The Washington State Midterm Election Wrap-up

So as a Green, I was very pleased with the results in the northwest.

Many of you may think that the Greens took a pounding in this election in Washington State, however, I am not of this opinion. This was the first state-wide race for the Green Party, and the Aaron Dixon Campaign ran a statewide race. I am proud of the Greens and the Aaron Dixon Campaign for going boldy where no Washington State Green campaign has gone before. Only a statewide party since 2000, a statewide race was a big undertaking, but it was done well.

From my perspective, Aaron Dixon proved he was the right man for the job. He stood up in public and spoke the truth as he sees it. One may not agree with everything that Mr. Dixon said or did during the race, but that's inevitable in any campaign. The important thing in any Green campaign is to stick it out until the end. Because if you are not willing to stand up for your beliefs in the face of overwhelming negative attacks as a spoiler, on your person, your past, your family, your character, and your motivations, don't even think about running as a Green.

But Aaron Dixon took the inevitable personal attacks in stride, and even when Mark Wilson took the money and dropped out before the primaries, Aaron stood firm.

Aaron also bridged a gap that has existed in the northwest progressive community for a long time, and brought together different groups in a way that rarely happens. What grows from this is yet to be seen. But one thing is certain, as we grow the Green Party in Washington State we will need more candidates like Aaron Dixon. Candidates who when facing a system with the odds firmly stacked against them, are willing to get into the ring and fight until the last bell rings.

The Dixon campaign made national news several times, from the announcement of his candidacy to the day of the protest and arrest, the former Panther never once backed down. And the Green Party of Washington State held firm as well. We stood by the campaign attack after attack. So while every campaign has a rough road to walk, in the end I am personally proud of the Party and the Dixon Campaign.

Last Tuesday marked the end of the beginning for the Green Party of Washington State. We've run races from the local to the state level, and even won some along the way. We've planted the seeds of the party from Spokane to Tacoma. We are the fastest growing political party around, and though the winds may blow from Democrat to Republican year after year, the Green Party continues to grow in the face of overwhelming odds and negative attack. But as we stand firm, the campaigns we run and lose today will become the seeds of the campaigns that we will run and win in the years to come.

On this note, it's important to mention that IRV passed in Pierce county. This is a big win for the people of Pierce County. I hope everyone who supports IRV and who worked hard to pass this initiative gets all the help they need moving forward towards implementation.

Ok now, the 2006 election season is over. Congratulations to everyone who worked hard this year. There's more work to be done. Be sure to check out what the Green's up in San Juan County are doing, they are fighting the County over bar codes on the Ballots. Made by the local company VoteHere, this group has ties to the CIA, most notably the new Donald Rumsfeld replacement, Robert Gates.

The Green Party San Juan County Link
Island Guardian

The Black Box Story on Robert Gates:
Blackbox Report

More about VoteHere:
Free Press Report

As always... there's more work to be done.

Lame Duck - Quack Quack

Wow, that was quite an election. The Bush Administration is on the rails, and the Democrats are dancing in the streets.

Me, I'm quietly hopeful. Hopeful that Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful women ever elected in this country, will open up some serious investigations into the Bush administration's corruption and cruelties. If the Democrats are smart, they'll bide their time exposing the Bush Administration's myriad crimes, and instead of impeaching the bastard, they'll leave him there, a lame duck, for all to see. But to pull it off, they'll have to start governing again. Figure out a plan on Iraq, and get working undoing the damage done by this drunken frat boy at the helm for the past 6 years.

And that's where I am quietly hopeful. Maybe, just maybe, the Democrats can walk the tightrope they must. And instead of wasting their time trying to impeach W with a razor thin majority in the Senate, they will instead expose this President for what he is, a corporate good old boy and the most corrupt President this country has ever seen.

The Democrats, firmly in control of the House, should work now until 2008, simply and methodically exposing the facts. The facts about Katrina, the facts about Iraq, the facts about Enron, the facts about Global Warming. They could figure out a plan for the country and lead us out of this nightmare that has been the Bush Presidency, by simply exposing the truth. Billions for war, trillions in Debt. The largest federal government ever seen. Billions and billions lost in Iraq, billions lost by his buddies at Enron, and billions lost on all the other corruption tied to these crooks.

Congratulations to to the Democrats. Thanks for winning and not screwing up too badly. Don't let John Kerry tell any more jokes. Now if you can get us out of Iraq, and win the 2008 election you'll have the hat trick. Nothing will erase the memory of your votes as a party for the war, for the Patriot Act, for Nafta and Cafta and all the rest, but still, this was a victory over the Bush Administration. The enemy of my enemy is sometimes my friend.

The Democrats either engineered their best election in decades yesterday, or rode the wave of anger towards Bush to victory. Either way, Bush is lame duck. And I'll drink to that!

Now hopefully the new Democratically controlled House and possibly Senate will get busy and prove my skepticism about the Democratic Party wrong.

King County's Optical Scan Machines Part of New HBO Documentary

For all those Ron Sims synchophants out there, and specfically to Goldie, over at Horsesass.org, I would like to point out the key element in the new "Hacking Democracy" film that just debuted on HBO, is very well summarized by Brad Blog:

Finnish computer security expert Harri Hursti discovered that Diebold stored an executable program on the same removable memory card used to store the tabulated votes on each Diebold voting machine. "If someone had told me there was a modifiable, executable program in the same place where the most secured data was stored, I'd say you'd have to be misunderstanding something, crazy or lying," Hursti declares.

The attempted Hursti hack, as allowed by Sancho, moves forward throughout the film. By the time it was completed (in pitifully short order), the e-voting world would be turned on its head. Hursti succeeding in exposing that both optical-scan systems and touch-screen voting systems manufactured by Diebold -- and apparently tested by no one -- could be hacked, an election result completely flipped, and no trace would be left behind. All that was needed was a $100 memory card reader bought off the Internet and about 60 seconds of access to the machine's memory card. RadioShack or Best Buy has all the necessary tools, in fact.

To repeat: It's not just Diebold's DREs that can be hacked. The Hursti hack targeted the memory card. Not only DREs but optical-scan units can record their information to memory cards. In either case, they're vulnerable. The ability to have an election flipped, and to do so with a small number of people involved, was no longer a "theory."

Yep, as I've said all along. King County's Opt Scan's with central tabulators are no better than Touch Screens.... Ron Sims bought into both.