Fare Voting? I Don’t Think SO!

Here is something that is beginning to piss me off about the last elections. It is all fun and games now that the Democrats have taken power, and there are scattered cases of voter fraud through out the country. However we are not hearing about them. Most of the Liberals and democrats are feeling that it does not matter anymore they got in. This sickens me.

What brought this up is a diary that caught my eye on DailyKos, and how the post and replies were making fun of the article. Maybe I am making too much of this, but ever since 2000, I have a thin skin when it comes to fraud in voting, no matter what side it is against.
The following was taken from SLJ’s diary.

* Local bar owner Randy Wooten runs for mayor.
* Roxanne Wooten (his wife) waits at courthouse for official election results: Zero votes tallied for Randy Wooten.
* Roxanne returns home to ask Randy "did you vote for yourself?" He confirms he did.
* Randy Wooten receives reports from numerous others (8 or 9) they also voted for him.
* Unreported, yet much speculated upon, is why Ms. Roxanne Wooten had to ask her husband if he voted for himself to confirm a zero vote count as inaccurate. [Think about it...]

It was a short two years ago that we were screaming about the voter injustice, and only two years before that we actually watched an election be stolen right out from under our noses.

[The republicans can say what they want; they depended on the stupidity of the average Joe to pull off how that awarding of the election should have gone.] However, I am not here to give a Civics lesson, this is about the fact that the voting system is in worse shape than in 2000.

In the small township where I live, we had no major problems this time. But in 2004 we had a lack of cards, and cards that did not work. There was a repeat in the primaries this past spring. The election officials said it all turned out all right, but I know for fact it did not.

At around 12:00pm the poll official called the County Courthouse to report that the machines were not working properly. She was told that there were a lot of problems all over the county, and they would get some one out as soon as possible, in the meantime use the paper ballots. Well that is going to be hard to do, we did not receive any. She replied.

So the polling station was shutdown and the voters told to return at 2:00pm and they could vote. From what I was told by one of the Township Supervisors, at 12:30 they received paper ballots from one of the other polling stations in the district and reopened. By 3:00 all was fixed and back to normal. I ask him if they knew for fact that it was back to normal, seeing that only the tech from the Die Bold Company was allowed in the room while the machines were being fixed. He ask if I was there while this was taking place and if not how I new. I told him that was standard procedure with the Die Bold Company. There reasoning is that it is a proprietary system, no one is allowed to over see the maintenance of their machines.

Just like in the diary, people tend to laugh off the smaller communities and their problems. It as if they are small so they don’t matter, or they won’t affect the race. When in fact they play a big part in the out come of the overall picture.

Why is it we are not hearing loud and clear that there are still problems with the vote. Could it be that the Left is satisfied that they now have the power? Could it be that the right was so taken back by the land slide loss that they are still regrouping? I am not sure why we are now taking it all in stride, but I am glad there are still organizations like Black Box Voting out there watching out for us, because It seems that once you get the prize, you lose sight of the troubles you had getting there.
ABA

A Fellow Blogger WARNS Neo-Cons

This is a Blog written by a Fellow blogger over at Daily Kos. He wants people to feel free to use this anywhere the Neo-Cons will see it. So Get It out there.


Dear Republicans who may be inclined to cheat in this election:

You need to watch out, before you agree to do anything wrong in this election -- either dirty tricks before the campaign or election fraud or intimidation the day of -- because we have a special weapon on our side this year.

I was going to tell you to watch out because we have spies. But "spies" isn't the right word. What we have is some good-hearted Republicans on our side. And by "our side," I don't mean that they're supporting Democrats; I mean that they are supporting honest and civil elections.

And they will turn you in and you will take the fall.

Major Danby's diary :: ::
This is an election where a lot of Republicans, even if they are willing to cast their ballots for the elephant, feel real serious conflict about what the authoritairans in power have done to our government. In the past -- in a Presidential election -- maybe they could be convinced that winning is everything. Not this year. A lot of Republicans think, rightly, that your party may be better off with a little humbling this year. That maybe things are out of control.

I'm talking about loyal Republicans here. It doesn't mean that they won't vote your way. It does mean that they're not as likely to avert their eyes if you try to cheat. Average, salt of the earth Republicans want the public to believe that the cheaters -- along with the page-fondlers, the meth-snorting prostitute patronizers, the bribe-takers, and the bribe-makers -- are being purged from the party. What better way to do that than by turning you in?

If you're asked to do something a little bit sneaky, do you know that it's legal? Do you know the name James Tobin? Do you know what happened in the New Hampshire election last time around? People are going to jail. When the party leaders decide who's going to take a fall, do you think that they'll protect the small fry like you? The White House is already pretending that they barely knew who Jack Abramoff and Ted Haggard were. Do you think you'll be protected?

The law has started catching up to you. We're already discussing tonight whether what the sabotage robocalls being used across the country are legal or not. As a lawyer, I'm not sure; it may vary state by state, or maybe not. If I'm not sure, how much of a risk do you want to take? After all, you are expendable, and they may try to say it was all your idea.

The most critical part of the law is one involving "conspiracy." The law considers a normal crime to be bad enough, but when more than one person get together to plan the crime, it is extra bad, because it tears at the social fabric in a different way. And you don't have to know much about what's going on to still be guilty of conspiracy.

Can you afford a lawyer? Do you think that the party will provide good ones to the small fry?

If you see stuff going on that a reasonable person would think might be illegal, you should certainly not participate it. More than that, you should report it. Because if there's one guy around hanging off on the sidelines, who do you think they're going to try to pin things on? You have to protect yourself. Reporting it is the only sure way to do that.

Now you may ask: why am I not directing this at Democrats? Well, first, I will: Democrats, don't cheat. If you do, I will love to see you take a fall. But really, guys, we don't have to worry much about Democrats cheating. The reason is pretty simple: if we do, we'll get caught. That's because there are already enough Democrats around who won't get involved in it, and there's more than enough media to report on any little thing we do as if it's front page news, while refusing to report on what the Republicans do that's much worse. We're honest because we had damn well better be. Your party tends to be less honest and more fast-and-loose with the rules because you assume that people will laugh and say "boys will be boys." But maybe not so much anymore.

It's a new world starting Wednesday, one in which many people will be looking around the Republican Party looking to cast blame -- and looking for scapegoats. Don't be an idiot. Don't make it easy to be the sap left holding the bag.

If you drop the dime on election fraud, you get to be a hero. If you don't, you need to be looking around at everyone around you, wondering whether one of them will. They may smile and agree to everything going on, but what's in their heart? You don't want to find out from a quiet brief talk the public defender assigned to you.

I'm not appealing to your ideology here, I'm appealing purely to your self-interest. Don't just refuse to cheat because it's right -- refuse to cheat because you'll get slammed. Don't make this year even worse for yourself.

This was a Diary written by Major Danby. This can be found on Kos, F.I.N.G.E.R.