Message to the Charter Commission, as they prepare to sink the ship.
As I've said already in so many ways..............
I watched the recording of last week’s (December 6, 2023) meeting and have some concerns that I want to express to the group- concerns which have implications for changes being proposed to the Financial Town Meeting (FTM) process.
There appears to be a perspective expressed by some in this commission, that laws should protect the government from groups of heterodox thinkers who might petition it for changes, or questions it’s actions. This perspective is a troubling inversion of the form of government we’ve actually been gifted. It can hardly be debated that our government was designed to first and foremost, be responsive to its citizens and respectful of their free will. As a representative republic, our government, at every level, was designed to have only the rights that its citizens grant it, and to be, at all times, answerable to them- even on off-cycle election years when fewer people choose to vote.
Likewise if, as during our annual FTM meeting, all citizens are welcomed to vote but many choose not to, this deferral can in no way be accurately described as it was last week as “a minority” making decisions. What it can be described as, is a sign that many have chosen to defer to those citizens who the majority might see as more ‘interested’, ‘informed’ or ‘invested’, in the outcome of the vote. Abstaining from a vote, is not an act of giving up your voice, it is voicing that you don’t have a preference. Despite a possible majority abstention, that vote remains 100% small ‘d’ democratic.
Now, I doubt anyone would argue that our government is designed to allow us the granting certain of our ‘God-given rights’ (per the founding fathers) over to our government, in order that they can perform certain functions on our behalf. This transfer happens most intimately at the local level, but does so also at the state level. But always the government remains answerable to the citizens. Founding fathers’ design- not mine- but I am grateful.
Again, I saw a very different perspective than this sidetrack this groups discussion last week on the question of adding a voter recall option for our Town Councilors to the charter. And although I find that troubling, I will leave that as an aside for now. And, while my brief description here, of state and local government, may seem overly simplistic, I hope it will suffice to assist in conveying my concerns.
The means that we as citizens have been given to keep our government answerable to us, and seeing to the execution of our will, is our elections. And I say “OUR elections” wistfully, because our state, which the elections are meant to contain and control, has completely usurped control of them. One way the state has done this, is through the implementation of a statewide, non-transparent, and bloated voter role system (that BLOAT being a fact tacitly acknowledged by this group in last week’s meeting). Another way state control has been exerted, is through the 100% non-transparently maintained, tested, & operated, computerized tabulators, the ES-200s, which the state mandates us to use. These tabulators are connected or the duration of our elections, to the cellular phone network, and they run software that we are never allowed to audit, or see- at ANY point ever.
We are also not allowed to know the contents of the precinct-specific thumb drives that arrive with each of the state-coded ES-200 tabulators when they are distributed by the state, from the state Board of Elections’ central warehouse, to our local precincts. These thumb drives, by the way, are essential to the tabulator’s all-day usage, and are not merely used to the download results at the end of the election.
Now- to our FTM: These same black-box ES-200 electronic tabulators are now on the precipice of being injected into our Financial Town Meetings, as a remedy to the claim that the current policy of direct in-person democratic vote on the town’s budget, is not democratic enough due to low attendance at the meeting. And while the FTM’s current weeknight scheduling can make it difficult for some to attend, most non-attendance is very likely due to willful abstention on the part of uninvested voters who have made the decision to defer to the will of the more informed.
To use this abstention as an excuse for injecting these fully non-transparent machines into our financial process, and there
by eliminating a fully transparent in person vote, is to replace a completely open and democratic process, with a non-transparent, state-controlled system that would remove ANY VERIFIABILITY with regard to reported voting results.
We, as a town have never compared the election-day tabulator-tape numbers emitted from any ES200, to the ballot votes that the tape purported to be reporting on. This practice, if continued, promises only worse and worse outcomes for the members of our community, because decisions are being taken out of the hands of the people who care the most for this community - it’s resident citizens. I challenge anyone who hears my assertion here to prove me wrong, but I know nobody can. And the reason that nobody can, is that there is zero transparency with which to verify anything. In all of Rhode Island, one must blindly believe there is integrity on the part of the state, in the very transactions wherein all power, control and money are at play- I am not so naïve.
When election equipment and procedure CANNOT be challenged or reviewed by any citizen (Per Title 17- Rhode Island’s Elections laws, and the precedents adhered to in our courts), the final-count tapes coming from the state’s machines CANNOT be trusted. ALL decisions impacting ours and our children’s and grandchildren’s lives are being made based on the unverified reports that spit out of these machines.
So here is my ask: If the FTM is expanded, and voting is shifted to any software-running machine, (which all ES&S ES200 tabulators are), then all FTM ballots cast, even when a tabulator total has been produced, must be made to undergo bi-partisan hand tabulation- open to public witness- before any official result is reported. This is the only way that the interest of this town can be protected, and the will of its citizens be executed free of ever-expanding state interventions.
Thank You