Re: [board] Voting in secret; Off topic

[Greg Woods <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2004-08-09 at 18:24, Ralph Shnelvar wrote:

> In this nation and in Colorado there are the wretched Fair Campaign
> Practices Act (FCPA) laws that have been enacted.
> 
> If you want to know how someone may have voted, just go to the Secretary of
> States website and check to see who made what contributions. 

I couldn't agree more. As Treasurer of a minor county-level political
party, the FCPA has made my job *much* harder. I have to figure out how
to fill out these damned forms, and the FCPA reporting is about five
times as much work as just keeping the books for our bank account. And
all that work is for nothing, because it doesn't give anyone any useful
information either. Everyone who contributed to us is already a
registered Libertarian. Whoopee ding, what a surprise; Libertarians
contribute to the Libertarian Party of Boulder County. Although not as
much as they used to since we now have to report them to Big Brother
when they do.

On the flip side, the major parties have armies of paid accountants and
lawyers who are trained in how to fill out the forms and are paid to do
so. While I have no doubt that the major parties do follow the letter of
the law, I also have no doubt that their accountants and lawyers can
find ways to get around the rules so that they can still get all the
same contributions they always did. The FCPA accomplishes nothing except
to burden all of us with more paperwork.

-- 
Greg Woods <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>