Lessons from 2004: Corporations funded the candidates. Diebold counted the votes. Sinclair told us who to vote for, and so of course war profiteers like Halliburton and its ex-CEO Dick Cheney won. Business Week called it the day before the 2004 election: the clear winners were big corporations, who are reaping the benefits in a legislative rampage. The good news is that it's also clear from the elections that corporate accountability and economic justice are popular issues.

Don't Forget:

1) We Need to Protect Our Democracy from the "Elections Industry."

In order to protect the sanctity of the ballot box, we need a voting system and technologies that are both reliable and verifiable. The use of electronic voting machines subjects our elections to malfeasance, theft, computer crashes, and programming errors. For example, the Washington Post reported on 11/12 that a computer glitch changed the result of a county commissioner's race in Iowa. We must require that electronic voting machines, which can enhance public participation (e.g. by the handicapped) in elections, be designed to provide a voter-verifiable audit trail.

To that purpose, Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) introduced the "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act" (HR 2239) in the House. (Click HERE to see if your Representative is a co-sponsor.) A companion bill (S. 1980) was introduced in the Senate by Senator Graham (D-FL). The bills would require paper verification of the vote.

The "Elections Industry" and the Privatization and Globalization of Democracy

There are at least forty companies that make voting machines and the associated software and services in the U.S. But there are no standards on who call sell or service their software. Many of the companies involved are reported to have strong partisan ties.

For example, three companies make the electronic voting machines used across the U.S. -- Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Diebold, and Sequoia. According to Peter Phillips of Project Censored, all three have strong ties to the Bush Administration. Warren O'Dell, the CEO of Ohio-based Diebold, which has already made 33,000 voting machines in use across the U.S., is a major fundraiser for President George Bush. O'Dell was quoted in an invitation to a Republican fund-raiser that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes for President Bush next year."

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and Rice Universities issued a study last year that found Diebold's voting system "far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts." Voters, they said, "without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal." They concluded that hackers could tamper with election results as they are uploaded over the Internet or by other means. Prompted by concerns about the study, the state of Maryland hired its own consultant (SAIC), which found that "several high-risk vulnerabilities" in the Diebold system could be exploited to undermine the "accuracy, integrity and availability of election results."

For More Information:
Black Box Voting.org. (They have detailed field reports from the election.)
The Electronic Freedom Foundation
Voters Unite explains voting machine problems.
Link Crusader is tracking stories about problems in the 2004 election.
"All the President's Votes" by Andrew Gumbel (Independent, UK)
Rep. Dennis Kucinich's (D-OH) web page on the topic.
Thom Hartmann explains why he believes the use of electronic voting machines changed the outcome of this year's presidential election.
Washington Post election-day forum.
"Electronic Voting Not Ready For Prime Time" by Howard Dean.

2) Corporate Accountability and Economic Justice are Popular Issues

As Thomas Frank writes in the New York Times, Democratic officialdom will likely see this week's disaster as a reason to redouble their efforts to move to the right, ceding ground on Social Security privatization and income tax "reform." Their failure to confront cultural populism with genuine economic populism could accelerate the party's decline.

During the primary, Kerry's campaign gained some momentum when he began criticizing "Benedict Arnold companies" (i.e. companies that incorporate in offshore tax havens). Kerry took this message to Tyco's headquarters in New Hampshire (the company moved its headquarters on paper to Bermuda in 1997), and won. But then, after Roger Altman, Clinton's deputy treasury secretary advised him to drop it, the phrase disappeared. Kerry scarcely mentioned how Halliburton under Dick Cheney used a Cayman Islands subsidiary to do business with Iran, a member of Bush/Cheney's so-called "axis-of-evil." The campaign could have gone on the offensive after a grand jury began a criminal investigation during the campaign.

While pundits like the Cato Institute's Daniel T. Griswold say that the fact that Kerry dropped the issue proves that Mr. Kerry's anti-outsourcing position did not resonate with voters (confusing tax avoidance and the use of offshore havens with the outsourcing issue), in fact just the opposite is true: by toning down the message after the primaries, Kerry made it difficult for voters to know where he stood and easier for Bush to define the debate.

There are other examples. When Kerry talked about economic policies that differentiated him from Bush's - such as the problem of rising pharmaceutical prices - his support grew stronger.

Furthermore, despite the fact that Kerry lost in two key battleground states -- Florida and Nevada -- minimum wage initiatives passed in both states. This is because grassroots economic justice groups like ACORN made it happen.

3) The media can and should be held accountable when they use the people's airwaves to broadcast blatant partisan propaganda.

The media's mandate to serve the public interest reached a new low during the election, when it was reported that Sinclair Broadcasting would force its 62 stations to broadcast "Stolen Honor," a 42-minute partisan attack on John Kerry's history as a Vietnam War protester.

The company even fired its Washington DC bureau chief for expressing his opinion that the program as "blatant political propaganda."

As USA Today suggested, "many believe Sinclair's provocative decision shows how much the company has riding on the election." As many members of Congress (e.g. Sanders (I-VT)), one FCC commissioner and numerous groups including Common Cause and others were quick to point out, the company's blatant pro-Bush efforts came at a time when it had a direct interest in the FCC's ongoing effort to ease restrictions barring a company from owning stations reaching more than 35 percent of all homes. While FCC Chairman Michael Powell, a Republican, has made media deregulation a priority, John Kerry indicated that he would oppose further media consolidation.

Free Press, a leading media activist group reminded everyone that the company's bias is nothing new.

What was new was how citizens stood up to the company's abuse of the public's airwaves to serve partisan interests. Just like Clear Channel's decision to organize pro-war rallies before the invasion of Iraq, Sinclair's decision stirred up a hornet's nest of protest and raised the issue of media ownership and balanced political discussion to a new level. Ultimately, Sinclair backed down, airing a show called "A P.O.W. Story: Politics, Pressure and the Media" instead.

This was how corporate campaigns should work - by the rapid combination of different strategies focused on one company. We can win significant public interest victories when we combine our efforts to target companies that cross the line.

Some of the actions taken against Sinclair include:

* As reported by the LA Times, two nonprofits filed a petition with the FCC, challenging its license renewal applications.

* Kenneth J. Campbell, a University of Delaware professor who is one of the veterans depicted in the 41-minute film, sued the movie's producer for libel, saying the film falsely portrayed him as a fraud and a liar. The civil lawsuit was filed in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.

* Boycotts were launched of Sinclair's advertisers.

* Investors challenged Sinclair executives' decision to air the documentary. For example, see this letter from NY State Comptroller Alan Hevesi to Sinclair CEO David Smith. And this interview with Hevesi.

* Howard Dean underscored the fact that "the media needs to be re-regulated and corporate ownership of media outlets needs to be limited in favor of independent and local family ownerships."

4) All politics is still local: The outcome of this election forces us to focus on movement-building strategies.

Although we will clearly be on the defensive against the corporate juggernaut's domination of federal policies for years to come, there are still considerable opportunities for advancing our efforts at the local and state level.

As Joel Rogers outlines in this article in the Nation, "who controls the states controls the nation."

And there are numerous effective ways to organize at the local level, around worthwhile campaigns that will get corporations out of elections, including campaigns for publicly-funded elections.

Other electoral reforms are also advancing, including Ranked Choice Voting (also known as Instant Runoff Voting) (which was adopted in San Francisco, Burlington, VT and Ferndale, MI).

A good resource for various worthwhile election system reforms is The Center for Voting and Democracy.

Other places to get information about strong policies at the local and state level include the American Legislative Issue Campaign Exchange (ALICE), and The New Rules Project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

To keep up with the buzz inside the beltway, we recommend that you sign up for the Center for American Progress' Daily Progress Report, as well as Moveon.org.

Meanwhile, activists interested in taking time out to think about the long-term challenge to organize against corporate rule should consider attending one of the Daniel Pennock Democracy Schools, organized by CELDF and POCLAD.

Finally (yes, a bit of shameless self-promotion), we also recommend that you go out and get a copy of "The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy", which is in stores this month.

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