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(guest post by Taylor Marsh)
If you can't win fair and square, steal it. This from The New York Times, no less.
According to an editorial today, J. Kenneth Blackwell is at it again. Not only is this Republican likely breaking election law, but he doesn't even care, as long as he gets the desired results. It also gives you a glimpse into the real trouble in Republicanland.
If there was ever a sign of a ruling party in trouble, it is a game plan that calls for trying to win by discouraging voting.
The latest sign that Republicans have an election-year strategy to shut down voter registration drives comes from Ohio. As the state gears up for a very competitive election season this fall, its secretary of state, J. Kenneth Blackwell, has put in place "emergency" regulations that could hit voter registration workers with criminal penalties for perfectly legitimate registration practices. The rules are so draconian they could shut down registration drives in Ohio.
Shutting down voter registration in Ohio follows a campaign started in Florida, where the legislature passed laws so tightly wound that it has the League of Women Voters walking away from their traditional voter registration drives for the first time in over 60 years.
For the first time in 67 years, members of the League of Women Voters of Florida have stopped going door to door registering future voters. It has become too risky, they say.
It's not criminals they're afraid of, it's a new law that "imposes potentially ruinous fines and burdensome requirements on all organizations registering voters," according to a lawsuit filed in Miami federal court Thursday on behalf of a coalition of civic, public interest and labor groups.
A Florida law that took effect Jan. 1 imposes fines of $250 -- on both organization and volunteer -- for each voter registration application submitted more than 10 days after it's collected, $500 for each application submitted after the voter registration deadline and $5,000 per application if it's not submitted at all.
Proposed as a measure to combat voting fraud, what it's really doing is derailing civic-minded, nonpartisan groups like the League, said Dianne Wheatley-Giliotti, the group's president.
"Basically, it constricts our ability to carry out our core mission to educate voters and get them involved in the political process," she said.
With an $80,000 budget, 16 lost or misplaced voter registration forms, theoretically, could bankrupt the League of Women Voters of Florida. It could also open up its volunteers to a financial risk many couldn't afford. So on March 19, Wheatley-Giliotti suspended her group's voter registration efforts.
League of Women Voters sues over new Florida law on voter registration
The League is not amused with what they see is an attempt to suppress voter turn out, so they're suing. No wonder Republicans don't like lawyers, at least those lawyers willing to fight for everyone, not just the wingnuts.
In Ohio, Blackwell has interpreted Ohio's new law to mean that registration workers, both paid and unpaid, actually hand in their voter registration to an election office. This means that supervisors don't get them for review, to see what errors there are on the forms. In addition, Blackwell is evidently not accepting registration applications through the mail, in direct violation of election law.
But there is one clear way that Ohio's election system is corrupt. Decisions about who can vote are being made by a candidate for governor. Mr. Blackwell should hand over responsibility for elections to a decision maker whose only loyalty is to the voters and the law.
"...Ohio's election system is corrupt"?
Nooooo. Really?
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BUCK FUSH!!
Unsullied!
Where’s punaise? Got me another #0 post.
Isn’t Blackwell under investigation for SOMETHING?Abramoff,vote fraud,election fraud,being a general all around A-hole?
I don’t think a Secretary of State should be allowed to act on any matters concerning an election in which he or she is on the ballot.
Anne says:
June 7th, 2006 at 11:08 am
I’d add, or work for any candidate on the ballot. They probably shouldn’t be a party official either; that would also be a conflict of interest.
Well what a surprise. These criminals have gotten away with –nearly– everything else they’ve pulled, so why not go whole hog? Sue me, they say, I’ll see you in court—I own the courts, or at least enough of them, and if I lose so what? Meanwhile voter registration has been crippled.
Over at Kos there’s a diary that talks about taking over the state’s elected offices, not just focusing on congressional races. When you look at this kind of thing, in Ohio and Florida, it starts making sense.
As someone mentioned in the comments of a prievious post, all that matters is who counts the votes and administers the voting machines.
Check out this very telling video clip of a smug Peter King on the day of the 2004 election, according to this website:
http://www.whatreallyhappened......fraud.html
That smugness practically confesses impropriety.
I’m going to be a delegate at this weekend’s National LWV Converntion in MN. Believe me, the voter registration/disenfranchisement issue is going to be right on the front burner. There have been dozens of emails going back and forth about it this week, and we are really glad the FL League is suing. The League is a non-profit organization, and each state league contributes more than 60% of it’s members’ dues to the National League. To say we operate on a shoestring budget might be exaggerating, but only by a little. This new rule in Florida is designed to make registration as cumbersome as possible for voters and registrars. For Christ’s sake - VOTER REGISTRATION IS ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS WE EXIST! We hold registrstion drives throughout the year at all the music festivals, weekend farmer’s markets, virtually any public event we can into with a table. There are many legitimate reasons why registrations might not be turned in until after 10 days. But there is nothing legitimate about the new FL rule. I don’t usually do this, but please contact your local League and offer support and get involved with them. If it weren’t for your local League, you would never recieve a Voter Pamphlet at election time, explaining in he simplest terms possible what all the initiatives and ballot referendums really mean, and which groups are supporting and opposing them. And please contact your reps in Congress to demand that they reaffirm the Voting Rights Act. It really is up to us to change the corrupt status quo on voter issues.
Guess I’m just a little fired up. And please — don’t even get me started on that f***ing criminal, Ken Blackwell.
Just watch in November as the very dubious election results roll in.
This shit needs to be stomped down NOW.
No whining about it in November after the election.
Yes, it needs to be stomped down toot sweet — and we just better hope that that LWV suit makes it to SCOTUS before Chimpy gets another appointment — awful enough as is.
shoephone - We need to get fired up about this or we’ll pay for it in November.
Over at Kos there’s a diary that talks about taking over the state’s elected offices, not just focusing on congressional races. When you look at this kind of thing, in Ohio and Florida, it starts making sense.
Ergo, Dean’s 50-state strategy.
As Kennedy’s article on the 2004 election in Ohio made clear whether the Republicans stole the vote or not, they were certainly trying to and Blackwell was perhaps the major player in it. Now he’s running for Governor and is making sure that something as banal as the electorate doesn’t get in his way. I still wonder why he feels the need to go through the motions of an election. Why not just declare himself the winner and use the money saved on the elections for something useful like bribes?
Taylor, thanks. Shoephone, thanks. Tell us what to do to inform the voters and the disenfranchised of Ohio.
He decided who could vote when he was state co-chair of Bush-Cheney 2004. Why shouldn’t he decide who could vote when he’s running for governor?
It’s the same ethical consideration being gutted, and the people of Ohio put up with it then (i.e., allowed it to happen). Until somebody STANDS UP, there won’t be anybody LISTENING UP.
Has a lawsuit been filed? Does anyone have info on the petition? Is the lawsuit(s) State or Federal?
inquiring minds . . .
can Ohio like, just secede from the union and be done widit?
Bustednuckles @ 11:41 am (#19) - Ohio’s a swing state. That’s the irony here. It’s not overwhelmingly Republican, although there are large areas that are predominately so. It’s very much like Pennsylvania in both economic and demographic terms. Pennsylvania alternates between Republican and Democratic governors, and has a mix of congressmen. Yet Ohio is predominately Republican. Go figure.
epu’d from yesterday’s elections thread - Talk of the Nation on NPR right now has Matt Bai talkking with Neal Conan and Ken Rudin about the elections and what they mean - and just discussing Yearly Kos. His explanation for office-holders like Pelosi and Reid showing up is that now that bloggers are having an event they understand - a convention - they want to be there because they haven’t known how to talk to us in the blogosphere before. Hmm.
Also - lol (or is it a condescending remark and I should be mad?) Bai says he will be on a panel at YKos on “the dreaded mainstream media, which I expect will be a painful experience.”s
Ooh, now a caller from Ohio bringing up Ken Blackwell and his putsch attempts. Cool!
Know what else is kewl? I used to listen to these npr shows to FIND OUT what was happening in politics…now I find I ALREADY know by the time they are discussing the issues!
The Democratic base can’t do what its leaders refuse to do. Why can’t the Democratic party in Ohio AND the national Democrats sue this bastard Blackwell — now, before the election. The Dems sat by idly in ‘04 and it appears they’re going to do the same now. They are beginning to anger me as much as Republicans…well, not quite. (Do you think that this Supreme Court will be sensitive to equal protection arguments on this one? I don’t either.)
Bustednuckles 3
Where’s punaise? Got me another #0 post.
wow - another out-of-bloggy experience
what’s next: a minus one post?
Eeep-erm, not “yesterday’s” elections thread, this morning’s election thread. Maybe I was trying to say “from downstairs?”
Check out Stealing Democracy for more info on this stuff. I’m really freaked about it myself. It was quite clear the the Republicans were doing everything they could to keep the turnout down in 2004. Don’t think that they haven’t developed some new techniques for next time. Here in Maryland we are worried about the Senate race being decided by Diebold.
This is important, and it is really hard to know what to do about it. I appreciate Taylor keeping it on the front burner!!
peace,
jim
Arn’t there national organizations to go after Heir Blackwell? I don’t think this falls under the ACLU’s coverage, but won’t someone file charges against this criminal?
Taylor - your post is so important. In fact, there’s nothing more important to preserving and protecting the citizens’ right to vote in free and fair elections - it’s the backbone of Democracy!
Ga- the best thing you can do right now is react - strongly and loudly. The Ohio and Florida problems may well be on the front page of your local paper today or tomorrow. Immediately write an LTE, and don’tpull any punches. If you hear the subject being discussed on radio talk shows - call in! Call all you national reps and demand they go on the record now about their commitment to voters’ rights. And call your state reps and find out where the laws of your state are with regard to voter protection. Then call your state’s Sec. of State office and put them on notice that you are declaring yourself a citizen watchdog. Outright fraud is one thing -disenfranchisement is much more hidden, much more pervasive and much harder to prove. It needs to see the light of day.
BTW, emails to reps are great but letters sent by U.S. Post will have a bigger impact than emails. They actually get read, and often passed on the the rep. It’s something they can hold in their hands, and something they can take home with them, re-read there, and really ponder before responding to. Believe me, I’ve been to my rep’s house and seen contsituents letters, opened up and sitting on the kitchen table.
All we have is our voices and our bodies. I’m not going to insist you miss work to go protest if there is one(though I certainly would, but I run my own business and can make my own schedule). DOn’t feel guily about what you can’t do. You’re not superhuman. But dio the things you can, and commit to them fully.
Making noise about this and making a bigger stink about it is what the first ammendment affords us. And that first ammendment belongs to us, not them. Always remember that.
Anthony Wiener , congressman from the 9th district of NY was on Al Franken’s show a few minutes ago. He referred to the “rubber stamp congress”.
This is not the only plan they’ve had for rigging elections, witness the jerrymandering of voting districts in TX and Col, among others.
Probably won’t be the last plan they come up with either.
Lol, punaise,
I guess they will have to post my response as part of th article before it can be moderated. To whomever that would be, Just put a big BUCK FUSH at the end of the next article. Thank you in advance. Lmao.
The only good thing I can see in this dark cloud of GOP vote manipulation is that is a tacit admission that they cannot win elections based on their platform; they can only win by rigging the system. Short term, we’re still screwed; but long-term, the Republicans are going down. You can’t be both evil and stupid and survive forever.
Off-topic, but Fineman (via Kos) gets it.
The series of events: Lamont, Busby’s loss with a low dem turnout, Tester’s crushing win, followed by YKos may well be the tipping point.
For that graphic, might I suggest the equally apt Grand Theft Autocrat
sonate and binkyboy - The Ohio State LWV can file a suit, they don’t have wait for an odious rule or law to be passed. The laws are already being corrupted by Blackwell. And the ACLU certainly can get involved in it. Here in Washington the ACLU helped our League file two amicus briefs contesting the stale law that disenfranchises felons from being able to vote after they have “paid their debt to society”. I believe it is going before the WA State Supreme Court.
OT — It’s about damned time corporate media finally said something about this piece of human excrement.
http://www.nydailynews.com/fro.....8034c.html
Steve),
fyi- SCOTUS is expected to release it’s ruling on DeLay’s gerrymandering in TX before the end of th is month -
so many scandals, so little time - can’t recall exactly what they’ll be ruling on
1. Does it meet the 64 Voting Rights Act mandate on southern states review ?
or
2. the suppression of said review by DOJ political appointees
cajun #31 - Perfectly delivered argument. Everyone should use that as the model for the talking points on the issue.
OT: For those of us who don’t get cable, Crooks and Liars has the video of Jon Stewart’s debate with Bill Bennett about gay marriage on TDS:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/.....html#a8614
The title is “Jon Stewart hammers Bill Bennett”, which is pretty accurate. Sometimes humor can get your point across in a way that mere logic can’t.
tejanarusa 21
I heard the earlier part of TOTN when Rudin was reviewing the results of various bellweather elections. His take on Tester’s primary win was generally fair, and he called Tester the better/cleaner Dem candidate to take on Abramoff-tainted Burns. However, he omitted one crucial aspect - that Morrison was the apparatchik DLC insider, while Tester’s ascendancy was fueled by the local grass roots, aided by the blogs.
PS our FDL-pal Siun has been very involved in YKos planning / press-relations, and she has a generally favorable take on Matt Bai’s approach to YKos, at least what he’s written so far.
I’m always chirping up with this, but I don’t see it bandied about much, so I’ll keep chirping.
This is a) to encourage folks, and b) to make sure the right battle is being prepared for. Just remember, at least as far as the battle for the House is concerned, this year is a whole different animal: if the GOP is thinking about pulling any fast ones, it’s gonna have to pull it on swing voters, in swing districts. What good is going into inner-city Cleveland and rigging it so your candidate gets 20% instead of 10%?
So any fraud will be more visible. And when the local news decides whether or not to actually follow the story, this should help tip the balance: the faces of the disenfranchised, the neighborhoods where the disenfranchised live, will exercise so much more of a pull on the media it’s not even funny.
And I don’t think we should waste more than an eyeblink, wondering what that says about the state of things. Save that for later. For now, recognize the opportunity. And how badly it paints the GOP into a corner.
Look, not to be contrary but I’m going to suggest that the people in Ohio are getting exactly the voting system they deserve.
It amazes me that so much of the corruption in Ohio voting is so blatant and on top the table for all to see and yet the citizens of the state do not rise up and demand immediate and honest change. Yet for years they have refused to hold their criminals accountable.
Last week, when RFK Jr.’s article hit Rolling Stone, the right wing dismissed it as just so much left wing moonbattery. Well, that was to be expected. But the left side of the blogosphere issued a deep and profound yawn. Half said “Sure Ohio’s voting system is corrupt, that’s like way old news, why’s Robert pestering us now about that old stuff? Dude, you’re like 2 years too late…” Much of the remaining half just sat there in silence, deeming the article not even worthy of discussion. FDL was, I’m delighted to say, an exception to this. But FDL alone cannot move the mountains that need to be moved.
Long story short, folks. Change will never happen until you demand it. And precious few in Ohio are demanding it. My mother had a saying that she taught me during the civil rights era, especially when the argument against change became ‘the time is not now’. Mom said “Freedom is not a gift”. She meant you cannot sit around waiting for someone to grant you your freedom. You must take it for yourself.
So Ohio, I suggest you accept and begin to embrace your corrupt voting system, because you obviously don’t have the huevos to stand up to the criminals who are disenfranchising you. And since you’re going to be so accomodating, you might just as well enjoy the screw…
cajun @ 11:56 am (#31) - Actually, I don’t think you can infer that. After all, some men where a belt and suspenders. Or, as an engineer would say, never leave yourself vulnerable to a single point failure.
Since no one said it yet….
FITZ!!!!!
Fitz?
Blackwell for governor is what he gets for helping Rove finagle the ‘04 election. Notice how all the characters who help BushCo do illegal things are rewarded with political positions and the full backing of the Republican political machine. Harris for Rep and then senate, etc. The pattern is all over the place.
fourmoreyears - It won’t just be so-called swing voters. They will disenfranchise voters in all districts. They are equal opportunity crooks.
Steve O - my # 36 was for you and not “Steve)”
Rayne - did you see the NYDN front page ?
although I see the merits in the argument of ignoring her and the 9/11 families unwittingly jumping in and helping her publicity campaign -
I knew there was no way New York/New Jersey was going to ignore that craven filth she spouted yesterday
Mom said “Freedom is not a gift”.
I suppose we should rephrase this to “justice isn’t a gift”.
shoephone (11:58): Thanks for the information. I hope that numerous parties would file (or join in) on those lawsuits.
Ed N Sted @ 12:05 pm (#41) - The reason I yawned when I read JFK’s article is that not only was it old news, it was old news that’s been thoroughly discredited.
This Blackwell character needs to be shut down, but he should be shut down because he’s disenfranchising people who legitimately have the right to vote. I think that’s the only thing that matters.
How nice of the NY Times to write about this on their editorial page after studiously ignoring it these past two years on their news pages.
Yep, we have to fight a three pronged approach. 1. Media (MSM wholesale swallowing of repub memes)
2. Registration and voter apathy
3. Bring the establishment dems back to the grassroots or replace them.
Fail at any, we lose. We’re making progress on 1 and 3 (blogs rule!), but we need to get going, before November, on 2. Any posts on how I can help, would be great. Right now, I’m working with in my district with the local Democratic club. I’m sick of hearing how turnout is low in every election (and how gleeful it makes the republicans).
Cujo359
Gotta run right now - work calls - but I do want to address your point. I’ll have to catch up later
Can someone seriously please tell me if we’re going to be able to reverse all the crap the Republicans have laid on us? All these laws, rule changes and bad policies have GOT to be REVERSED! Please!
Bustedknuckles (4) — There is a trail of breadcrumbs from Abramoff/DeLay and the rest of the Cult of Corruption in Blackwell’s general direction, but the trail has been pecked at and trodden upon, requires folks with serious investigative skills to bridge the final synaptic gap. Blackwell is tight with the head of minority-owned company specializing in municipal and venture capital; the same buddy won contracts related to reconstruction of Iraq via lobbyist John Colyandro. Colyandro is under indictment for his role in TRMPAC’s money laundering (DeLay’s Texans for a Republican Majority PAC). The questions that aren’t answered are whether Blackwell has received any financial incentives from any of this food chain or other parallel but not yet uncovered networks/relationships with DeLay/Abramoff. It’s time to get digging deep on this; launch of a formal investigation and indictment would be one way to get Blackwell out of SoS.
Cujo359 (20) — it doesn’t stop with OH and FL; this model is going to be used elsewhere once the facts on the ground have been changed. Michigan, for example, could be described in nearly identical terms as Ohio; the rural areas are deep red, the urban areas blue, making it a swing state. MI went for a Republican governor, seating that moron John Engler for 3 terms; it’s also the home of the equally moronic former Senator and former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Both Ohio and Michigan have about 10 million residents, too — and Michigan already has a Republican state legislature and a Republican SoS.
Dick DeVos, current GOP gubernatorial candidate, has already plowed $5 million into ad buys here, which in turn have narrowed a 10-point gap to a dead heat race with current Dem governor Granholm. He could easily spend another $5 million between now and the election. I cannot emphasize how bad this guy is for this state and for this country. He and his family are in no small part responsible for the currently Republican majority in Congress, for Bush, for this state’s existing Republican majority (spent 5 million over the last decade on this state’s legislative races to buy this majority). If DeVos wins, it could be a sweep and the entire electoral vote will go Repug in a once true-blue state.
Blackwell must be stopped as a model; the Dems in that state need to find a way to sue him and/or recall him if they can do that before the election. And Michigan Dems need to wake up and stop the bleeding in this state, before it becomes the next Ohio.
v-s-c, Harris may well have gotten her start toward the House seat as a quid pro quo (though our FLA Goopers didn’t need much manipulating on that one) — but believe you me, her Senate race is the LAST thing they want to see.
Check “downstairs” here for much more about that.
Dear Anon (Comment #50)
You can help by contacting your local high school(s) and making sure that every graduating senior over the age of 18 gets a voter registration form with their diploma. It’s one way to at least get young people to register… getting them to the polls is an entirely different ball of wax, but that’s one way to help.
Your local DNC chapter might be able to help you better mobilize… Or you might be able to contact the League of Angry Voters or some DFA people too.
Good luck!
OT: Wow. Someone in a previous thread said the gay marriage amendment failed, but I didn’t realize that meant they didn’t even get a majority. From the AP story:
One more indication that Fancy Frist isn’t the best majority leader the Republicans have ever had. As one of the better ones might have observed, the guy can’t even count.
Anybody besides me made it to Vegas yet?
rayne,
thanks for the info.How about connections w/ Ney, Noe,other major scammers?
Apologies if this has already been discussed, wish I had time to read through the entire thread, but this is going to continue to happen until someone with power decides they want to fight for democracy, and I don’t much care what side of the aisle they lob the bombs from.
If you’ve been paying attnetion since 2000, you know that the GOP has nearly mastered the arts of suppressing the vote, hacking the vote, purging voter rolls, etc. The evidence is ample (both anecdotal and mathematical/statistical), we had impossible discrepancies and anomalies in the exit polls on ‘04. This is for real! People are stealing elections now with regularity and there is little debate in the reality-based community about it. I’ve seen ALMOST NO outrage from the party that’s getting screwed. Rush Holt had a bill and it was killed by the GOP’ers in the House, there is documented evidence that the major U.S. networks modified their own fucking polling data to fit the outcome of the last POTUS election. Mark Crispin Miller and Greg Palast have torn the cover off of this story and they’ve been ignored. What will it take? How bad does it have to get?
Knowing what’s transpired with our elections, watching the GOP spit on our democracy for their ill-conceived goals, you’d expect the Democrats to go bananas over it, fight like hell to at the very least, ensure that the process is verifiable. Yet, they do nothing… I’m left with the stomach-churning conclusion that this is working for the vast majority of them (Conyers, Boxer, and Feingold excluded). They feign resistance (a la Arlen the Terrible) only to clam up and cower when push comes to shove. They refuse to upset the applecart (or should I say gravytrain) because they are in the process of lining their own pockets. Why risk their own fortunes to something so secondary as American democracy?
They are complicit in the death of this country.
I can just hear Dubya and Jeb yukking it up-
What’s the word? Thunderbird
What’s the price? 50 twice
How do you get it? Steal it
Gawd, do I envy you, Oilfieldguy — with or without company yet!
The LWV of Florida doesn’t have a website for contributions. Would it make a good project for FDL to collect a little dough for voters’ rights? I’d be happy to kick in.
OT: Leahy, Murray & Reed blast Admin over VA data theft
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06.....r=homepage
In Indiana it used to be a felony (class D) to turn in a voters registration past the deadline BUT there’s a damn good reason for serious penalties for not turning in registrations on time.
1. It keeps people from voting.
2. As a Democrat, if I register folk calling themselves Repubs and then ditch their registrations, I gain an unfair partisan advantage. Vice-versa too!
About 30 years ago, a local politician fucked up and didnt turn in 600 registrations: big brouhaha and almost jail time. I had spaced on turning in 3 registrations. I burned the paperwork and lay low on voter registration for 5 years…
j.cro #55 - great idea. I’ll bring it up at the next meeting too. Thanks.
If I recall, there were suits filed in Ohio prior to the election in 2004, and in almost all cases, Blackwell was slapped down and told to follow the law. The problem was that (1) a lot of this happened only a few days or weeks before the election, with little or no time to right the wrongs that had been perpetrated, and (2) Blackwell basically thumbed his nose at the rulings by making no effort to change what they were doing.
An argument could also be made that - like the outcome of the football game that should not hinge on whether or not the kicker makes the extra point or kicks the field goal in the last seconds of the game - how things end up is not just about what happens at the end of the game, or the campaign, but what happens at every step along the way. What happened in Ohio in 2004, or in Florida in 2000, would not have mattered if Dems had been able to win in other states.
We cannot put all our chips on the Ohios and Floridas. And we cannot just concentrate on federal elections, but have to focus on state and local ones as well. Strong state campaigns can do nothing but improve the strength of support for the federal races. We’ve seen what happens when local and state issues that matter to people go on the ballot - it increases turnout. In the deeply red states, this may be harder for Dems to do, but look what they are doing in South Dakota. There’s a state that no one thought pro-choice voters stood a chance of putting the coat-hanger law to a referendum (and I guess we still don’t know for sure that the petitions have been certified and issue cleared to go on the ballot).
We have to win, not whine. We have to work, not worry. We have to be active, not passive.
And we have to do it everywhere.
lotus @# 61
What happens in Vegas….
#53 - the Dems need to hang Amway around DeVos’s neck. Most people have had bad experiences and he is directly responsible. I don’t understand why Granholm is holding her fire on this.
In 2004, there were GOP front groups that collected voter registrations, and threw out any that were Democratic.
Some one blew the whistle in Nevada, but it happened in Colorado, too — a MoveOn organizer registered to vote, but it never got processed.
We are faced with the most insidious criminal conspiracy in the history of the USA, and what does the Beltway Media concern itself with? Hillary’s lemon yellow pantsuit!!!
Oilfieldguy, wull, MY lips are definitely sealed.
*ilson46201 @ 12:37 pm (#64) - Some western state had this problem in the 2004 election. Can’t remember what state, and I don’t remember which party screwed which, but the idea was that they collected voter registration applications from people of both parties, and then threw out the ones that weren’t for their party. I think it was New Mexico.
I don’t know what you can do about this short of fining people and throwing them in jail, but that sort of penalty is certainly going to discourage honest people from doing registration drives, as it did for you.
Blackwell must be stopped. Ohio will again be a pivotal state in the ‘08 Presidential election. Unless this corrupt rats’ nest is cleared out now, we will see yet ANOTHER stolen election.
Ohio family and friends–time to take back the state government!
cujo359
not sure just how you can say that ‘the only thing that matters’ is to get blackwell out of ohio. calling kennedy’s piece ‘old news’ suggests you either (a) didn’t read it, or (b) have not been paying attention since 04.
would that blackwell were our only problem!! and would that he represented only one problem! he commandeered the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands, at least, of voters by numerous questionable and criminal shenanigans. and what about the electronic voting machine scandalS?? this is a national problem, as are all the tactics used by blackwell.
i for one (of many, though clearly not enough) was extremely excited that kennedy’s piece was taken on by a major publication. that is something that, despite how old the story is, has not happened previously.
and the bloggers - including you - yawned??? just what was that supposed to prove? that you knew all the details already? ooh, so impressive. is THAT the point, then?? or is the point to get this info out there? if so, then kennedy should be honored and applauded, which i do.
the thing that always gets me when folks like you dismiss the election scandals out of hand is, just why on earth would you ever expect these power mongering mobsters to allow a fair election? they’ve stolen our tax dollars, our rights, our powers of oversight, and our good name, not to mention the lives of hundreds of soldiers and thousands and thousands of innocent world neighbors. and you expect them to play fair when it comes to voting???
elections are just sport to them, an annoying inconvenience. like the cheney’s hunting excursions, the whole thing is rigged. they don’t care about the blood or the cost, because none of these things are theirs.
yet, oddly, they hoard everything they even glance.
We did make the news last night tho’.
We did make the news last night tho’.
And you’re out of jail already?
We need to get some “authority” on the issue(LWV, anyone with a relevant book?) on The Daily Show to expose this. MSM sure ain’t gonna devote any time/space to the issue.
Anne @ 12:40 pm (#66) - Too true. The only way any of these voter suppression efforts is going to matter is when elections are really, really close. So the first lesson is, don’t let them be that close.
I think the other lesson to draw is that election commissions need to be completely non-partisan. That states can allow the people to oversee elections to also be prominent members of their parties is bound to create problems of this sort. It’s one of those instances when even the appearance of impropriety will decrease confidence in government.
Wrt my 63:
“Can you imagine being a young woman with a couple of children, your spouse is overseas in Iraq, and now you find out that your address has been stolen and your personal safety is at risk?” Ms. Murray said.
This could turn volcanic on those skeezers, y’all. Should word get out that the SSNs actually HAVE found their way into misuse, it goes sky-high. Wonder what damage-control is actually being applied here, either functional or PR.
Hmmm . . .
lotus says:
June 7th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Not only VA records, but it appears that all active duty Guard and Reservist’s information may have been compromised along with the veterans records stolen a little while back.
Iowa is also a swing state…while usually falling in the Republican column in national elections the spread between urban and rural residents are narrowing. It can go either way now.
#44 in reply to my #40
fourmoreyears - It won’t just be so-called swing voters. They will disenfranchise voters in all districts. They are equal opportunity crooks.
I’m sorry, but you’re a little clueless. ‘They will disenfranchise voters in all districts.’ Do you even understand why everyone who charges the GOP with fraud in Ohio focuses in on what happened in inner-city Cleveland? Why not everywhere in the state? BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE THE GOP COMMITTED THE FRAUD. Because they could get away with it there.
As soon as that penetrates, please, try again to understand my point, that the battleground in ‘04 was a battle for a statewide electoral prize, while the battleground this time is over the individual districts around the country that will give one or the other parties the magic 218 seats, upon which this administration will stand or fall.
Hence the shifting battleground theme of my post.
(Yes, I’m aware they had congressional elections in ‘04. Maybe there was fraud there, too, but apparently control of the House wasn’t an issue, since not even the most diehard libs bring it up.)
Damn it, i just checked Fitz’s DOJ website. No New indictments.SOB!Sniffle sniffle.My popcorn’s burning……
Cujo,
The evidence clearly shows that the number of votes being impacted by purges, dirty tricks (not enough machines, tossing registrations), intimidation, and electronic hanky-panky is in the 10’s of thousands in some states. In fact, if you read the Kennedy piece in RS, Kerry would have won handily if the ‘04 vote was legitimate (according to the EXTREMELY accurate exit polling data). And the polling technology has been fine-tuned for accuracy within 10th’s of a % point.
ck
No it was my daughters wedding yesterday. She is extrordinairily beautiful and has adopted the Gothic wardrobe and decor. No wedding dress exists for this, so she designed her own, created a pattern and made it herself, complete with a corset and a Morticia Adams skirt and train, (with some leather sewed in for good measure–did I mention how talented she is?)
The news crew showed up at the famous “A Little White Wedding Chapel,” and got footage for their 10pm newscast. The reason it was newsworthy was due to the carefully selected date:
06.06.06
Bad News–it was covered by FOX News.
AAARRRGGGHHH!
I question how Blackwell still holds office. I question why the people of Ohio have not risen up in loud protest. The apathy is apalling (and not just in Ohio).
The upcoming elections will take significant citizenry oversight IMO. Without a fully engaged populace, it will be another frick-tuck.
ofg –
Well, at least they didn’t have the ceremony at Hellmouth, Texas — aka, the preznit’s pig farm in Crawford.
Has anyone seen any reaction to the RFK piece (or any similar material) from the ‘04-flummoxed exit-polling folk? Not that it would add anything to our case, I just wonder what they’re thinking of this later-published stuff, and where they are in wild-goose-chasing after method-redesign, etc.
I would be very pleased to have seen any coverage on the (wonderful)Kennedy piece but I have not. Has anyone seen major paper or network coverage of it?
Indiana passed the toughest voter ID law - it got used this spring. Our Congresswoman Julia Carson went to her polling place where she’s voted for 34 years. She tried to use her official Congressional ID card but at first she got rejected coz the card didnt have an expiration date. TV cameras were doing a live-eye coverage of this first-vote-of-the-day. A quick Republican polling inspector overruled the clerk and judged the card OK finally. Imagine the repercussions of keeping an incumbent Congresscritter from voting on TV!
P.S. Ms. Carson is a 68yo Black woman.
*ilson, it might have been worth the loss of Rep. Carson’s vote to gain the national coverage if that blockhead clerk had prevailed.
Dayum.
In related news:
Ex - Ohio Official Pleads Guilty to Charges
http://www.nytimes.com/aponlin.....ref=slogin
“A former senior official at Ohio’s $15 billion insurance fund for injured workers pleaded guilty to federal and state charges Wednesday, admitting that he took bribes in exchange for government investment opportunities.
“Terrence Gasper, 59, also said he was working with prosecutors in their continuing investigation into the state scandal. … “
lll @ 12:49 pm (#73) - If you had anything other than ad hominem and namecalling to go with, I suspect I would have seen it in your response. Oh, wait, you did - the strawman version of what I wrote. Needless to say, I don’t find your counter-argument very persuasive, nor would anyone with even half a mind to work with. Please try to do better in the future.
Here are two articles from Salon (sorry, you need to either watch a commercial or pay) that clearly show the problem with the “Ohio was stolen” meme:
http://dir.salon.com/story/boo.....index.html
http://www.salon.com/news/feat.....3/kennedy/
I couldn’t find any mistakes in these articles. This is in contrast to Kennedy’s, which clearly made errors of logic. If you find errors in the above articles, please say so.
For an independent view, check out this link to a tristero article, and the links contained in it:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com.....7329276958
lotus, especially since it was a Primary where she got 87% of the vote against a carpetbagging lawyer who threw $200,000 against her. As it was the voting ID kerfuffle played all day long on local TV…
> Decisions about who can vote are being made by a candidate for governor. Mr. Blackwell should hand over responsibility for elections to a decision maker whose only loyalty is to the voters and the law.
This is a just like what happened during the 2000 election in Florida, where Harris was co-chair of the Bush/Cheney machine while she was Secretary of State. In other words, the chief election official in Florida had a vested interest in the outcome of that election. It was a conflict of interest that should never have been permitted. The situation with Blackwell in Ohio is another. He should absolutely recuse himself from this election while he is a candidate. But IOKIYAR, so he won’t.
btw lotus: Aum Mane Pedme Hum … but you probably hear that all the time!
Jay @ 1:02 pm (#82) - I read the Rolling Stone article by Kennedy. The saw that exit polling is EXTREMELY reliable is EXTREMELY weak, as Farhad Manjoo demonstrates in the articles I’ve linked to previously. The tens of thousands of votes suppressed hurt Republican vote counts, too, and it’s debatable, to put it mildly, that all the suppression efforts combined really added up to a defeat for Kerry in Ohio.
If you haven’t read Froomkin yet today, he begins
President Bush is running around the country this week talking about immigration, and on Monday he gave a much-hyped speech on gay marriage. In neither case has he said anything remotely new, and yet the press coverage is intense.
But what about the stuff the White House doesn’t want us talking about?
You know, the important stuff.
and gets WAAAY better from there.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....43_pf.html
I question how Blackwell still holds office. I question why the people of Ohio have not risen up in loud protest. The apathy is apalling (and not just in Ohio).
I dunno, I think we’re all a little naive most of the time wrt how social dynamics functions. I’m not aiming this remark simply at the previous poster, but at all those who wonder why the media never seems to have that the-emperor-has-no-clothes moment. Someone would have to be the first to say it.
You ever see the Candid Camera segment where a guy gets in an elevator and two other people are facing the back wall? He dutifully imitates them.
I read a short novel by Graham Greene, a long time ago. One scene that stuck with me was of the hero being in someone’s house at a social gathering, and for fun they’re having a seance. The room is dark. Now, circumstances have led the hero to believe that someone close by wants to murder him. And he sits there, thinking to himself, that human nature is such that one hesitates even to leave a situation of mortal danger, if there’s a risk of embarrassing himself socially.
Group dynamics is a funny thing. Kitty Genovese and friends, for instance.
Ok, if we can’t win the fight in the courts and get this crap shut down, and if the systems are so lax in security - aren’t there any DEMOCRAT hackers out there??? Come on - what the Repugs don’t realize is what works for them will work for others.
Whazzat, *ilson?
Cujo359 says:
June 7th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
Jay @ 1:02 pm (#82) - I read the Rolling Stone article by Kennedy. The saw that exit polling is EXTREMELY reliable is EXTREMELY weak, as Farhad Manjoo demonstrates in the articles I’ve linked to previously.
Go read Tristero’s take on this at Digby’s place, too. Yesterday. Doesn’t buy Manjoo’s argument at all.
You Da People
It appears from the collective wealth of numerous factual indictments (no thanks to the MSM) that the American Constitution and therefore its Government is under critical siege from within as a result of a radical and criminal Executive, an ineffectual Legislature and an increasingly co-opted Judiciary. Perhaps it is finally time to take a page out of the Founding Fathers history and formally re-establish a Constitutional Convention, open to all Americans who wish to take steps towards ending corruption and forward to greater truth and justice .
Maybe its time to empanel a Constitutional Grand Jury and start detailing the indictment for prosecution from outside formal processes but within the context of democratic representation…absolute worst case scenarios (terrorist attack, martial law, voter fraud (legislative coup)) need a mitigating and immunizing process to be operating simultaneously to prevent or minimize the viral threat if other systems fail or are overwhelmed.
Democracy dictates one thing: vigilance
the ‘voter registration’ activities of Sproul & Associates were focused mainly in the SW. In Nevada, there was a former employee who spilled the beans, showing discarded registration forms. Some of the people who had their forms discarded sued to get on the rolls, but a local judge struck down their suit with a shrug. Sproul earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from the NC in 2004. I’m sure they are already at work on screwing up the fall elections.
Yes, we need more lawsuits, more local participation in ensuring the voting process is run fairly and openly, more and more lawsuits on every level, and we must continue to demand fair and free elections. This summer I’m taking the classes needed to become an election worker, because the average age of a election worker in my area has got to be over 70, and we need people who can take the long hours, who have a better understanding of the technology involved. I’d rather drive people to the polls, or stand on the corner with a sign, but we need more Democrats, especially younger and more progressive Dems, to do the work of chopping wood and carrying water to protect our elections. Please consider volunteering for this type of work. The Republicans in many states trained hundreds if not thousands of people to be poll workers, election judges, teaching them how to ‘challenge’ voters for specious reasons such as a dropped middle name or a typo on the address on the ID presented. We must fight back, fight hard.
The Republicans are always nattering on about the brave men who died to protect our democracy, yet the core of democracy depends on the right to vote in free and fair elections and the Republicans do everything they can to prevent people from voting and having their votes count. What are they so damn scared of? Why do they mistrust The American People? Why do they so so much to depress/suppress voting? We should shame them, fight them, laugh at them and indict them, in the court of public approval and in the court house, and then throw some of them into the Big House. I’d start with Nathan Sproul.
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