in to the office to be counted. Since I wasn't blessed as an "official" observer, I was not allowed inside. The "GWB" box was never counted, driven back to the Sheriff's office, and was discarded in their dumpster, locked and unopened. Anyone in that particular batch who voted for GWB had their votes, not just for president, but for congressional office and local issues, thrown out. Every single official -- county, state, and fed -- I tried to report the issue to responded with some variation of "mistakes happen, it's not an issue we're going to look into". Party officials didn't care -- D's votes got counted, R's didn't care because the D's had solidly carried that county for decades and more-or-less written the county off, and no one else had the manpower to do anything about it. My vote (in the AO category that time around) was counted, or at least made it inside to be counted, but it still bothers me that things are so corrupt that there isn't even an attempt to hide the corruption. Fix the absolutely blatant corruption, and I might, possibly, be motivated to vote. I don't mean charging people with little misdemeanors and letting them plead out to fines. I want to see felony charges and jail time for those participating, furthering, and knowingly benefiting from the systemic abuse of our election processes. |