BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???

Subject: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 07:52 PM

Well, well, well...

Looks as if the strategy for the Repubs controlling the White House is from the 2000 election playbook and they have allready begun in Ohio with law suits to disenfransize newly registered voters...

Is Ohio just the test grounds for yet another lawyer-driver decision by the Repubs???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 07:55 PM

Or will the DEMOCRATIC Judges steal it first?

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 08:08 PM

It will be a 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision with Justice Clarence Thomas casting the deciding vote AGAINST his fellow African American, Obama, thereby denying him the opportunity to make history.

SOL

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 08:11 PM

They're sure as hell going to try. My hope is that there will be a legal recourse for making sure the provisional ballots are counted.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 08:49 PM

Well, the Repubs are allready trying to throw out some 200,000 new voters in Ohio and have gotten a couple favorable rulings from Repub appointed judges...

Hmmmmmm??? Here we go again...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 08:50 PM

I should rephrase my last post. I hope there will be a legal recourse for making sure all of the legitimate provisional ballots are counted.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 09:30 PM

Rabbi Sol, Justice Thomas will vote against his 'fellow African American' if that is what the Constitution requires him to do. Or maybe he'll just do it because the Democrat is a Democrat. Or maybe he'll do it just because that Senator is Black; Thomas is a self-loathing Negro, is he not?

CarolC, you should hope that every 'legitimate' vote is counted, provisional or not; I do. How-some-ever, it appears there may some mischief afoot in Ohio. Not one illegitimate vote, there or anywhere, should be counted. 'Nuff said.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 10:13 PM

To be clear.... the questioned registrations in Ohio are matters of discrepancies in middle names, drivers license numbers...etc.. *IF* the challenge continues (the Ohio election commissioner says it will be VERY hard to check them all before the election), the voters will be issued 'provisional ballots', which will be counted or not counted after they are certified.

There will 'probably' not be any genuine voters lost as a result of this attempt to influence the election....not to say there won't be others attempts.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 10:38 PM

I do hope that all legitimate votes are counted. But when registrations are challenged because of discrepancies, it is almost always a legitimate registration. But because it is such a hassle to get the registration cleared, people give up and don't bother to vote, and when they use the provisional ballots, most of those aren't counted even when they're legitimate.

This is a concerted effort that has historically been used by the Republican party to discourage and in many cases suppress legitimate votes. This tactic has succeeded in the past. My hope is that it will not succeed this time.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 10:41 PM

And the only mischief afoot in Ohio is the Republican judges' efforts to suppress legitimate votes.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: GUEST,MarkS (on the road)
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 10:44 PM

Those Dallas Cowboys really get around. Why shouldn't their votes be counted in every state. They play there and pay taxes there, no?

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 10:49 PM

The Truth About Voter Fraud

ACORN had already flagged the suspect registration forms and alerted the authorities about them. They were required by law to submit the forms regardless of whether or not they thought there was a problem with them (because, believe it or not, it is possible for more than one person to have the same name). The election authorities didn't catch ACORN doing anything improper.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 11:06 PM

We will see what we will see.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 12:07 AM

We will indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: GUEST,Caribou Carl
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 07:29 AM

Both parties work to suppress voter turnout on one another's turf.

Obama himself commented on the Acorn controversy, and admitted that Acorn had likely paid people to do the job of registering voters, which is time consuming work. Some of the people Acorn paid turned in bogus registrations, just to get the paycheck. By law, Acorn has to turn those registration cards into the state authority responsible for verifying the registration as legitimate.

Especially with the recent advances in technology, verification of legitimate voter registrations is easier than ever before. Most places in the US enjoy some of the cleanest voting on the planet.

I'm far more concerned with corporate control of the federal, state and local governments and the two corrupt parties that run those governments, than I am about vote tampering. It is a very, very minor quibble in the US, IMO.

Worry about the stuff that really matters, like how to get rid of the crooks who have taken over the US government and put them in jail where they belong, reform and regulation, changing the highly politicized, partisan environment that government workers are forced to function in--then you will see some change for the better.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: GUEST,Caribou
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 07:32 AM

It is important to remember that "bi-partisan" is still partisan.

Non-partisan, like the League of Women Voters, is what we should be aiming for, not a form of partisanship that continues to privlege the lock on power by those in power--which is how bi-partisanship works in the US political system.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 08:44 AM

ACORN does pay people (by the hour) to register voters. There is nothing illegal about doing that. ACORN does do quality control on the registrations that their workers bring in. They separate out any that look like they could be problematic, and they flag them and turn them in to the authorities. This is what they did in Ohio.

I agree that all of the people who work on elections should be doing so in a non-partisan capacity. That's one of our biggest problems.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: GUEST,Caribou Carl
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 08:53 AM

I don't think anyone is suggesting it is illegal. However, it is the nature of the beast. When you pay people based on the number of voter registrations they bring to you, you open the voter registration process to just this sort of problem.

The process Acorn used is the one required by law, and has nothing to do with Acorn policy, really. There are probably other urban and rural based organizations doing the same thing these days, paying people to register voters. It is very difficult to get people to do pavement pounding work at all these days--just ask any non-profit. It isn't just true of voter registration campaigns. It is true for all types of political canvassing, door to door fundraising for medical causes, etc.

The problem of partisanship isn't solely in the electoral process. It is a far larger problem in the political process--ie with the elected politicians--who are hopelessly corrupt at this point.

Here is hoping we have a big "throw the bums out" election turnout, where many incumbents, regarless of their partisan affiliation, lose their offices.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 11:27 AM

No need to let it get as far as judges.
If you want to do somthing well you need to go to the source.

The source code for voting machines shows how to change votes at the momnet of tabulating the final count for a machine or precinct.

Even some unfortunate power outages or missing back up generators would do the trick.

Turning thousands of voters away at 9 PM will become the stuff of legends.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 11:30 AM

As a person who has been made to cast 2 provisional ballots for no apparent reason, I suspect they are not counted. I was not allowed to know if they were or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: GUEST,Caribou Carl
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 11:44 AM

Then you should inquire as to what happened from your state's attorney general office, state ombuds office, etc.

It is a lot of work to track it down, but it is possible.

Like most things of this sort, most of us are too lazy/overwhelmed with other life concerns to do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 12:19 PM

Exactly

Lazyness is the number one killer of Democracy.

This forum is an exception to the rule of not even talking to one another about the state of democracy or America.

Most people get too angry face to face to talk about politics.

The founding fathers knew that Democracy relies heavily on a free and open discourse.

We do not have one today. Think tanks have often advised that creating a society that has a foundation of 'everyone fending for themselves' will remove any power they have to shape or change the desires of the ruling class.

Isolation of people from their community can be done with a divide and conquer strategy or by racial, religious and ideological walls of intolerence.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 01:03 PM

In my experience as an elections worker in Alaska, I can assure you that 'provisional' or 'questioned' ballots *are* counted. The only difference between them and regular ballots is that questioned ballots get a second look; they are questioned for a variety of reasons, the most common being that the voter has voted outside his or her precinct and therefore that person's name is not on the register (the book that is on the table at each polling place.

It can also be questioned if the person has moved to a different address

If I am working outside my own precinct on Election Day I vote a questioned ballot although as a rule the office tries to assign workers to their precinct, in which case I follow the same process as any other voter listed: I start at the head of the line, they find my name on the register and I sign in. The next person gives me a blank ballot inside a cardboard sleeve and tells me whether it's a single-sided or double-sided ballot. With it in hand, I then enter a booth, mark my ballot, re-insert the ballot into the 'secrecy sleeve' and take it to the machine where a person is standing by to ensure that the machine accepts my ballot, i.e. that I have not irretrievably crumpled it or 'over-voted' (voted for more candidates or positions than called for, in which case it will spit it back); it does not matter whether the ballot is inserted right-side up or backward, it can read it just fine.

Incidentally if I mis-mark my ballot, I can leave the booth at any time and be issued a clean ballot. The first one is VOIDed and put in a separate box; these too are accounted for.

All of the election workers are working under oath, by the way. They rightly make a big deal out of it.

When I vote a questioned ballot I am issued the same ballot as anyone else but instead of a secrecy sleeve I'm given an envelope to take into the voting booth. After I vote, I myself put the ballot into the envelope and seal it. I then bring it to the person at the machine who drops it through a slot leading into a separate compartment inside the machine.

Those envelopes are opened in a bloc at counting time by other officials, the voter's information (the identifiers such as voter number or driver's license number or social security number are checked and it is ascertained that the voter is indeed registered to vote in Alaska (If he or she is notregistered, that information goes into a separate file and the would-be voter is informed by mail that their votes were not counted and gives the reason.) If they are, the votes are logged and counted official.

Absentee ballots are treated the same way, with the added proviso that they must have been stamped within the deadline.

Subsequent to all this, every election has a review board where all these ballots are examined.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: GUEST,Caribou Carl
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 01:18 PM

As I said and Ebbie verifies with her personal experience, the voting process in the US is very well run in most places. We have some of the cleanest elections in the world.

The system is not perfect. 2000 didn't go the right way, and the US Supreme Court never should have intervened, especially because the end result was the least experienced candidate won the nod, and he ended up being one of the worst presidents in US history.

That said, Obama has even less experience going in than Bush II did. Not exactly confidence inducing. I certainly hope his lack of experience doesn't make things worse than they already are. I feel like that is the best we can hope for this time around.

I don't see any positive change looming over the horizon at this point. Circumstances have already dictated the only change we'll see for the forseeable future is change for the worse, regardless of who wins.

But if it is Obama, I really fear he could be as bad or even worse than Bush has been, strictly based upon his lack of experience and his Wall Street lawyers and lobbyists--his biggest Big Money donors.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: GUEST,Caribou Carl
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 01:31 PM

It occurs to me, after posting the above, that some here may not realize that Wall Street stole this election, and our future, already.

Obama's biggest donors are the very Wall Street institutions just bailed out by us, such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Lehman Bros, JP Morgan--and of course, let's not forget Wall Street's biggest "think tanks" who are also in the top 5 of Obama's biggest donors, Harvard and U of Cal (but behind Goldman Sachs, of course).

How can anyone have confidence in a candidate so obviously joined at the hip to Wall Street & it's interests, after the last month & a half?

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 02:04 PM

CC

Be assured we will have the best President money can buy.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: GUEST,Caribou Carl
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 02:17 PM

Exactly.

The US is the only nation on earth that has 2 year long elections for every 4 year offices, at a cost of a trillion dollars+

Of course, we don't even own our government anymore. Foreign investors do. That's the biggest scary bit no on is talking about.

Should our foreign investors choose to call in the Bush era loans, our government will be printing money at rate that puts the Weimar Republic to shame (see GREAT story today on Democracy Now about our wonderful deficit spending ways).

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: Amos
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 02:30 PM

Getting a bit reactionary, here, are we? Harvard and MIT are traidtionally locasted in Massachusetts, not Wall Street. As for a comparison between W's experience in running TExas into the ground and Obama's as a Senator, I think the side-by-side comparison is kind of laughable. But if you look at the degree of insight, policy wisdom, sensible management style, communication skills and diplomatic ability, you will find the fruits of their experience are not even comparable--W's doors being blown off by orders of magnitude.

The past is not the problem, you see; the problem is how a person can deal with the unpredicted future. On that criterion you really don't have a comparison.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: GUEST,Caribou Carl
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 02:46 PM

Strikes me as an opinion put forth by someone with a high opinion of their own opinions.

Frank Hanly--now there was a bad governor. Makes Bush look like a saint.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 02:49 PM

My understanding is that generally corporate donors tend to hedge their bets by giving money to both sides.

Would I be wrong to assume that "Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Lehman Bros, JP Morgan-..." etc will have done that in this case, by matching any donations to the DEmocrats with donations to the Republicans?

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: GUEST,Caribou Carl
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 03:08 PM

You understand correctly.

However, the difference, especially this year when Obama has raised more money than any candidate in history, there is a significant difference in the amount and timing of the donations.

Merrill Lynch happens to be McCain's top donor, by the way.

The source I use to check these things is opensecrets.org

At one time, the Republicans were the kings of political money vacuuming.

The Democrats this year have made their previous efforts at donor milking look like small spuds by comparison.

The money the Democratic machine has vacuumed up this year is grossly (literally) over the top. This election has been stolen by Wall Street, the candidates (and Obama especially) bought by their lawyer lobby, and the advertising cash cow that's been going on for over a year, is collecting our interest payments in corporate media's coffers.

To say it is all obscene doesn't even begin to cover the level of political corruption and graft and hush money madly changing hands right now.

You won't see any flights of capital out of the US because the Treasury is nearly empty.

What you will see is a wave of capitalist crooks fleeing prosecution and the country until Bush gives them all a pardon on his way out the back door in January.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 03:14 PM

"The US is the only nation on earth that has 2 year long elections for every 4 year offices, at a cost of a trillion dollars+

Of course, we don't even own our government anymore. Foreign investors do. That's the biggest scary bit no on is talking about.

Should our foreign investors choose to call in the Bush era loans, our government will be printing money at rate that puts the Weimar Republic to shame (see GREAT story today on Democracy Now about our wonderful deficit spending ways)."

Ah! There it is in a nutshell. It never ceases to amaze me how long an American election lasts and how much money it consumes. Un-fucking-believable. No other nation in the world is so badly governed as to ruin 2 out of every 4 years of its governance by fighting almost endless election campaigns!

For Christ's sake, the recent Canadian election just ended here. The campaign lasted only 6 weeks, which is normal (set by law), and it cost the citizens a tiny fraction per capita of what an American election does. It also did far less harm psychologically to the country, because the barrage of partisan hatred and mutual character attacks only lasted 6 weeks instead of 2 years.

Think about that.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: Amos
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 03:44 PM

ANd another troll takes flight from an overindulgence in unbalanced arm-waving...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: SINSULL
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 03:59 PM

We always have the best president money can buy. Why do we put up with it?

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: GUEST,Caribou Carl
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 05:47 PM

Because the middle class refuses to change it's voting habits, and voting is the lazy person's habit of not getting involved in their participatory democracy.

It isn't just in the US though. It is just that in parliamentary system, you have more choices.

Here, you also have roughly the same number of choices as the parliamentary democracies, but no one is allowed to talk about them, and they aren't allowed to participate in the elections in a meaningful way.

People actually vote for them, when they are allowed in, as both parties found out in 1992 and 2000.

And maybe this year, it's hard to tell because the censorship of the third parties is so blatant this year.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 06:00 PM

ACORN doesn't pay people according to the number of registrations they bring in. They pay people by the hour.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 06:02 PM

A third party in the US seldom does anything really useful. Yeah, they 'call attention' to some issues, but usually to the detriment of the party closest to them.

   When George Wallace ran, it ended up helping the Democrats...but when Ralph Nader made a serious attempt, it hurt the Democrats.

I am all for a system vaguely like Israel ...where smaller parties compete and get a % of the seats in the legislature...and coalitions are often needed to make a govt. work. I'd LIKE to see parties formed where people with different views don't have to shoehorn themselves into one of two major groups. Joe Lieberman...pay attention!

I don't see it happening soon, though, as too many systems would have to be altered to make it work...including the electoral system. Each side (Dem. & Rep) would have to totally rethink strategy, and they don't want to do that.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: GUEST,Caribou Carl
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 06:13 PM

If it weren't for third parties, nothing would ever change. That is their main function in the US political system: to force the establishment to change.

If that costs one party or another an election, then that is the price we are all forced pay for the minority of citizens who vote wanting so desperately to hang onto the status quo.

But the voting demographics are changing rapidly, as is the means for getting information to voters.

By the next election, we'll have web to tv technology that will allow people to bypass the mainstream media completely.

A few more presidential election cycles, and whites will no longer be the majority of voters.

Life goes on, even during and after bad presidents in office and even when empires lose their power as the US has in the last "deregulatory" era. We the citizens gave away the store, rather than do the hard work of forcing the system and the processes to change.

We aren't ever going to get what we paid for--check your 401K balance. You think the Democrats are going to give it back to you?

I don't *think* so.

So go ahead and laugh yer arses off at SNL. The jokes are all on us.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 06:14 PM

When you hedge your bets you also try to back the winner.

Mind, it's a bit of a laugh seeing the late Lehman Bros in that list of donors...

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: Amos
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 07:55 PM

A WIki site devoted to issues of vote suppression.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 09:11 PM

The state Supreme Court has ruled against the appeals court decision.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 10:47 PM

Woah...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27245181#27245181

This is the sort of thing I was hoping for.

Subject: RE: BS: Will Repub Judges Steal Election???
From: CarolC
Date: 18 Oct 08 - 01:02 AM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27245744#27245744