To tell you the truth, we don’t really know.

As Secretary of the Commonwealth, Bill Galvin has sat silently by as the very foundations of our democracy have been crumbling. Unlike the activist Secretaries of State Katherine Harris (Florida 2000) and Kenneth Blackwell (Ohio 2004) — Mr. Galvin has remained nearly invisible. So invisible that other than his prominently placed picture in the official Massachusetts voter information guide the Secretary’s office is completely under the radar. While many people don’t know what the Secretary of the Commonwealth does, the responsibilites of that office are central to the health of our democracy.

At taxpayer’s expense, this fine image of Secretary of State Galvin has been distributed far and wide in the official Massachusetts voter guide.

The Secretary oversees the critical underpinnings of our democracy, and most urgently, the apparatus of influence peddling in state government — money in elections, public information, and lobbying. Over the past 12 years under Bill Galvin, virtually all the basic indicators of civic health –the vital signs of our democracy — have been in a steep decline.

Money in politics is breaking all records, and more than 80% of the money funding elections comes from less than 1% of the voters. Competition in elections has declined by more than half, with incumbents running unopposed in 75% of legislative races. Voting rights violations are frequent. And the same insiders return to office year after year — with a Soviet-style re-election rate of 98%! Influence peddling has become a way of life on Beacon Hill — there are now seven lobbyists for every legislator. Legislators are writing multi-million dollar bills behind closed doors and ramming them into law without meaningful public review. As a result, our tax dollars are wasted in poorly managed projects like the Big Dig that benefit big campaign donors, create major new tax burdens, and fail to meet the needs of the residents of the Commonwealth.

It is time that the people of Massachusetts had a Secretary of State that was independent of the Beacon Hill influence-peddling machines. It is time that the person who oversees our elections felt a responsibility to participate in public debates on the issues facing the voters. It is time that we had a Secretary of State who would use the authority of that office as chief public information officer to be the watchdog that our democracy desperately needs.

written by: Eli Beckerman

My name is Lee Barstow, and I’m an apprentice minister in the Congregational Church, which is a democratic institution that is part of the United Church of Christ. I’m here because Jill has asked for some religious voices to join this celebration of change.

Jill wants to hear religious voices because she knows that all true traditions have at their heart the same moral values that are at the heart of her candidacy.

Religious voices that hold to their true traditions have always put themselves on the line for moral values. And it is time that we take back the concept of moral values from those who abuse that phrase. Truth is a moral value.

Justice is a moral value. Trust is a moral value. Equality is a moral value. These are the sacred that are at the heart of the true America. The man called Jesus put his life on the line for these. He said the most important thing we can do are to love God - which I take to mean holding all creation to be sacred - and the other most important thing we can do is to love each other. He didn’t make this up - he got it from the earliest laws of Judaism.

This is why I’m here today - because Jill Stein knows how to restore these sacred values. Jill works for elections that are actually fair, elections in which the people decide who will represent them, and not the corporations. Jill works for stewardship of the environment. Jill works to make sure that what’s sacred in our public life is not bought and sold for power or money.

So please - for all of us, and for our children, and for their children - let’s do our part by voting in the November election. Vote for whomever you think will best protect what’s sacred. For me, that will mean voting for Jill Stein.

written by: Lee Barstow

STEIN CRITICIZES SECRETARY’S DECISION TO USE FLAWED DIEBOLD VOTING MACHINES IMPLICATED IN SECURITY LAPSES

Reacting to the recent report that the Massachusetts Secretary of State is introducing Diebold TSx touch screen voting machines for use in the November election, Jill Stein, Green-Rainbow candidate for Secretary of State, had the following comments.

“The decision to use the insecure, unreliable Diebold TSx touch screen voting machines – even for optional use – in several Massachusetts towns on November 7 is misguided. Voters are being offered an untrustworthy voting machine, and already overburdened poll workers are being asked to master a notoriously unfriendly technology at the 11th hour.

The use of the machines is part of an evaluation of two voting devices to assist the disabled. This is a belated attempt to fulfill Help America Vote Act requirements to provide for the neglected voting rights of the disabled. It is a sad commentary on the current Secretary’s office that this effort in Massachusetts is first getting off the ground in the final weeks before the general election, well after the Sept. 19 deadline for having technology in place to assist the disabled, and four years after the deadline was established. Flawed technology with a track record of security failures is not the solution to meeting the voting needs of the disabled.

It is unfortunate that the Secretary of State - the Commonwealth’s chief public information officer - has been neither public nor informative about this timely issue. Despite the many questions that are being asked, Secretary Galvin has refused to participate in numerous election forums for the Secretary of State race at which this and other critical problems are being discussed.”

Stein pledged to block introduction of touch screen electronic voting machines into the Commonwealth until they have been proven to be reliable, cost effective, verifiable and tamper proof. She called for a system of hand-counted audits to ensure detection of voting machine problems. “The integrity of our elections is central to the democratic process, and we must have a Secretary who will safeguard both our right to vote and the integrity of our voting system.”

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON DIEBOLD VOTING MACHINES

Diebold machines were barred from use in California, and the company paid a $2.6 million settlement after being sued for making false claims about the security and certification status of its machines. In Maryland, following problems during September’s primary, the state is rushing to print 1.6 million paper ballots for the Nov. 7 election amid calls from Governor Ehrlich that voters should avoid casting their vote on the electronic voting systems. A report last week in the Washington Post raised new security concerns, as a disk with secret Diebold election software was leaked. And the Baltimore Sun reported this week that “Diebold Election Systems shipped Maryland flawed electronic voting machines that were used in the 2004 election, then quietly replaced the malfunctioning components last year”.

There are numerous other reports of security vulnerabilities in touch screen voting machines in general, and the TSx model in particular, including major studies from the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute, the GAO, the Carter Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform, and Black Box Voting.

Provisions in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), pushed many states into the uncharted territory of electronic voting. HAVA was engineered by convicted Ohio Congressman Bob Ney, whose chief of staff, David DiStefano, left to become a Diebold lobbyist. Ney is also known to have accepted favors – including a golfing trip to Scotland – from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose firm, Greenberg Traurig, received $275,000 from Diebold.

According to a study by ElectionOnline.org, approximately one-third of voters nationwide will be casting their ballots this year on voting systems never before used in a general election. “The report notes that election administration has undergone more changes – from machines to
databases to ID and provisional voting procedures – in the past two years than perhaps any other time in the nation’s history. And that is a likely cause of trouble at the polls in some parts of the country.”

campaign press release

Secretary of Commonwealth: Although the well-qualified John Bonifaz made only small inroads in his primary race against a well-established William Galvin, Green-Rainbow candidate Jill Stein still offers us a credible choice on Nov. 7. Stein, who ran for governor in 2002, is a physician, an environmental health advocate and a watchdog over legislative initiatives that put special interests above the community’s voice. If not for her alerts, some really harmful bills would have sailed through this legislative session unseen by the public. Stein’s grassroots campaign won’t take donations from registered lobbyists or from officers of corporations who employ such lobbyists. Praised by the likes of Joan Venocchi and Mel King, Stein now brings us a “Got Democracy?” reform platform.

She would end the culture of secrecy on Beacon Hill by removing the exemption the legislature granted itself from the Open Meeting Law. “We can allow ordinary people to participate in an open process of government,” she says, “rather than having our laws written in secret by lobbyists and insiders.” As a plaintiff suing Boston City Council for Open Meeting Law violations, I know first-hand how important such transparency is to honest and accountable governance.

Stein would promote implementation of the Clean Elections Law to provide public financing for qualified candidates and give the voters officials that don’t take office indebted to big campaign donors. And she would support better disclosure of lobbying and campaign donors (look at the state’s internet lists of donors at www.efs2.cpf.state.ma.us and see how many don’t even give the required employer affiliation), to fight the insidious influence-peddling that controls our money, our environmental resources and our laws. She speaks of the “lobbying surtax” — the extra cost of transportation, energy and health care we end up paying because of the success of lobbyists in shifting hidden burdens to consumers and taxpayers.

Look her up at www.jillstein.org. In this incumbent-bound state, we’re lucky people like Stein still run for office.

written by: Shirley Kressel

Endorsement: Jill Stein for Secretary of State

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

The shrinking of the Massachusetts Republican Party is especially evident in the lower part of the ballot. No Republicans have come forward to challenge William Galvin, who has served 12 years as secretary of state, Joe DeNucci, who has been auditor for nearly 20 years, or Timothy Cahill, elected treasurer in 2002.

If the polls are correct, there is a good chance Democrats will control every statewide office and every seat in the Congressional delegation. The small band of Republicans in the state Legislature continues to dwindle. Contested legislative races are increasingly rare, with close to 98 percent of incumbents re-elected.  We can’t blame the Democrats for the Republicans’ inability to compete, but their success prompts a concern: Who’ll be left to blow the whistle if the Democrats misbehave?

There is already too much secrecy on Beacon Hill. The Legislature, having exempted itself from the Open Meeting Law, regularly locks the people and press out of its deliberations. Budgets are written in secret, and released with little time for even legislators, let alone ordinary citizens, to figure out what is in them. The online versions are so opaque as to be nearly worthless to anyone who isn’t a state employee or lobbyist.

Lobbyists, by the way, spent more than $31 million working Beacon Hill in 2004. When it comes to issues such as health care reform, auto insurance reform, taxes and economic incentives, the lobbyists’ ideas and preferences are reflected in clauses that defy public scrutiny.

What Massachusetts needs is a champion for government transparency and democratic reform. We need someone who will speak up when the political bosses and special interests are cutting the rest of us out of the discussion, someone who will advocate for stronger civic engagement and healthier politics.

The secretary of state, whose responsibilities include managing elections, regulating lobbyists and supervising public records, could be such an advocate. But Galvin doesn’t see his office that way. He was all but silent when legislative leaders killed the Clean Elections Law; he raised no fuss when they redrew legislative district lines to further strengthen Democratic incumbents. When lobbyists and lawmakers cut deals behind closed doors, Galvin goes along.

Galvin does have an opponent on the Nov. 7 ballot: Jill Stein of the Green-Rainbow Party. Stein, a Lexington physician, is a soft-spoken and articulate critic of state politics and government policy. She makes a convincing case that an aggressive secretary of state could treat the ills that beset the Beacon Hill establishment, and save us from what she calls “the hidden tax of influence-peddling.”

Galvin has had some success in protecting consumers from investment fraud. He’s made some improvement in voter registration and election procedures, though he is now missing a federal deadline for making voting machines more accessible to voters with disabilities.

But Galvin is a pillar of the Democratic establishment who shows little interest in rocking the boat. What Massachusetts needs in that office is a champion of good government, a referee willing to blow the whistle on the other players, a watchdog who’ll protect voters and taxpayers. For these reasons, we endorse JILL STEIN for secretary of state.

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/view.bg?articleid=144219

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