Saturday, May 29, 2010
Joyce McCloy and McCarthyism: Her Latest Distortions
...
It's hard to pick a "lowlight" from her litany of attacks on us and other backers of instant runoff voting, but 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. I received tearful communications asking me how I could do this, given his neutrality on the subject when iin fact my blog post featuring a tribue to him was entirely focused on a subject he and I regularly had discussed at our conferences he attended and by email: public ownership of voting equipment.
John Gideon, R.I.P. - and the "Gideon Initiative" for citizenship ownership of our elections
For OpEdNews: Rob Richie - Writer
(Note added by author on April 29: Although FairVote promotes a range of electoral reforms, we are particularly well-known for our advocacy of ranked voting systems, particularly instant runoff voting. I've heard that some readers thought I was capitalizing on this tragedy to suggest that John Gideon was an ally on instant runoff voting
To be clear, John liked the idea of IRV, but believed that advocates should not push for implementation before certifiied equipment was ready to implement it. But this article is not about IRV. It's about another subject that John and I had several email exchanges about -- kicking private vendors out of our elections and having a publicly owned process. We both liked how Oklahoma did that years ago with its optical can equipment and New York with its equipment.
I apologize to anyone offended by this piece. I knew John a little from his coming to conferences we organized and from several email exchanges, but I did not know him in the way that so many leaders in the election integrity struggle did. I do think he might have liked the idea of a Gideon Initiative to pursue publicly owned election administration, but at this point I'm only raising the idea as part of my effort to salute his dedication.
- Rob Richie)
...
You can read Rob Richie's piece in full and decide for yourself. If you want to see a catalog of the many tributes to John Gideon by those in the verified voting community, see this blog below. These are tributes solely about John, what his friendship meant to them, how great contributions were. In these tributes, which include my introduction, you will see only pure tributes to John, none of which portend to speak for John.
