HW 30: Citizenship Symposium 1

The Citizenship Symposium I saw started with an opening speech by Emile Netzhammer, the Keene State Provost. He spoke a lot about our citizenship to New Hampshire and to Keene State College. He really encouraged people to go out an vote. The main speaker for the assembly though was Nancy Tobi. The title of her session was “Citizens Gone Wild: Taking Control of Our Democracy.” The racy, yet catchy name caught my attention and she led off her speech with a lot of good information. Nancy is related to Moses’ brother and something interesting is that she believes Moses started democracy, leading his people to freedom from Egypt. Nancy grew up in Lexington, MA. It was the only area in the fifties selling real estate to Jewish people.
The main part of her discussion was about our government and how our people run the government. “Government is the servant of the people, and not the master of them,” (Bev Harris). Nancy really stuck to this quote, and mentioned it often. She talked about the Declaration of Independence and what it means to us and our country. Nancy talked a lot about voting and how votes are counted. She believes that votes should be counted by hand and not by machines, especially Diebolds, which is the system used for 81% of New Hampshire towns and cities, including mine. There are many errors used with Diebolds and that is why Nancy believes that should discontinue the use of them.
Nancy was very passionate in her speech about voting in America, our government and how some things need to be changed. She wants to change the voting systems in New Hampshire and in America to make them more accurate. And she gave a lot of information for what we at citizens can do to help change that.