LETTERS

Good work!

Your description of “cookie cutter alternatives” [“Editor's Note,” Sept. 24] fits the San Diego Reader more closely than CityBeat. In fact, the Reader is downright Republican a lot of the time.

Keep up the good work! We need a strong leftist view to counter the Rupert Murdochs of the world.

Phil Shuey,

Ocotillo

Fight the machines

Thanks for writing the editorial [Oct. 8] on instant runoff voting (IRV). It's about time we took a hard look at the most important aspect of our democracy: voting. IRV would solve the “spoiler” effect issue and let people truly vote their conscience.

I'd like to see CityBeat run a series on voting issues. While instituting IRV would be revolutionary, I feel that the more urgent issue right now is the electronic voting machines that are being put into use everywhere. Companies such as Diebold, which have been major contributors to the Bush administration, make these machines.

In Georgia, Republican Saxby Chambliss defeated the popular Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, when polls taken the day before the election showed Cleland ahead by 11 percent (despite a vicious smear campaign by the Republicans).

There are a few great websites with lots of information and resources. One of them is verifiedvoting.org, which is run by David Dill, who is a professor of computer science at Stanford University. There is also blackboxvoting.org and blackboxvoting.com (which Diebold is trying to shut down). Bev Harris is writing a book that deals with this called Black Box Voting, which is available for download online at no charge.

There is no greater threat to our freedoms, rights and democracy than a corrupt voting system. You can spend all your time working on grassroots efforts, writing letters to your representatives, getting out the vote, signing petitions and so on, but if your vote does not count on Election Day, your time has been wasted. Let's get everyone talking about this.

Gina Medeiros,
North Park

Good for everyone

I read your editorial [Oct. 8] advocating instant recall voting (IRV). I think it would be great to call representatives to make sure everyone in office or running understands IRV.

I'm not sure that IRV necessarily weakens the Republican and Democratic parties. If they adopt IRV for their primaries, it could end the self-damaging negative campaigning between candidates of the same party. The adoption of IRV definitely protects the major parties from losing due to “spoilers” on the right or left. I also wonder if parties could support more than one candidate under IRV.

The major parties always have the problem that the candidate supported by the party core are too liberal or conservative for the general election. In IRV the party might be able to support multiple candidates, and give the choice to voters. So IRV could help the major parties not disenfranchise their core supporters while still supporting electable candidates.

IRV would make it easier for a candidate to leave the party and run an independent campaign, so IRV does weaken the ability of all parties to control candidates, but that's not the same as weakening the political parties generally.

Anyway, my point in going through the arguments is that if anyone paints IRV as major parties vs. minor parties, they make enemies for IRV that it doesn't need. It's better to find the benefits for everyone.

Brian King,
Santa Maria, Calif.

Battling Issa

Congratulations to John R. Lamb for his informative look at Darrell Issa [“Cover Story,” Oct. 1]. Very well done!

I would, however, like to add one small, but important detail: Darrell Issa's fitness for public office is one central focus of my campaign to unseat him. It is not the only one, however. Two other equally important campaign foci are: 1) Issa's voting record and lack of significant legislative accomplishments during his first (and last) two terms in office, and 2) my laying out an affirmative case for my own candidacy to replace Issa.

Keep up the great political reporting and investigative journalism!

Dr. Mike Byron,
Oceanside

‘Cheap' takeover

Mainstream commentators have missed the point about Tuesday's recall success. When the winner is a member of a wealthy, politically powerful elite family, a victory is not for “the little guy.” Movies pandering to limited vocabularies and adolescent violence fantasies could be defined as populism: but not a version to celebrate.

In David Broder's Democracy Derailed: Initiative Campaigns and the Power of Money, the columnist demonstrates that the initiative process favors moneyed interest groups and political elites who already have significant power and influence. He notes they “have learned that the initiative is a far more efficient way of achieving their ends than the cumbersome process of supporting candidates for public office and then lobbying them to pass or sign the measures they seek.” Among his conclusions is that initiatives offer, “the seductive simplicity of the up-or-down initiative vote.”

Broder's painstakingly researched 2001 book anticipates Representative Darrell Issa's statement that the recall initiative was a “cheap” way to take over state government. I have little doubt that was also the experience of railway barons who prompted Hiram Johnson's political reforms that included the initiative process and gubernatorial recall.

Pam Rider,
Hillcrest