Testimony Before CT Legislature Regarding Ballot Access and Vote Counting

Testimony of Todd Vachon to the:
Government Administration and Elections Committee
Regarding HB6436 and HB6441
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

My name is Todd Eugene Vachon and I reside in Colchester CT. I am here today on this 18th day of February, 2009 to testify before the Government Administration and Elections Committee in support of HB6436 and HB6441.

The relevance of my testimony today stems from my recent experience as a write-in candidate for U.S. Congress in Connecticut’s 2nd Congressional District in the election held November 4th, 2008.

This long and tiresome process began by seeking ballot access for Brian Moore for President and myself as the congressional candidate chosen to represent the Socialist Party, USA. After a couple months of burdensome paperwork, bureaucratic procedure and pounding the concrete with thousands of petition pages, we fell short of acquiring the exclusionary number of petition signatures required to appear on the ballot.

The Socialist Party then met and opted to continue the campaigns with write-in candidacies. We felt it was important to offer our supporters and other voters that do not feel they are represented by the two major parties a real alternative at the ballot. Knowing from the beginning that write-in candidates do not win elections, we decided that it was our right to vote for candidates of our choice regardless of the outcome. What we did not expect was that our votes would not be counted.

Immediately following the election we found that many towns were reporting ZERO write-in votes. Individual voters began contacting the campaign to complain that they had written in a vote for myself and/or Brian Moore for President, but their town was still showing "zero" votes for write-in candidates.

We contacted the Elections Division at the Secretary of State's Office and various individual town clerks to complain. As a result, some numbers changed, but many towns still did not reflect the proper number of votes. We contacted the CT Green Party to see if they had similar concerns with the number of votes received for Cynthia McKinney, their write-in candidate for President, and they said that they had.

In my case, having a very small and identifiable base, it was very easy for us to locate problems. For instance, my wife and I both voted in Colchester for Brian Moore and myself, but Colchester only reported one vote. My family's hometown of Salem showed zero write-in votes until we complained. The number was increased to 4, which was still 2 shy of the six voters that initially complained that their vote was not counted... The story is similar for various other towns including Glastonbury, New London and Mansfield. These are all definite and identifiable discrepancies. They, however, say nothing of other potential counting errors involving voters that I do not personally know. Considering that literally half of the known votes cast for my campaign were not counted certainly opens ones mind to speculation about the potential likelihood of other errors.

We of course understand that this small number of votes will not effect the outcome of the election, but it does represent the disenfranchisement of at minimum, 12 voters, and that is in and of itself an injustice.

Leaving the past now and looking toward the future, what steps can be taken to alleviate these problems in upcoming election cycles?

First and foremost, our current ballot access laws are very prohibitive and wasteful. Countless hours and resources are expended in attempts to gain the extremely difficult goal of ballot access. Lowering the number of signatures required to get on the ballot would combat this problem while still requiring a political entity to show some public support before it may appear on the ballot. HB6436 does exactly this. This bill would reduce the required number of signatures for statewide and federal offices to 1,000, a number which is on par with our neighboring New England states of Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. In addition to the provision in HB6436 to reduce the number of required signatures it might be worthy to consider allowing online petitioning in order to save paper, energy and time.

Opening the political process to more varied and diverse voices will definitely increase voter participation in our state by confronting the anti-democratic nature of a two-party duopoly which limits the scope of democracy; ultimately stifling any real progress. More options on the political menu can only enhance public discourse and increase democracy in our state and country.

Second, in addition to a more clear write-in voting and counting procedure, I feel that stronger oversight of voting integrity would solve some of the counting problems that my supporters have encountered.

HB6441 seeks to strengthen voting integrity in the state of Connecticut by implementing more oversight, stricter guidelines and enforceable rules. This bill will address many deficiencies in our current system by increasing accountability in three ways:

First, it would strengthen the accounting system by making a public record of actual election results. This is achieved by three simple steps:

1) It would require the entire Moderator’s Return, checklist report, and optical scanner tape copy from each district to be faxed to the Secretary of the State’s office.

2) The Secretary of the State would have to post all those document images on the web, indexed by town and date.

3) All data would be inputted at the same level of detail required on the Moderator’s Returns and posted on the SOTS website in a downloadable format.

This procedure would allow anyone to check the documents vs. the data, see the actually results at any level of detail and search for anomalies. Furthermore, it would eliminate the need for three levels of transcription and addition late at night.

The second thing this bill does, which may help in circumstances such as mine, is to make the Secretary of the State’s procedures enforceable; it would become possible to complain to the SEEC if your votes were not counted as required in the Moderator’s Manual.

Finally, the third thing that this bill does is to improve the ballot chain-of-custody, making it more difficult for someone to tamper with ballots.

There are of course many other benefits to these pieces of legislation, but I want to keep my testimony relevant to my personal experience.

That being said, I’ll conclude by reiterating that an expansion of the number and diversity of voices represented in the political arena can only enhance democracy, HB6436 would do this by giving minor parties a fighting chance to get on the ballot. Furthermore, increased oversight of the election and vote counting process to ensure the highest possible integrity of our voting process can only be a good thing. Anyone who agrees would likely support HB6441 and hope that you will.


Thank you for your time.

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***You too may submit written testimony in support of making ballot access easier in CT by emailing a written statement in support of HB6436 to len.greene.cga.ct.gov

Cheers,
Todd

Agitate! Some events for a Rabble-Rouser's Calendar

February 21st, People’s Bailout CT- 2nd Community Meeting
1:00 p.m. location in Hartford TBA. Building a grassroots movement in CT to stand up for economic and racial justice during a time of recession and beyond.
No Cutbacks, No Layoffs, No Evictions or Foreclosures!
Bank Protests being planned for March and April.
More Info at: www.peoplesbailoutct.wordpress.com

March 6th: Protest Bailed Out Banks
Large banks have received a taxpayer bailout, but continue to foreclose on taxpayer’s homes and engage in predatory lending practices. A protest is being planned at a large CT lending institution in Hartford, and in honor of IWD, this rally will focus on Women & Economic Justice; how Women and people of color are disproportionately affected by economic depression More details to follow, check back at www.peoplesbailoutct.wordpress.com

March 7th: New England United for Peace Regional Meeting
1:00p.m. at a location in Hartford TBA. More info at: www.newenglandunited.org/

March 7th: Socialist Party of Connecticut Teleconference
At our February Meeting we decided to try a telephone conference call in place of our regular March meeting. As you can see, the calendar is really filling up and this will save on an extra commute, gas and time…. More info to follow. www.socialistpartyct.org

March 8th: International Women’s Day 2009
A Truly Socialist Holiday! Learn more at: www.internationalwomensday.com/about.asp
And join the rally on the 6th in Hartford. (see above)

March 9th: Deadline for Submissions to May Day Issue of “The Socialist”
The Editorial Board of The Socialist is currently accepting submissions for it’s May Day issue. Please consider writing an article, opinion or commentary! You may contact Jim Marra with any questions by emailing spcentralct@gmail.com

March 21st: March on The Pentagon in D.C.
There will be busses leaving from Storrs, Hartford, New Britain, New London and New Haven.
If you would like to buy a ticket, contact: DanPiper of CT United for Peace at: dancetothepiper@gmail.com or 617-823-4068
You can learn more at www.pentagonmarch.org and www.natassembly.org
April 3rd and 4th: March On Wall Street!
Bail Out The People, Not The Banks! More info available at: www.bailoutpeople.org

May 1st: May Day Celebration in New Haven
Join the Socialist Party in celebrating May Day for the 23rd Year with The New Haven May Day Celebration Committee. More Info at: www.maydaynewhaven.org

A Letter to Governor Rell and CT General Assembly Regarding The Budget & The Economy

In case you have not already done so, please consider contacting Governor Rell to express your opinion on her budget plans...
She stated on Channel 3 news the other night that she would like to hear thoughts and suggestions from CT residents.

You can also use the same letter to contact your state representative and senator in the CT General Assembly.


Below is the friendly letter that I just sent her.
Feel free to copy and paste if you don't have time to write your own.

Links to Information about the governor's budget plan and
Contact info for the Governor and Assembly are listed at the bottom of this post.

Cheers,

-Todd Vachon

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Dear Governor Rell,

I am writing as a constituent and a concerned citizen to share my opinion about the current recession.

It is my opinion that, in these troubling economic times, cutbacks to education, public services and further layoffs will only continue to hurt the economy. Furthermore, these axe and run practices disproportionately effect our friends and neighbors at the lower end of the economic spectrum. The fallout from decisions made by very wealthy and influential individuals should not be picked up by the collective majority who are the victims of these decisions.

There are alternatives to slashing and burning. There are folks who have made out very well in the past few years riding the economic bubble until it's bursting point. These people can certainly afford to help clean up this mess much better than the rest of us who live in fear each day of whether our jobs will be eliminated. This fear certainly destroys consumer confidence and in turn worsens an already bad situation.

Please consider sending a strong message to CT workers that their jobs are safe, their children's opportunities to enter into higher education are secure and their needed public services will remain intact.

Thank You,

Todd Vachon
Colchester

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The Governor's Proposed Budget:
www.ct.gov/governorrell/cwp/view.asp?a=1317&Q=433326

To Email Governor Rell:
www.ct.gov/governorrell/cwp/view.asp?a=1317&q=257276

To find Your State Representative & Senator:
www.cga.ct.gov/maps/Townlist.asp

Cut Military Spending to Save Us All

Below is an open letter to our senators, representatives and the Obama administration.

Please consider copying or writing your own and sending it to your representatives and the president.

I will let the letter speak for itself:
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Dear Legislator,

I am writing to urge you to cut the military budget by 25%. This would be a step toward reigning in the out of control Pentagon budget which has grown by 60% since 2001.

Please invest in rebuilding America instead of destroying and rebuilding things abroad. New peace oriented jobs in renewable energy and mass transit can replace current jobs manufacturing weapons....which ultimately need a permanent enemy in order to survive. Let's take the first step towards world peace, economic recovery and combating global warming all at once. Cut military spending by at least 25%.

These cuts should include ending outdated, unnecessary and overly expensive weapons systems. The cost of F-35 Fighter Program will equal the combined outlays for fighting the Korean and Vietnam Wars -- $1 trillion. And, one Nimitz-class aircraft carrier costs $6.2 billion, our tenth such ship, the USS George H. W. Bush, was launched in January 2009. A simple navy combat ship costs $1.4 billion each. Indeed, just the cost overruns on weapons contracts total $300 billion annually. Many weapons being produced today were designed to fight past wars not deal with current security issues.

In addition, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will save $162 billion – the amount appropriated so far. These two war-quagmires will make it impossible to adequately invest the necessary funds in the urgent priority of rebuilding the U.S. economy.

Finally, closing the hundreds of military bases around the world would save $130 billion. Many countries see these bases as imperial outposts. Many Americans see it as the U.S. policing the world. It is time to re-think military policy so that it does not involve hundreds of foreign military bases.

With the U.S. economy in a downward spiral the federal government should be rebuilding the economy, not building unnecessary weapons and fighting discretionary wars.


Sincerely,

_______________

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To email The White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
To email Joe Courtney: http://courtney.house.gov/email/
To email Joe Lieberman: http://lieberman.senate.gov/contact/
To email Chris Dodd: http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/3130

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Peace & Solidarity,
Todd Vachon
SPCT

Debate The Socialist: opening remarks

Text from a talk given at E.O. Smith High School, in Storrs CT on Feb. 9th 2009

These are the opening comments of Todd Vachon on the four topics:
1. Israel/Palestine, 2. Obama and Dems, 3. Economic Crisis and 4. What is socialism?
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"So, the first topic of debate is The Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

The prevailing understanding of this conflict as portrayed in the mainstream media is it’s ancient historic nature—a clash of civilizations or cultures. While this is true for the ideological hardliners on both sides of the dispute, it does not address the fact that the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians alike want the violence to cease- they’ve had enough. But, just like all wars, in all epochs, the leaders, that is, the members of the dominant or ruling class in any society, wage the wars and enlist the poor and working class masses to fight them. So, the war-waging class is a very small but powerful section of the society and the war-fighting class and real victims of war atrocities come from the majority class, which so long as they’re unorganized have little power or say in things….even in a so-called democratically organized society.

So, recent history, a closer look at the past 20yrs will reveal some key facts regarding this dispute:

#1. Israel receives massive funding from the United states government. Palestine, none. Israel is in fact one of the largest recipients of foreign aid, second only to Colombia I believe…Another area of conflict where we fuel one side of a very political dispute.
#2. Israel is the largest foreign customer for U.S. arms-makers. Private, capitalist, industries that earn massive profits by selling jets, helicopters, bombs, etc… technology that is of course publicly siubsidized by our collective tax dollars and then used to garner private profit. So, for this particular brand of capitalist, unrest and conflict are good.

#3. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Palestinians served as a desperate pool of cheap labor for Israel; much like the United States’ current mistreatment of Mexican and Central American immigrants and historic mistreatment of Irish and Italians, etc.. . When the USSR was abolished and extreme capitalism put in it’s place, unemployment rates, inequality and poverty skyrocketed, causing a massive outpouring of Russian Jewish people to Israel. These new Jewish immigrants quickly filled the role of in-house cheap labor, effectively downgrading the Palestinian migrants to the status of “surplus humanity.” And what we now see is full out apartheid, which leads to point number 4

#4. Hypocrisy. The standards and measures that the U.S. government uses to ostracize or even attack some countries are completely ignored in other countries. If the candle were held equally upon all, then Israel would be labeled an apartheid and terrorist state. The U.S. itself would ironically be labeled a terrorist state by it’s own standards….But, without spending too much time on details I’ll give one quick and powerful example: Israel began to illegally invade and occupy southern Lebanon in the 1980s. There was a U.N. resolution issued which demanded Israel’s withdrawal. This resolution had remarkably similar language to the resolution regarding Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. That resolution which the U.S. enforced when engaging in the first Gulf War. So, not only was there a double standard, but the U.S. actually provided monetary and military aid to Israel’s illegal invasion. Today, Israel still illegally occupies parts of Southern Lebanon and as we all know the U.S. is occupying Iraq and Afghanistan.




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Okay, so now to our second topic. Obama and the Democratic Party.

The Democrats, supposedly the “left” party in America, stand solidly to the right of center, with of course a few individual exceptions, but the party itself is more conservative than most so-called conservative parties in Europe…. I mean, Even the Torries, in England, wouldn’t dare try to privatize the British National Healthcare system.

What we have in America are 2 wings of one large business party. Our alternatives are The Greens who are left of center and the various Socialist paries- the only true Labor Parties, but these options are all effectively barred from the democratic process by the two-party monopoly.

In terms of Mr. Obama, I am thrilled by the historical significance of the election of a black man to be President by the American electorate. I think that he is a very intelligent man, one who can certainly answer unscripted questions and use real words, unlike our last President, but it does not change the fact that he is still a part of the Democratic Party and can only be as effective as the people that he is surrounded by.

Let’s just refresh our memories and keep in mind that:
1. He was the first candidate to forego public campaign funding and caps since they were created
2. He ran the most expensive campaign for public office ever
3. He had the most commercialized and marketed campaign ever
4. He is a millionaire; apparently a pre-requisite for being a Senator or President
5. He never actually offered any detailed progressive policy proposals throughout the entire campaign, and
6. We are now getting a not-so promising glimpse of the future by his selections for cabinet members, department secretaries and other advisors in major government offices.

Um, I want to keep that one short so there will be time to get to the other two doozy of questions.


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Topic number 3, a real big one at the moment: The Economic Crisis.

I think that it is of great importance that we make no mistakes in understanding the nature of our current economic “downturn” as they call it. It is quite simply part of the regular capitalist cycle of boom and bust that has been occurring in 10-15 year intervals since the dawn of capitalist production.

Um, simply stated, the only permanent solution to this cycle, caused by chaotic overproduction in blind pursuit of profit and simultaneous weakening of consumer buying power, also in blind pursuit of greater profit, is to have some economic planning.

In order to have economic planning and still live in a free society, the clear answer is democratic socialism- that is, public ownership and democratic control of the means of production for actual human use and need, NOT private profit.

In the short-term however, I’ll offer this quick analysis and set of solutions:

#1. Healthcare. Our corporate media has blamed the start of this recession on a housing crisis caused by massive foreclosures. What they have failed to mention is that the number one cause of bankruptcy and foreclosure in America is large medical bills… This includes both the insured and those who cannot afford private health insurance. Thus a National Health Plan or single-payer system would alleviate a great amount of this stress to begin with. It would also open up great opportunities for people to pursue livelihoods based on their interests and not just on what the benefits package for that job included, all good things for economic recovery.

#2 Living Wages. The productivity of the American worker has been steadily increasing for decades and is now fourfold what it was in the 70’s. But the real wages of these workers, adjusted for inflation, have remained stagnant and in many cases declined during this same period of time. So where did the fruits of this extra productivity go? You guessed it, into the pockets of the capitalists, that one percent of society that earns 20% of all income. Employers who earn 500 times as much as their average employees. If ever there were doubts about Marx’s theory of class struggle, these facts should wash them all away. Workers are making more stuff and can’t buy it.

#3 Military Spending. Remember the big to-do about the big $700 billion Wall Street bailout back in September? I’m sure you do, we were all disgusted by the notion of handing our public assets over to these greedy bankers to clean up the mess they created. Well, what you probably don’t remember, because it wasn’t even mentioned in the corporate news, was that just the week before that bailout, Congress signed the appropriations bill for The Pentagon’s 2009 operating budget. Now keep in mind, that does not include the ongoing wars. Guess how much that one cost us? The number might sound a little familiar….$700 billion, and that’s just for ONE YEAR of Pentagon operations. Now add the couple trillion for the wars…..

All of these military expenditures combined account for more than half of all tax dollars. We grossly outspend everyone else in the world on military, in fact more than double our very distant second place contender. We have an empire sized military with bases scattered all across the planet to protect American Big Business interests. No other country has this, and we certainly wouldn’t allow anyone else to have a military base on our soil….. I mean, just think about the fact that the uniform of our nationalArmy is desert camoflouge- We don’t live in a desert country….well, not yet anyway.

The point is, we already generate more than enough tax revenue to easily support real social reforms that would improve the living conditions of everyone, but our government chooses to spend that money instead to seek new markets and defend capitalist interests.


________________
Okay, now the final subject of debate; one which could have easily filled the whole program itself without even beginning to skim the surface….What is Socialism?

I think that the simplest definition is wrapped up in the phrase: “economic democracy”, or perhaps “Participatory Economics.” Socialism is public assets for the public good controlled democratically. One can look at this simply as extending the liberal form of democracy- electing representatives, etc.. to also making decisions about the economy. What do we want to produce? How do we want to produce it?

This kind of public ownership and democratic planning process is the only sure mechanism that can ensure fair treatment of all people, conservation of vital resources and environmental stewardship. I say this because a truly democratic debate will bring all of the real social costs and benefits of production and consumption to the decision making table. Today, capitalists externalize as much as they can in order to increase their profit margins. They seek to lower wages and exploit the environment and resources as much as the law will allow them. They are able to do this because their employees and neighbors have no place in their business decision-making process. There is no economic democracy.

I think that one of the most important points for socialists like myself to make in order to demystify the “S” word is this: The Soviet Union and China were not socialist countries. They still had extreme class distinctions and of course a complete lack of democracy. These two practices are completely incompatible with the definition of true socialism: a classless society where working people own and control the means of production and distribution through democratically-controlled public agencies; where full employment is realized for everyone who wants to work and where the production of society is used for the benefit of all humanity, not for the private profit of a few. In other words, socialism and democracy are one and indivisible.

Capitalism on the contrary only benefits more from a decrease in democracy; Less regulation, unfettered exploitation, no environmental laws, no pesky workers’ rights demanding minimum wages, etc… The most profitable free market system is one that has a dictatorship, like Augusto Pinochet’s model in Chile….hailed in the American media as “a miracle” with no connection being drawn between the human rights abuses, the extreme poverty and the ability of investors to rake in unimaginable profits…


So, my final comment here is that Socialism IS Democracy, and true democracy is socialist in nature.

Thank You"

Something's Wrong Here

We of the working class have sweated and toiled in blue and white collar jobs alike to generate tremendous profits for American Corporations. We have all paid our fair share of taxes to Hartford and Washington seeing little in return. We are now expected to pay for the cleanup of an economy that we have no power over.


Why must we pay for the mistakes of the top capitalists?


Congress and Governor Rell alike are considering further budget cuts and layoffs to help the economy...

Whose economy? Certainly not the economy of those being laid off or having services cut.



SOMETHING'S WRONG HERE:



$3 Trillion for Wars Abroad

$800 Billion Bailout for Wall Street Bankers

$800 Billion for The Pentagon Every Year (not including the wars)

Tax Breaks For The Super-Rich

Tax Breaks for Extremely Profitable Corporations

Government Subsidies for Oil, Weapons and Energy Companies

Multi-Million Dollar Salaries for Executives

Abysmal Minimum Wages

….

BUT WE CAN’T AFFORD HEALTHCARE FOR EVERYONE?!?!

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We obviously cannot count on politicians and big business to do what’s right for the true majority of America. They are only concerned with the bottom line and profit margins, not the public well being.



We all pay taxes and yet have no voice whatsoever in the decisions made about our collective economic future. The state and federal government are now planning to cut services and programs, laying off workers to “fix the economy.” But, as you can see above, we already have more than enough revenue to provide healthcare, living wages and guaranteed retirement. The problem is that we do not have the political power to shift our collective assets from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy….or do we?



Consider these two quotes and then consider joining the good fight for REAL Change. United and organized we will be stepped on no more!



“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will”

-Frederick Douglas



“Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.”

- Eugene Debs




Please Attend The

Community Meeting For A People's Bailout

Saturday, February 7th

1-4pm

Hartford City Hall, 550 Main St.


This meeting has been organized by People's Bailout CT, an independent, grassroots citizen powered movement. Learn more at www.peoplesbailoutct.wordpress.com

This message brought to you by your friends from the Socialist Party of CT


visit: www.socialistpartyct.org or email: spcentralct@gmail.com

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Thank You,
Todd Vachon
Chairperson
SPCT
www.votevachon.com