EMAIL # 1
Rob Richie -
I have done my best, publicly, to stay out of the public and well-funded Internet and lobbyist-whisper-campaign jihad that you and Fair Vote have waged on those who have an honest, and very reasonable, opposition to IRV and the serious dangers it poses to transparent, citizen-overseeable democracy. Vigorous, fair minded, public debate of differing opinions is, after all, at the heart of democracy.
But now you've simply, and outrageously, gone too far. You owe an immediate and sincere apology to Joyce McCloy for the insinuations in this article and in its inappropriate headline.
You compare McCloy's advocacy for transparent, citizen-overseeable elections to "McCarthyism", which is obnoxious enough, but then you go on to write (seemingly without any self-awareness or irony whatsoever):
I suspect it was her effort in the wake of verified voting champion John Gideon's death last year to spread the allegation among his friends that I was seeking to use his death to promote instant runoff voting.
You "suspect" that, do you? Do you have any such evidence of same? Or are you just hoping to use *McCarthyite* tactics to defame her, in hopes of supporting your own cause, in a public space?
For the record, there were MANY within the Election Integrity Movement (no, not the "election security movement" as FairVote's chair recently, embarrassingly, described it -- revealing an extraordinary lack of understanding and/or concern for EI), who decried what seemed to be your opportunistic invocation of John Gideon's name after his death.
For the record, no, he did NOT support IRV, nor was he 'neutral' on the subject, contrary to your blog post above. He opposed it, at least as made clear to me during many of my daily conversations with him. If he did not express that publicly, (don't know if he put his position on public record or not), he certainly expressed many times to me his concerns about it, and the idea that it was an insane notion, given our current electoral system mess.
Nonetheless, I am unaware of evidence to suggest, as you do, that it was McCloy's "effort in the wake of verified voting champion John Gideon's death last year to spread the allegation among his friends that I was seeking to use his death to promote instant runoff voting." But yet you use to suggest as much.
That is appalling, Rob. Simply appalling.
Your shameless attack(s) against McCloy -- and the similar, recent, embarrassing attack against the EI movement as a whole by your chairman -- would suggest that the positive values of IRV in elections, whatever they may be, are not enough to support your advocacy for them. Instead, you feel it necessary to attack a fellow (if unpaid, unlike yourself) democracy advocate -- one who recently won an award in John Gideon's name, btw(!) -- simply because she has the temerity to public disagree with your position, and proffer a case to support her reasons for doing so.
Shame on you, Rob. Or, as Joseph Welch famously said, since you were kind enough to (ironically enough) quote it: "I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. ... You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
Please retract, correct, apologize for what you've done here, and then reign in FairVote's reckless, embarrassing chair person for the obnoxi
ous, disrespectful and ill-informed blog comments recently posted as well.
And, after you do the above, I hope you will inform yourself and your chair person, about what the Election Integrity Movement is, and what "transparency" and citizen oversight actually mean. No, contrary to your post above, it has nothing -- nothing -- to do with your well-funded group's praise-worthy support of a "right to voice in the Constitution".
Once again: Shame on you, Rob. I hope you show the sense of decency to set things right this time.
Brad Friedman
Creator/Publisher The BRAD BLOG, http://BradBlog.com
= = = = =
  | Brad Friedman Twitter: @TheBradBlog.com |
| Now featuring the Green News Report! The most scintillating 6-minutes in green radio news! |
Subject: That's it? Seriously?
From: Brad Friedman
Date: 6/01/2010 3:53 PM
That's it? That your transparent correction and retraction and apology for comparing a fellow democracy advocate to McCarthy? You simply made your post disappear?
It's apparent that not only does FairVote not give a damn about transparent, citizen-overseeable elections, it also doesn't give a damn about transparency advocacy for so-called Instant Runoff Voting!
Little surprise then that real Election Integrity heroes like Joyce McCloy and so many others are fighting so hard against IRV as well as the deceptive propagandizing that FairVote has been doing in favor of it.
And while you delete the post and offer an "apology" for an "inaccuracy" of one aspect of your item, you didn't see fit to have the decency to apology for comparing her to Joseph McCarthy even as you, yourself, used nothing less than a McCarthy-esque tactic to disparage her and her efforts in the very same breath.
Since you determined to delete your original offensive post, refuse to allow comments at your so-called "IRV Fact Check" blog, and refused as well to post my reply to it, as requested, I'm CC'ing Joyce here and asking her to post my comment in full at any of her blogs, to any of her mailing lists with or without your original offensive post as she she's fit. (Joyce, please feel free to include the above text as well).
Repeated dishonest and deceptive tactics that I have witnessed over the years by both you and FairVote have now officially equaled the dishonesty and deceptive tactics I've seen by voting machine companies such as Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia. For that, you and your group have officially earned a spot in the Democracy Hall of Shame. While I have endeavored to work with you over the years, even where you and I did not always see eye-to-eye, you have finally crossed the line. If you and FairVote were looking for a war with the Election Integrity community, don't be surprised if you've finally brought one on. Folks like Joyce do not give up in their fight for transparent, overseeable democracy, and neither do I…
Brad
| | Brad Friedman Twitter: @TheBradBlog.com |
| | Now featuring the Green News Report! The most scintillating 6-minutes in green radio news! |
No comments:
Post a Comment