del.icio.us(Mimi Kennedy is the chair of the board of Progressive Democrats of America -- Ofer Inbar)
John Bonifaz's election as Massachusetts Secretary of State is necessary to reverse the decline in American democracy at a time when our children's future hangs in the balance.
In November 2000, John Conyers and NAACP officials conducted post-election hearings in a sweltering schoolroom in Florida. I watched, on C-SPAN, as African American voters and pollworkers told stories of abuse and disenfranchisement that made me weep. I had celebrated the civil rights victories of the sixties, but as a white person, I'd never been harassed or disenfranchised at the polls. The reality for my fellow voters, forty years after the Voting Rights Act, was horrifying. When John Conyers' thorough report on Florida established the groundwork for federal election reform, I rejoiced.
The Help America Vote Act was passed in 2002. Like most Americans and their legislators, I didn't know the bill's details. The name promised an end to disenfranchisement and national enforcement of standards to end local corruption: election reform! But, like the resolution that led to war in Iraq, like the Patriot Act, HAVA has had consequences that, while perhaps not unintended by the lobbyists who helped craft it, has sown wider and more subtle disenfranchisement throughout the country.
In Ohio, 2004, electronic voting helped a partisan Secretary of State decide the presidential election despite massive anomalies, voter suppression and disenfranchisement, and documented, decisive inaccuracies.
John Conyers, once again a lone legislator crying "foul!", held hearings - and John Bonifaz was there. His detailed analysis of Ohio's problems established him as a leader in both the voter-suppression and technological aspects of election reform and election protection - now combining under the name election integrity. His passion for election integrity is just that: it is for integrity. Our voting system must serve all voters' intent. It is not to be used to reward some and punish others; to serve some interests and ignore others; to record some votes accurately and shift others; to give access to some and deny it to others.
John Bonifaz understands the threat to democracy from social injustice. As a leading Constitutional lawyer, he's committed to civil rights. But he also understands - with a knowledge that is rare and increasingly valuable -- how mathematically-manipulated elections happen -- and are accepted by an electorate convinced by skewed polls and divisive PR campaigns.
Restore hope to democracy by electing John Bonifaz, one of the nation's leading election protectors, as Massachusetts' top elections official.
