Recent Brush With Greatness

I almost met Howard Dean at Famished Frog in November. It was a pep-rally of sorts for Jon Corzine.

Rush Holt, a congressman from the Princeton area (12th Congressional District), was there and gave a good speech. He's a decent politician. He's a strong proponent of verfied voting which is necessary, in my opinion. It's hard to believe that 6 years after the 2000 election debacle that we still have a voting system that is considered less fair than the systems used in countries like Peru and Indonesia. I think the voting machines should print your voting selections on a piece of paper that you can review, without handling, before it drops into a locked container. The ballot would have a sequential number on it so nobody could insert extra ballots into the box. Using cryptography, they could hand the voter a slip that would validate the ballot that dropped into the container. However, the voter receipt would not indicate how you voted. This would prevent the "sale" of votes. In case of an election challenge, the voter could come forward with their receipt. The "signature" on the receipt could be used to validate that the ballot being recounted was legitimate. If the original ballot was replaced, the receipt would have a different encrypted signature and then the officials could declare "Shenanigans!"

Anyway, the main act was Howard Dean, who really knows how to work a crowd. That dude should be president. I think we'd be a whole lot better off now with that dude. I don't really remember a lot about what Rush or Howard said, but I remember them being pretty cool. Here's a picture of Howard Dean walking by as he headed to the back door of the bar to get out.



This is actually the second time I almost met Howard Dean. He also walked by me at a Move On event in NYC in November of 2004. At that same event, I was squeezed against the wall by Edie Falco and another actress. I don't have a picture of that.