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• Thursday, January 8, 2009 07:27 AM

  Even more damage.

  Meaningful election reform - One might think the Help America Vote Act would have resulted in better-run elections. You would be incorrect yet again. Instead, it was yet another scheme to give another corrupt corporation a whole bunch of our money in exchange for a system that not only doesn't work, but actually makes election fraud easier. Ask Saxby Chambliss.

  So eight years after the Florida recount, we still have problems with voting machines, spending on elections has continued to go through the stratosphere, cheating on campaign finance is now done in the light of day, the same voter-suppression tactics that were used in Florida have been refined and spread to other parts of the country, and now that the economy is in the toilet, it is unlikely that anything will be done about it anytime soon.

  "I'm John McCain, and I approved this message." Really? That regulation is about the most useless thing I have ever heard of. All it does is cut the actual ad time from 30 seconds to 28. You put a pre-recorded clip of your candidate saying this, and tack it on to the beginning or end of every sleazy campaign ad, and you're technically complying with the law, but did the candidate actually sign off on this? And who really cares?

  McCain-Feingold and HAVA are both chock full of useless little gestures like this, designed to give the perception of clean elections without actually cleaning them up. Like health care, this is another thing politicians talk about a lot, but once they actually get elected, the result is disappointing at best. I would have to say that the efforts of the last eight years have actually made the situation much, much worse.

  —djansing Read djansing's other letters
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