BBV: Bev was honored today with the citizen of the year award...

By the Seattle Municipal League. I was absolutely honored to sit at the table with her. The lunch was nice the event was fun...and you all would have been proud of her. She was as usual...a SUPERSTAR...gracious and elegant as she is.

Congratulations Bev...you deserve that award more than anyone else I can think of.

:loveya:

:toast:

my congratulations to Bev. She's a real patriot!

:toast: :toast: :toast:

give her one of these too :hug:

.

send over a drink on my tab!! :toast:

and you too!

the way she's going!

finds out what she did to save our precious vote, she'll go down in history. I can't wait for the movie. :)

And kudos to the SML. Andy - anything in the newspapers there? Can you tell us what happened at the ceremony? Who else was at your table? What was discussed? Did Bev speak?

Political cartoonist Dave Horsey was there, did a great speech.

This was a very establishment event with many corporate biggies.

Bev

:toast:

It could not have happened to a better person.

You are a real patriot and we love you!!:grouphug:

And very well deserved. Thank you Bev (and Andy) for all your good work.

Woof

You're the absolute best!!!!

:toast:

ruffled feathers, of course.

I told them how California had tackled the e-voting issue, and that Ohio had rescinded the contracts in 31 counties. Now, I was looking to see my own county address the security flaws. i mentioned that we were using the most vulnerable software (Diebold GEMS with uncertified firmware on the optical scans) and that no one had really addressed this. Said that the one time I had an opportunity to provide consultation on this, they could not promise not to prosecute me. Offered once again to help in any way I can, to ensure that we have integrity in our elections this fall.

Urk.

You see, I had a choice: Say thank you to a whole bunch of people, which in the end, gets us nowhere -- or ruffle a few feathers but throw out a challenge that just might actually improve our election security. I chose the latter.

Out of a room of perhaps 500 people, exactly two of them spoke to me after that -- a League of Women Voters person who set up a meeting with me, a very good thing, and an African American fellow who said "right on."

The news media was there, though. TV cameras, if they have the guts to cover the speech. I was smiling, did a very soft spoken delivery, but hell, why let my own voting system off the hook?

Something tells me I won't be getting any more awards soon.

Bev

You do it well, and mostly this is a good thing!

Maybe you can make a documentary and give Moore a run for his money at Cannes next year. :)

eom

Thanks for all you've done to shine the light on BBV!

many kudos!

:toast:

Was the lunch any good?

and chocolate coffee mousse...It was ok...nothing spectacular...Thank God we did not have to pay the $70 admission fee...or I would have been pissed.

The mousse sounds good.

Kerry/Harris 2004!

And you, too, Andy, you True Patriot, you!

:toast: :toast:

Here's a thought:
(For all)

Form a county voting advocate group, nonpartisan.

Then work the county counsel or whatever governing authority, to establish an advisory panel.

That panel will be called on in all decisions regarding elections on the level of machine decisions, protocol, and program aquisitions.

Members of the panel could be the voting group, representatives of the parties, the LWV, Rainbow, you get the idea.

The point is to insure citizen involvement in all aspects of decisions that directly effect their ability to vote.

And do this yesterday.

It's our money and our voting and registration systems. County officials merely administrate that for us, and they need to be reminded of that.

I understand that King County is supposed to be getting the Diebold voter registration system- if that contract hasn't been signed by the county yet, get involved now.

Citizens can stop these contracts and it sure makes the election officials begin listening. Then ask for protections.

contract is signed and the infernal system is being put in place as we speak.

:(

I have another thing to harp about.

.. what was that new motto they have

Diebold and King County
together putting the DIM back in DIMS.

HG - (ducking to avoid the thrown shoe)
(not to be confused with duckling, which would be Dim Sum)
ouch !

DIMS...

That is quite an honor!

If anyone needs to be recognized, it is her.

And thank you very very much.

:bounce::loveya::bounce:

From a fangirl. :D

:toast: Congratulations!

Certainly all of the citizens of this country owe you a debt of gratitude!

HG

both of yall :toast:

peace

And I like your acceptance speech.

You deserve an award for citizenship!

Glad to hear you got Patty Murray's ear.

Well, gave him a book and gave her one too. Then asked her point blank: When are you going to do a congressional investigation. She answered by kind of apologetically explaining why she signed HAVA. She was responsive, but this illustrates one of the roadblocks to me -- those who signed HAVA (almost everyone) still view this partly in terms of butt-covering.

As Kathleen Wynne, a wonderful voting activist in Cleveland, says: We just have to get these people to come to terms with what's happened and move forward now."

Max Cleland was inscrutable.

Bev

:toast:

Now, we want LINKS and PHOTOS, so we can live vicariously through news stories, and then write lots of LTTE encouraging even more coverage of BBV!

:bounce: :bounce:

Totally deserved. May there be many more.

:toast: don't stop ruffling feathers though, especially in your own backyard. if anybody's right to a clean election should be guaranteed it should be Bev & Andy's. we cannot rest until the establishment is working on our side.

Seattle made a wise choice.

Hooray for Seattle's Citizen of the Year! Congratulations!