Customer Reviews

Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny

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Edit of 29 Jun 09 to correct 25% of the black population, thanks Mikey.

Edit of 18 Jun 09 to add two books by others and downgrade own books to unlinked mention.

Do not be surprised if your vote "disappears". Amazon has the idea that anyone who votes for more than one of my reviews is a "fan" and should not count. We are all at the mercy of their control of the system.

I am giving this book five stars instead of four because it is the de facto "Bunker Hill" of our 21st Century Nation, doing for politics what Silent Spring did for the environment.

The book needs to be re-issued immediately in paperback with four additions that should themselves be offered free online: an annotated bibliography that properly embraces those who have gone before; an annotated legal list of cases; a list of the worst of the 527's; and a Presidential Decision Memorandum that itemizes the Electoral Reform Act of 2009.

The book does not acknowledge work by many including William Greider, e.g. Who Will Tell The People? : The Betrayal Of American Democracy or Greg Palast, e.g. The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. The latter bears on the author's being unwitting about Al Gore being bought off in Florida (today he is worth $100 million), with Warren Christopher carrying the offer from Wall Street.

That having been said, this is a SENSATIONAL BOOK not least because for the first time it has gotten Ron Paul to endorse a book and to talk to Ralph Nader in constructive terms--I pray this means that Ralph Nader is now ready to play well with others, including Cynthia McKinney and Jackie Salit.

I have goosebumps as I write this and a huge smile. This book is the first shot at our Bunker Hill and the government Of, By, and For the Banks (see the image I have loaded) is on the run, Goldman Sachs is finishing up its looting of the US Treasury, and I for one am appalled at the lack of integrity across the Senate--John McCain included--in failing to stop this under Bush and now under Obama--what better evidence do we need that this book by this author is "on target"? See Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders; The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy); Obama: The Postmodern Coup - Making of a Manchurian Candidate; and Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency among many others.

Here are my fly-leaf notes, followed by an itemization of the book's concluding thoughts and other recommended reading.

For me the gem of gems in this book is on page 253, and I quote the author directly: "Whether you can vote--and whether your vote counts--depends primarily on where you live."

In many states such as Florida, 25% of the male black population has been convicted of a felony, served its time, and is still not allowed to vote. I agree this needs to change. [See Intro note 3 for citation].

Across the entire book, using the two Nader campaigns as a source of actual experience--this is non-fiction at its very best--non-fiction of great consequence I might add--the author documents the degree to which state documentation requirements and voting procedures vary "wildly" and can also be intimidating.

Citing Steven Hill and his book Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics PB, the author quotes Hill: "Winner take all is horse & buggy technology."

The Libertarian Party is mentioned six times, but not recognized by the author as a "main" third party, something I hope Ron Paul's endorsement of this book will change. I URGE THE PUBLISHER TO PAY ATTENTION: this book needs to be issued in paperback immediately, with the four additions detailed above.

I learn an enormous amount in this book, which is certain to be an academic, business, and political classic for years to come.

Terry McAuliffe is an unethical pig. Democratic Party under McAuliffe destroyed Nader's prospects, to include libeling him and creating massive published misrepresentation. I learn from the author that "You can get away with libel if you put it in a lawsuit."

"Campaigns are simultaneously over-regulated, under-regulated, and ineffectively regulated." The entire book documents this assertion.

$250,000 a day is what needs to be raised to be a Presidential candidate.

527s are not only out of control and use the federal complaints progress as well as state by state law suits to put third party campaigns into grid-lock.

3rd parties are not offered Secret Service protection (and in my view need it the most)

Press is a trivializing factor to point that 45% of the public now ignores the press (but I would add, still has no solid "truth teller" to rely upon).

Good chapter on the Presidential Debate Commission which is an unethical and unofficial fraud created to exclude Third Parties, and which uses the police to block third party candidates from even being in attendance.

Over 6 million "lost votes" across the Nation. Diebold is trash (I already knew that, but the book does a fine job of documenting Diebold's criminal insecurity.

Observers are blocked from vote counting by being called "threats to security." I have a note, "Insanity prevails."

I learn there is a National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) which is important, since it was this position that stole the election for Bush in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004.

The concluding review covers:
Electoral College
Vote Counting
Voter ID
Absentee & early Voting
Military & Overseas Votes
Write-In Votes
Provisional Votes
Recounts

The recommendations for reform are comprehensive:
Eliminate Electoral College
Add Affirmative Right to Vote
Federalize Federal elections
Federal Administration (24 specifics)
State-Level Reforms (25 specifics)
Judiciary Integrity

For a shorter eight-point version, search for <Electoral Reform Act oss.net>. The book ends with thoughts on the consequences of doing nothing. I urge one and all to demand of Obama an Electoral Reform Act of 2009, which itself should be defined by a nation-wide virtual summit among all interested voters.

Three other books of note:
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
VOICE OF THE PEOPLE: The Transpartisan Imperative in American Life
The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy

I have offered up free online all of the books from Earth Intelligence Network, at oss.net/BOOKS (add the www), and especially recommend the annotated bibliography at oss.net/PIG, as it is a virtual "Citizen's Reader" and my summaries of 500+ books across a range of topics relevant to restoring the goodness of America at home and abroad can be helpful in arming those who mean to government themselves with the power of knowledge. The three best books here at Amazon (out of links) are:
ELECTION 2008: Lipstick on the Pig
NEW CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE: Personal, Public, & Political
COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Resist the Borg. Do not be assimilated. Demand Electoral Reform NOW.

Grand Illusion
The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny
(The New Press: New York, 2009)
By Theresa Amato


A Review by Pat Choate
_________________________________


As the 1996 presidential election approached, the Association of State Green Parties was looking for someone to be their candidate for President. The person they drafted was Ralph Nader; one of the most respected public figures in the United States.

Although the Greens were able to get Nader on the ballot in 22 states, he never had a chance of winning the presidency. However, presidential campaigns are about far more than winning. Being in a race for the Presidency, a candidate has an opportunity to raise issues with the American public in a serious forum. Thus, Nader used the race to highlight policy issues that Bill Clinton, the Democratic candidate, and Robert Dole, the Republican candidate ignored, such as the outsourcing of jobs and industries because of the U.S. participation in the North American Free Trade Agreement and the lack of a national health care agenda. The race provided a unique opportunity, and he made good use of it.

Bill Clinton, the sitting President, easily won the election. Nader got 684,000 votes or slightly less than one percent. Yet, something else happened in that election of great significance. The newly formed Reform Party, and its candidate Ross Perot, received slightly more than eight million votes, though Dole and Clinton blocked his participation in the Presidential debates. Under the 1974 Campaign Reform Act if a party secures five percent or more of the popular vote, they qualify as a "National Party" and thus public funding for the next Presidential election. Suddenly, the possibility of a real third party challenge to the two party duopoly on policy issues and even for public office seemed possible.

Following the 1996 election, however, the Reform Party drifted into internal squabbling, fell apart, and by the time of the primaries for the 2000 election had squandered their opportunity.

Ralph Nader and the Green Party picked up the fallen baton. In the 2000 elections, Nader again led the Green ticket, but this time he mounted a serious effort to secure the five percent of the national vote required to make the Greens a national party. Moreover, the Nader campaign was able to get their candidate on the ballot in 44 states. A five percent win meant that Nader and this new party would have a national forum for at least four more years from which they could raise the issues the two major parties refused to discuss, plus they could mount state and local campaigns. Overnight, the Greens would be a major rallying point for independents and others who wanted real policy and political change. And they would get precious public financing in the 2004 Presidential campaign.

The 2000 presidential race was intense and despite a heroic effort, the Greens were unable to reach the five percent mark. However, Nader did get more than 2.8 million votes or 2.7 percent, a strong showing for any third party. Gore, of course, lost though he won the popular vote. Leading Democrats, then as now, claimed that Nader's success was the cause of Al Gore's defeat.

Even a superficial review of that election reveals that Gore lost because of his political incompetence. He failed to win his home state, where his family had a long-standing political dynasty. He refused to allow his campaign to actively involve Bill Clinton, who though ethically challenged was nonetheless immensely popular with voters. He dithered on how to handle the Florida recount, eventually allowing the Republicans to take the matter before the GOP-dominated U.S. Supreme Court which then stopped the recount in Florida and gave the election to George W. Bush in a 5-4 decision.

Because of Gore's failure, the most incompetent President in American history took the office, led the nation into a seemingly endless war in the Mid-East, and precipitated a collapse of the global economy that wiped out almost 40 percent of the national wealth in a span of his last 18 months in office.

Which brings us to this magnificent book by Theresa Amato, Ralph Nader's campaign manager in the 2000 and 2004 election, and the riveting story she tells.

Amato was both Nader's national presidential campaign manager and in-house counsel for both those elections. She is a Harvard graduate and holds a law degree from NYU School of Law. She has been a fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics and at the Harvard Law School. Even better for the reader, she was an insider in those campaigns and knows precisely what happened, plus she is skilled writer and storyteller. While the book covers the 2000 election, it is really about the 2004 campaign.

By late 2003, the disaster of the Bush Presidency was obvious to anyone who would look. Many Democrats viewed Bush's defeat in 2004 as a real possibility if not a certainty.

Because the Democratic leadership believed that Nader was the cause of Gore's defeat in 2000, they decided to do everything in their power to keep him off the ballot in 2004. As the book reveals, their obsession with Nader and the vast resources of money and lawyers they invested in smearing him and sabotaging his campaign is one of the reasons John Kerry lost the election in 2004.

As with the Reform Party, the Greens had internal conflicts by the time of the 2004 election. Thus, Nader ran as an independent. And as in the two prior elections, he had to mount a massive effort to get on the individual state ballots. This time, however, the full might of the Democratic establishment was put against him and his supporters, led by the Democratic National Committee. One of their smears is that Nader was simply an egotist. Another line was that the GOP was financing his campaign. Neither was true.

The challenge to get on the ballot by an independent or third party are a mish-mash that vary widely. Plus, any candidate must carefully follow all the rules imposed by the Federal Election Commission, which was created by the 1974 campaign laws. These state eligibility rules and FEC dictates, not surprisingly, favor the Democrats and Republican Parties and do so overwhelmingly.

To get on the state ballots, Amato hired professional petitioners who are skilled in securing the required signatures. The Democrats responded by enlisting paid and volunteer lawyers to disrupt the process with any legal technique, proper or not, that they could. In Oregon, a prominent law firm sent petitioners an intimidating letter warning that anyone falsely signing a petition may be convicted of a felony with a fine of up to $100,000 or prison for five years. Then, thirty of the Nader petitioners had an unannounced visit at their homes by two persons identifying themselves as "investigators" who asked information about who had hired them and where they were seeking signatures. Amato, of course, protested such intimidation to the Oregon Secretary of State's office, which oversees elections, but did nothing. Subsequently, she learned that the lawyer and "investigators" were working for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) using the same thuggish techniques that anti-union employers use against union organizers.

Despite the intimidation, the Nader campaign submitted 28,000 signatures, although he needed only 15,306 to get on the ballot. The balance was for insurance.

Although all the signatures had been validated by county elections officers, who signed and dated every sheet with an affidavit of authenticity, the Secretary of State's Office created some new "unwritten rules" to disqualify signatures. One new rule was that every signature on a sheet, which may have 50 or more names, must be legible. If even one signature was ruled illegible, the Secretary of State discarded the entire sheet and all the voter signatures. Another "unwritten" rule was that any correction of a date by a single person on the sheet, such as changing a 7 to an 8, meant that the entire sheet and all the signatures were also discarded. After all these new unwritten rules were applied, Nader had a final tally of 15,088 signatures - 258 short.

Ray Bradbury -- the Oregon Secretary of State, a Kerry supporter, and the Democratic candidate in 2004 for reelection to the position- sent out a letter after his decision bragging about how he had kept Nader off the ticket, while asking the recipients for campaign contributions to fund his own reelection. Kathleen Harris, the former Secretary of State in Florida who botched the 2000 Florida recount, looks positively competent in comparison with Bradbury and dozens of other state election officials that Amato identifies in this book.

The Nader campaign immediately appealed Bradbury's decision to the Marion County Circuit Court, which ruled in Nader's favor and ordered his name put onto the ballot. The Secretary of State appealed the decision at the Oregon Supreme Court, which ruled that Bradbury had the authority to make up "unwritten rules" and thus ordered Nader's name taken off the ballot. Amato appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. It refused to hear the case.

Over the next several months, the Nader campaign faced 24 similar actions in 17 other states. Repeatedly, they would petition the U.S. Supreme Court for what were obvious constitutional violations and always the Justices rejected their request for a hearing. Perhaps no one should be surprised that a Court that would stop a voter recount and declare the winner of a Presidential election by a 5-4 vote would ignore the pleas of a third party candidate. Legal discrimination comes not just against race, gender, sexual preference, religion, or national origin. Political preference is one of the last places where the courts still tolerate blatant discrimination.

The corruption of the democratic process, as Amato documents, did not end at state and local levels; it ran right to the top of the Democratic Party and the Kerry campaign. Terry McAuliffe, head of the Democratic National Committee, led the challenge to Nader's campaign. When Nader called to protest, McAuliffe said, "Ralph, I would love for you to be running for President in 31 states; the issue is these 19 states" where "a vote for you is a vote for Bush." He then offered that, "if you stay out of my 19 states I will help with resources in 31 states." He demanded of Nader, "Stay out of the South."

Nader, of course, refused the deal.

The goal of McAuliffe's DNC campaign was to soak up Nader's limited campaign funds and wear down the campaign staff with lawsuits. They were partially successful. Nonetheless, Nader got 411,000 votes.

As Amato describes, the obstacles placed in the way of candidates who wish to run as an independent or on a third party ticket are virtually impossible to surmount. Ross Perot's deep pockets enabled him to get on the ballot of all states twice, but in 1996 the two major parties kept him out of the Presidential debate, which effectively killed his chance to be elected. In 2000, the Buchanan campaign faced precisely the same obstacles Nader did in 2004, the only differences being the Bush campaign and the GOP were the culprits.

This lock on public office by the two major parties is the ultimate source of political corruption in the United States. The corruptors simply buy off each party. The financial industry, for instance, contributed more than $1.7 billion in campaign contributions to Congressional Democrats and Republicans and paid out almost $3.3 billion in lobbying in the period 1998-2008. What they got for their money is deregulation and then a bailout of their industry when their gambles failed. The two largest recipients of those funds in the 2008 election cycle were Barack Obama and John McCain.

For the corporations, buying elected officials is just another business expense. For the political operatives and lobbyists, it is a plush living. For the rest of America, it is political servitude under a corporate-controlled government.

Amato gives a comprehensive menu of political remedies, beginning with the elimination of the Electoral College, standardized federal election rules and federal oversight. The alternative is our present electoral system where most absentee and military ballots are never counted, and as many as six million votes for President are "lost."

As for Nader, his goal was to use the Presidential elections as a forum to discuss issues that the two major party candidates would not. But in the process, he became involved in something more important - battling and exposing a corruption political process that denied most Americans, but the leaders and financiers of the two major parties, a voice in the decisions of their own nation. The expose' of what happened in 2004 and the lengths to which a major political party will go to pervert the election process is one of Nader's major accomplishments.

Hopefully, other nations will take note of what Nader has done and this book because this political corruption greatly affects them. This political duopoly has increased U.S. military expenditures despite the end of the Cold War and, ever subservient to the military-industrial complex, keeps Americans at war somewhere while perpetually searching for ways to sustain arms sales. An unregulated financial industry collapsed the world economy, an act that will take years to overcome. Politically connected polluting industries are destroying the world in which we live. And, so the list goes. U.S. political corruption affects virtually everyone, everywhere in the world. If the United States is to have a competitive democracy, where the highest corporate bidder cannot buy policy decisions such as these, domestic election reform is required.

Unfortunately, as Amato documents, the national media - Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, New York Times, CBS, NBC, FOX, ABC - are not part of the solution. Neither are the federal and state courts.

A traditional way by which other nations have alerted the American people about their domestic issues of great importance is through international acknowledgement of someone's work. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Martin Luther King, for instance, highlighted the plight of American Negroes. The award of a similar Nobel Prize to Ralph Nader for his battle against electoral corruption would bring the issue to the forefront of U.S. political debate in a way that nothing else could.

Similarly, the grant of the Pulitzer Prize or a National Book Award to Theresa Amato would be both appropriate and an assured way of putting this issue before the American people. The book merits either or both prizes.

In sum, this beautifully written, fast-paced, thoroughly-documented book brings a message about a vital problem - the corrupt two-party dominance of our democracy -- that the American people urgently need to understand and correct.


______________________

Pat Choate is an economist and author. In 1996, he was Ross Perot's running mate.

Even or especially if you are not an enthusiastic member of a third party, this book is a must-read for protecting your right to vote. For it brilliantly explains the shocking and crass ways any part of our election process can be twisted and perverted. It can't happen here? Yes, it can.

This book is the political equivalent of Upton Sinclair's "Jungle." Not only has Theresa Amato been in the political abattoirs of two national presidential campaigns, she knows pernicious abuses of a two-party oligarchy intimately. Why haven't we been able to pass a national health care program? How do stupid, costly and disastrous wars start and linger on for years? Why do 90 million Americans not even bother to vote? Why can't we disconnect our retirement funds, mortgages and jobs from the market economy? Ms. Amato plunges deep into the chasm of electoral politics to give us a glimpse of our fractured democracy and tells us how we can preserve and defend it. This is essential reading for all Americans who want their vote to count, their voice heard and their lives protected. This should be mandatory reading for all high school, law and political science students. Why can't we have an opt-out system where 18-year-olds are automatically registered to vote in a federalized system? Why can't we have multiple parties with a voice in Congress and state legislatures? Europe has this kind of system and it has not fallen into fascism! Why not change the electoral college so that it can allocate proportional representation instead of a winner-take-all rule? As we grapple with the myriad problems of this century, fairer and more enlightened political representation is not a luxury, it's a necessity. Read this book. John Wasik, author of "The Audacity of Help: Obama's Economic Plan and the Remaking of America."

Reading Theresa Amato's GRAND ILLUSION: THE MYTH OF VOTER CHOICE IN A TWO-PARTY TYRANNY, I think of the climactic scene in the movie THE WIZARD OF OZ where Dorothy and her friends learn the great and powerful Oz is in reality just a meager, middle-aged man hiding behind a curtain. That's because while America thinks of itself as a role model for democracy, the duopoly of its Democratic and Republican political parties make it nearly impossible for independent and small party (or, as author Amato calls them, third party) candidates to even get on a ballot, let alone win and be able to represent those who support them. A democracy where only two voices are heard by the electorate is not a democracy.

Americans enter the voting booth as Dorothy does the Emerald City, but as curtains - the voting booth's and the one hiding that meager little man - get pulled back, the former's votes take on the same significance as what Toto the dog reveals to the latter. Theresa Amato should know, having worked as campaign manager for Green Party and independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader. Her first-hand accounts of harassment the Nader campaign and other non-Democratic/Republican office seekers experience make me wonder why GRAND ILLUSION does not come with an air sickness bag, so nauseating are the stories. Along with the Democratic and Republican parties, complicit are too many in the judicial system and corporate media in keeping the people's power in the hands of the few. You sometimes hear individuals say, "Why don't you run for office if you don't like the way things are going?" Well, as this book tells it, unless you sell out to the Democrats or Republicans and the moneyed interests that control them, running for office may only get you as far as running in place would.

Will American democracy remain somewhere over the rainbow? Read GRAND ILLUSION.

As a voter since coming of age in 1960, but for whom many concerns were rarely if ever addressed by either major party, I applaud Ms. Amato's carefully documented account of the ways in which important issues and the candidates who champion them have been barred from the ballot box. This is an important book for any student of modern American political history, and one which, hopefully, will lead to opening electoral processes for true governmnet of, by and for the people.

What an awesome read. I have been a die-hard Independent voter for the past 20 years and until I read this book I had not truly realized how truly messed up things are in America. As an x-marine, a man who has never missed an election since turning 18, I've always asked myself does my one vote really count or matter?

Well America, after having read the Grand Illusion; I now really have an eye opening understanding as to how/why the two party establishment is able to keep and maintain the status quo.

I want and believe in this Country, for those who are shaking their heads on a daily basis wondering what is really going on - READ THIS BOOK. Change (real political change) begins with each and every one of us; in order for us to FIX the system we need to know the real story in American Politics.

Unlike the vast majority of other democracies in the world, U.S. election laws and practices severely discriminate in favor two particular political oarties, and against all other parties as well as against independent candidates. There have been other books and scholarly articles that point this out, but Theresa Amato's Grand Illusion is the most persuasive. That is partly because the author was on the inside during the 2004 Nader presidential election campaign, and partly because she has excellent legal training and experience and she know how to rebut defenders of the status quo. The U.S. Supreme Court bears the chief responsibility for the dismal state of U.S. ballot access laws. Justice Scalia, in particular, has been on the Court for 23 years and he has always voted against minor parties in every election law decision (except that he voted on the side of minor parties when the Democratic and Republican Parties were in the case alongside a minor party). How I wish he would read this book.

Grand Illusion is a great book and I strongly recommend it. The American electoral system is a fraud and until we improve ballot access, establish a system of proportional representation and ensure that the votes are counted and counted fairly no election in this country can really be considered legitimate.

This book calls for national reform on the rules for ballot access at local, state, and federal level for elections to public office. It notes how difficult it is for a third party or an independent candidate to run for state or federal office. We should adopt some of the reforms she proposes. I am against same day registration though due to fraud concerns. I suggest you must register 15 days before the election you wish to vote in.
But the high number of signatures required to obtain ballot access in some states is simply a means of keeping third party candidates off the ballot. If you believe in democracy, as I do, that type of public policy cannot be permited any longer. I am in favor of between 3 and 7 national political parties , and well as some regional parties. I want an open primary ballot system whereby each candidate can appear on each party's ballot in order to ask for additional votes and perhaps another party endorsement prior to appearing on the general election ballot in november.
Terry Jennrich