<div>Paul wrote:</div>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"> With the<br>Internet tearing down what would have seemed to be rock-solid<br>institutions, the landscape will probably be a whole lot different in a
<br>few elections from now. </blockquote>
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<div>This seems logical, yet certain facts contradict this hope. </div>
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<div>I approached a very committed local anti-Iraq invasion activist recently asking how they might explain the US public and US Congress pathetically buying into the yellow cake uranium from Niger, aluminum tube centrifuge nuclear fuel processing, remote controlled air plane drone dispersing bio or chemical weapons, etc. fabricated WMD "mushroom cloud over America" scare tactics, sheepishly accepted as it was insisted Iraq presented an immanent threat of attack against the USA via WMDs, in the age of.....INSTANT INTERNET FACT CHECKING OF GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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<div>I abandoned using caps in Vision2020 posts long ago, but I could not resist.</div>
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<div>The conclusion? The Internet made no substantive difference, for reasons that were hard to decipher, though anyone with a limited effort via the Internet could have determined that Bush, et. al. were spinning better than Lance Armstrong...
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<div>Paul also wrote:</div>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">It's my guess, and my hope, that the money will matter less and less in<br>this process as time goes on. It doesn't cost anything to vote,
<br>regardless of how much money your candidate has spent.</blockquote>
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<div>Actually, it costs a lot to vote. Taxpayers pay for voting. And for easily accessible, fair, well monitored and maintained voting systems, it will cost far more than we are now spending.</div>
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<div>Often voting systems in the USA are so ill prepared, underfunded and understaffed that there are lines around the block on a Tuesday afternoon, frustrating voters into abandoning their efforts. </div>
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<div>Why don't we vote on Saturday, or have a national holiday, for the most important act in the functioning of democracy? We have a national holiday to eat turkey! What is wrong with this picture? Why vote on a working day? Does this not discourage participation?
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<div>Voting machines are sometimes in poor condition or malfunctioning, or susceptible to tampering, as it seems clear applies also to the new computer voting machines. Ensuring voting machines are reliable and not subject to tampering costs money, both for the machines and the monitoring.
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<div>I won't even start with Ohio in 2004...</div>
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<div>There are numerous problems with US voting systems that require more funding to address.</div>
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<div>Even a libertarian should be able to accept the essential need for full government funding of well monitored, non-partisan, easily accessable and well constructed voting systems everywhere in the USA. </div>
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<div>Ted Moffett</div>
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