A World Where Every Vote Counts

I just had a great conversation with my great friend, Lori Steele, who is the CEO of a company called Everyone Counts. During our conversation, she reminded me of my time in DC at Unity08, where we really believed in this saying, "In times of great need, ordinary people come together to do extraordinary things." You can find a billion versions of this quote, so I'm sure it originated from a great mind, I just don't know (nor do I have the time this morning) who it might have been.

[Sorry Doug Bailey, I'm sure you know off the top of your head.]

Did you know... more than half of the absentee ballots cast by US military personnel never make it to their home district on time? The process is so cumbersome that many never attempt to request the ballot, wait for it to find them and mail it home because the whole process is dependent on using snail mail service.

I asked Lori, "What are the greatest accomplishments for Everyone Counts since you brought this technology to the world?"

• Our team of extraordinary people together, for one mission, because they believe that every person in every democracy should be able to vote and be confident that their vote will be counted with reliability. It's incredible to see their daily passion.
  
• Using our technology to enable soldiers on the front lines of a war to have their votes counted for the first time in history and for allowing the blind to vote independently with our phone voting technology.
• Finding that government officials will take a risk to push for what's right when they begin to see examples of the security, reliability and transparency that our system presents.
  

I encourage you to become a fan of Everyone Counts on Facebook... feel free to ask me any questions that you have. I've been following them for quite some time!

The World Says, "GOBAMA!"

From Iconoculture.com,

"Not only did the world follow this election as if it were their own, but a majority would have voted for Obama if given the chance. A CTV/Global and Mail poll showed that Canadians preferred Obama over their own prime minister, Stephan Harper (CTV.ca 6.29.08). In France, Obama would have trounced McCain 9:1 (Independent 11.5.08)."

"Iconoculture Cultural Fluents report that their countries are not only enthusiastic and a little envious, but also relieved that this superpower elected someone they feel the world can work with. They pepper their comments with phrases like "a more caring form of capitalism," "better and fresher America" and "president the world was waiting for." They are also amazed that America voted for a member of the minority, which they can't imagine happening yet for, say, Uighurs in China, les Berbères in France or black youth in the U.K."

GO AMERICA! GOBAMA!

The Choice for Change

If you want to read a moving Editorial, then this is the one that you should put on your radar today. The Editors of "The New Yorker" have written an amazing piece on how our country must believe in the word "change" and make as large a change as we possibly can to make progress at home and abroad.

The article is called "The Choice" and I urge you to read it by clicking here NOW.

I'll warn you in advance that this is simultaneously a pro-Obama and anti-McCain article. In any Presidential election, we rarely get the ideal candidate, but in this one we've got one candidate that gives us a chance to avoid the pending collision of the economy, war, health care, entitlements, education and environment. A "maverick" is the last thing that I want in this age... please give me someone with the intelligence and charisma to make a difference... to be the change agent that we need.

The election of Obama—a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America—would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama.

Read the full article... for your country if not for yourself.

Thanks to @fredwilson for pointing out this amazing article in a Tweet this morning.

To Clear Up the Confusion about Obama vs. McPalin

* If you grow up in Hawaii , raised by your grandparents, you're exotic, different.
BUT IF...
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
BUT IF...
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
BUT IF...
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
BUT IF...
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive and next in line behind a man in his eighth decade.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
BUT IF...
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and then left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a true Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
BUT IF...
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America 's.
BUT IF...
* If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude," with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

This really clears things up for me, you?

The Election is an 8-course Meal, not Fast Food.

Great post on 3 Garzas & La Gringa today about how people don't take the time to really understand how politics impacts their lives... much beyond the divisive issues that continue to permeate our decision-making: abortion, immigration, war.

I'm not saying that these issues aren't important, but you have to see the whole menu people. Even though you prefer fast food news to fuel your tank, we're taking about an 8 course meal here and you can't get up from the table early.

Americans have to learn to take the time to understand that "change" is real, whether they like it or not. And that change can come at you from so many different directions that you better take the time to know what's going on with the war, the economy, social security, health care, education, immigration, energy and crime before you run off to the polls and vote for a barbie-doll VP who won't even be running the country.

Sam Waterston at the National Press Club

I was in DC last week to listen to the Unity08 team, namely Sam. After meeting some of the most interesting and influential people in DC, I'm in and believe in this movement at Unity08.