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ELECTORAL REFORM
The bad chad fad

BY DORIE CLARK

Charges of voting irregularities - from the improper dropping of voters from the rolls to the imposition of illegal time limits once they were in the booth - dogged the 2000 presidential election, both in Florida and locally. The gay community wasn't specifically targeted - but, says Betsy Smith, the co-chair of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Political Alliance of Massachusetts, these groups have been paying the price ever since. " The debacle that happened in 2000 involved all of our communities, " she says. " Whether or not the gay community as a whole was disenfranchised is not the point; the system failed us, and now we have Bush in the White House. "

This Wednesday, June 6, the Alliance will host a panel discussion on electoral reform called " What Color Is Your Chad? Communities Taking Back the Vote in the Aftermath of the 2000 Presidential Election. " Participants will include Malia Lazu of Voter Power, Ruth Weizenbaum of the Alliance for Democracy, and Tom Louie of the Massachusetts English Plus Coalition. " One of the interesting things about last year's election is we turned all these people out, and a lot of them had a horrible time - from a hard time with poll workers to being taken off the lists, " says Lazu. She'll discuss strategies for increasing turnout - and, more importantly, steps for reforming the system so that voters are willing to come back. Whether it's ATM-style voting machines or weekend elections, change, she believes, is essential. " If we were a business, we'd be out of business, " she says of the country's election system. " We have 30 percent of people come in to shop on our one-day sale - that's miserable. We need to become more voter-oriented and stop blaming voters for not turning out. Instead, we have to look at how to make it better. "

" What Color Is Your Chad? Communities Taking Back the Vote in the Aftermath of the 2000 Presidential Election " will take place on Wednesday, June 6, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., in Room 200 of the Student Center at Roxbury Community College. Admission is free.

Issue Date: May 31 - June 7, 2001