Open Count

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Call for Help: Create Petitions to Count the Vote in Washington State, Count the Popular Vote in the DNC
By Zephyr Teachout, 02/11/2008 - 11:53am

After everybody aped Moveon's brilliant petition innovations, petitions became a tool for list growth, mostly a marketing tool. But there are two things happening right now that just beg for petitions--real ones, as in, people petitioning the government and their candidates:

(1) Superdelegates ought affirm popular vote. I tend to think they should affirm the total vote numbers around the country, but I'd be happy with the affirmation of the delegate count. Consensus around this needs to be decided before the popular vote is decided, so that the process is not subservient to the political needs of either candidate. Will someone make a petition for this, one that we can then distribute, along with thoughtful signators comments, to all the superdelegates?

(2) Count every vote in Washington. The Washington Republican chair seemed comfortable declaring a winner when Huckabee was only 242 votes behind, with thousands of votes yet to count.

These situations--where elites breezily assume power--create something approaching democratic horror (is there a word for this, the gut-grippling fear that we are really not in charge?) I've talked with people at poker games and marches, and been flooded with the real fear of friends, frozen by the prospect of superdelegates making the Democratic party decision this year. I have the highest respect for Howard Dean, but I'd vastly prefer a brokered convention between people's representative delegates than a brokered deal between superdelegates--lets show some sound and fury for those that signify nothing.