quote:Police raided the largest voter registration drive in the state with the lowest voter turnout in the country.
Roughly 45,000 newly registered voters in Indiana almost all of whom are black may not be allowed to vote next month after state police targeted the state’s largest voter registration drive, forcing it to shut down its operation.
Police raided the Indiana Voter Registration Project (IVRP) offices on October 4, seizing documents and equipment and forcing the group to cease its get-out-the-vote efforts one week before the end of the state’s registration period. Bill Buck, a spokesperson for the liberal nonprofit Patriot Majority USA which runs the IVRP, told ThinkProgress that IVRP could have registered about 5,000 more voters in that additional week.
... Bill Bursten, chief public information officer for the Indiana State Police, told ThinkProgress that law enforcement is investigating whether IVRP is violating fraud and forgery laws.
It will be up to each prosecutor to review the completed investigation and take whatever action they, as the local prosecuting authority, deem appropriate, Bursten said. Investigations of this nature are complicated and can take an extended period of time to complete.
So Lawson found irregularities in voter registration forms by checking against the state database that she says is also full of irregularities. Nice work!
And of course, wait for the last minute to do anything about it.
Can anyone show any like efforts in Democrat-controlled states to disenfranchise any segment of American voters?
Every state that has gerrymandered districts is using their power to stay in power, which is basically what this kind of rigging is all about.
So Massachusetts would be an example for you.
Yes, the fix is in.
And the system is rigged to maintain the existing status quo power structure.
Republicans are getting more and more desperate though, because they are losing and time is against them: demographics are changing to more liberal populations.
Most notable in these primary and election threads has been the tepid support for Hillary. Obviously some regions are rabidly pro-Hillary, but I think tepid support is more the rule than anything more enthusiastic. If she wins it won't be for what she represents but for who she isn't.
I posted this in July before the primary on facebook:
quote:Okay, so the current tabulated count (ignoring the mail-in votes that have yet to be counted in California and elsewhere) is (total delegates so far — as of 06/18/16):
Hillary 2221 (55%) Bernie 1830 (45%)
with 4051 of 4051 possible pledge (elected) delegates currently allocated, leaving a delta of 391 delegates.
There are 715 Super-delegates so they CAN decide on one OR the other to make them the candidate. In fact in other years 45% has been sufficient to get the nomination (when that was the highest count).
There is a lot of talk about coming together and how we need to unify so that we can beat Donald Trump in November. The question I have is why pick Hillary to be the standard bearer -- should we not consider ALL possible paths and choose the one most likely to succeed in November -- if that is truly the goal here?
There are a lot of democrats who will stay home or vote for Jill rather than vote for Hillary. Certainly she won't inspire independents to vote for progressive down-ticket candidates.
If we would be voting for "the lesser of two evils" in November, between #SHiliary and #ScaryHairy, shouldn't we be talking about picking a candidate that is not a "lesser evil" in the first place?
Let me put this out here once again: the super-delegates will pick the candidate in the July 25-28 convention, ... but INDEPENDENT voters will pick the PRESIDENT in the November election.
If the DNC (super-delegates) picks Hillary and she loses to Trump it will NOT be because of Bernie, or Bernie supporters, ... it will be because they - the DNC and democrat establishment and the corporate media - picked a WEAKER candidate, one with less mass appeal and one who is seen by many - especially by independent voters - as part of the corrupt system\establishment problem instead of as part of a solution.
Seems that prediction is coming true.
So a lot of "Hillbots" are posting "Remember Nader" and accusing people of endangering the election, ... when the nadir truth is that Gore did not earn enough votes:
quote:George Bush beat Al Gore by only 543 votes in Florida. Gore needed Florida’s electoral votes in order to win the presidency. He did not get them. Gore’s diehard Democratic Party supporters have declared Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader the reason their candidate lost the 2000 presidential election, even though numerous other factors in the climactic Florida vote-counting drama affected the outcome. Instead of focusing solely on the votes Ralph Nader took from Al Gore, a balanced analysis would also take into account the following: (1) voters who were disenfranchised; (2) voting systems and procedures that failed; (3) the party-line United States Supreme Court vote declaring George W. Bush the winner; and (4) Democrats who voted for Bush or not at all.
Gore also alienated progressives in the campaign, and sealed that when he picked hawkish independent Lieberman for VP. Hillary is making those very same mistakes by ridiculing Bernie people and picking DINO Tim Kaine for VP.
Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.
If Hillary loses it will be because she does not earn enough votes.
Her tepid non-response to the DAPL protest is indicative of HER wrong direction. Her comment in the (leaked email) account of talks about having a "private face" and a "public face" are also indicative of trustworthiness in actually meaning what she says in public.
I expect that Hillary will win, because Trump is a troglodyte, not because she is a good candidate.
I also expect that the senate may stay in republican hands because she won't inspire voters to elect down ticket candidates. Or that the republicans will win it back in 2018.
A Des Moines woman has been charged with Election Misconduct, a Class D felony, after allegedly voting twice for GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. Terri Rote says she was afraid her first ballot for Trump would be changed to a vote for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
"I wasn't planning on doing it twice, it was a spur of the moment," says Rote.* "The polls are rigged."
But Polk County Attorney John Sarcone says voter fraud in Iowa is very rare, which is evidence that Iowa’s election system is secure.
"I think in the 25-plus years that I've been doing this job, this maybe the third 08-20-2022 5:56 PM we've had some irregularity that's resulted in a criminal charge," says Sarcone. "People aren’t voting more than once. And if they do, or attempt to do it, they will get caught because there are safeguards in place....We want everybody to exercise their right to vote, but only once."
quote:Trump Loyalists Planned Voter Intimidation Using Fake ID Badges, Fake Exit Polling Until HuffPost Asked Them About ItVote Protectors, the anti-voter-fraud group hosted by Donald Trump ally and political dirty trickster Roger Stone, plans to send volunteers to monitor polling places in nine cities with high minority populations on Election Day, Stone said last week. Untrained poll-watchers have intimidated voters in previous elections. But Vote Protectors is going further than its predecessors.
Stone’s group created an official-looking ID badge for its volunteers to wear, and its volunteers planned to videotape voters and conduct fake exit polls, efforts that election experts say risks intimidating and confusing voters. Or at least that’s what the group was planning to do before The Huffington Post asked Stone about it on Tuesday. The controversial Trump ally, long known for his bare-knuckled political tactics, said that key proposals on his group’s websites were there without his knowledge, and assured HuffPost that he would operate within the confines of election law.
There are several types of fraud that can be committed during an election.
Voter fraud type 1 (people voting twice or pretending to be someone - dead - else) is rare. It is an individual trying to game the system.
Voter fraud type 2 (people not being allowed to vote, voter intimidation) is very prominent this year -- since the voter rights bill was gutted -- and almost all are committed by republican run states. An exception is Rhode Island that passed the ALEC voter photo ID law, which has resulted in fewer people of color getting to vote.
Election fraud type 1 (electronic voting machines hacked with virus that alters votes) is relatively easy, especially for the party in charge of running the elections in the state, and when there is no paper ballots to recount it is not possible to check (except by exit polls indicating significant differences). This is usually done by the party or a segment of the party. There are videos on the internet showing how easy this is. One such source is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GamR4y_ykA0
Election fraud type 2 (old school ballot stuffing or not counting some ballots, electronic vote count tallying machines hacked and tallies altered, ballots moved to different district with different order on ballots) is also covered by articles and videos on the internet. One such source is Hacking Democracy - Wikipedia
The media tries to paint all fraud as type 1 voter fraud and ignores the evidence of other types, when they are more likely and much more dangerous in their ability to alter results.
Note that the woman was trying to counter type 1 election fraud with type 1 voter fraud (with no guarantee of the second vote not being altered as well)
The obvious solution is to insist on a paper trail that can be (a) verified and (b) recounted by independent vote auditors.
There are several reforms that would be needed for more democratic elections:
1. No more "winner take all" states for electoral college delegates: make delegates proportional to popular votes.
2. Every primary, state and national election should be by verifiable paper ballots with ranked/instant runoff voting, so no candidate can be a "spoiler" in any race. The final primary ranked votes are not counted until the convention, and the final ranked national elections are not counted until the electoral college.
Use the electoral college as the final counting system for the ranked votes. This has two benefits: (1) it does not require amendment to the constitution and (2) this shifts the media circus from election night to the day of the convention or the electoral college. This shift allows states time to validate and recount the ballots.
3. House of representative districts need to be apportioned by a rational metric removed from party bias, such as population density based on census data, and all candidates should be a resident of their district and have voted in it in the previous election.
4. Every citizen should be able to vote without question or restriction of any kind. The federal government could issue photo ID voter cards through the post office just as passports are issued. They can be issued on the 18th birthday for natural born citizens, and issued when naturalized citizens pass their citizenship requirements.
5. Mail in ballots should be available for everyone to send (or handed) in before the election day dead-line, and be exactly the same ballot as paper ballots at the polls.
The problem is also exacerbated by the rhetoric coming from Trump about the election being 'rigged'. ...
Ignoring the evidence of rigging in US primaries and past elections does not make the evidence disappear, rather we should be advocating ways and means to ensure that neither party, nor any private group (like Diebold?), interferes with elections.
Open question. Is the issuance of voter ID something Congress can do? I am pretty sure that the Congress as currently constituted would not be inclined to do issue a national card, and there is also the question of possible abuse of any universal ID card system.
Well I have elsewhere compared this to the govt issuing draft cards. Then there are passports that you can get at any post office, with an option for the traditional book style or a card style with photo. The card style is good for surface travel to Mexico and Canada, so it is useful for workers that cross the border to work. Thus the post offices already have the ability to issue photo ID cards, and they are conveniently located to most neighborhoods (more so than DMV stations).
But I agree with the sentiment that voter ID is just fine if the government is willing to go to some effort to make sure everyone has the id. Perhaps if progressives were to expend their energy in that direction, the steam could be taken out of efforts to restrict voting on the state level.
But it could certainly be made an option. And with a Presidential Decree that such cards must be accepted it would take the steam out.
Progressives have spent a lot of energy to get people registered but the regressive states have set so many road-blocks to getting the approved type ID that it takes 8 or more trips for many people in the target groups.
The photo ID law was designed to seem benign; most people have a drivers license and a relatively permanent home address. It is when you delve into the regulations of what you need to get one that the intent becomes clear. Working within those regulations is made more difficult by obstructive administration.
I'm not going to dispute that this is possible and even easy. My question is about your statement about who "usually" commits this kind of fraud. What evidence is there regarding a pattern of abuse that we can label "usually"?
Means, Motive and Opportunity ... Who has the most Opportunity? People that handle the machines or set them up, which is usually the party in power in the state.
(8 minutes)
Democracy Watch is non-partisan and not a conspiracy group.
There is also some deliberate deck stacking. In North Carolina, gun permits count as voter IDs, but student IDs even from the state universities do not. Pretty clear example of targeting some folks for voting right extinction. Very seldom are the ID laws just about ID. In North Carolina the changes involved curtailing early voting, eliminating registration of high school students at their schools, cancelling voter locations on college campuses, etc.
Exactly, I've posted this on Facebook several times:
quote:The reason that we KNOW photo ID laws are not about double voting voter fraud, but about restricting votes is because:
(1) there is no process to provide valid photo ID's at the polling stations at no cost to voters if you bring sufficient documents to qualify for one (eg -- what you need at other places to get one) and
(2) the states do not budget to provide ID's for existing registered voters and do not take any responsibility for providing valid ID's for people that are registered. There are no touring facilities to provide the photo ID's.
(3) there is no specified standard for the photo size or orientation, and there is no database collected of photos used.
(4) allowable photo IDs show bias, allowing NRA membership cards but not university ID cards.
(5) places (DMV etc) where you can get photo IDs are shut down in black neighborhoods.
(6) there is no program to scan photos at the polls and compare them to a digital database that can search for duplications.
This is voter suppression, pure and simple.
This means registration and re-registration drives in all states that require one ... and if we register more votes than they hoped to suppress we can make this program FAIL.
Presidential decree? My question was about whether Congress had the authority, to establish a national ID card that the states were bound to respect at election time. It is unclear that they have the power to do such a thing. But it is certainly clear that the president does not have such power.
If you can't get people to vote for you, try keeping those people from voting, and when registration restrictions aren't good enough, try a little intimidation ...
A federal judge Tuesday ordered representatives from the Donald Trump campaign and the Nevada Republican Party to appear at a hearing in his courtroom Wednesday afternoon in a lawsuit filed by Nevada Democrats accusing them of the engaging in voter intimidation tactics.
U.S. District Judge Richard Franklin Boulware also ordered the Trump campaign and state party to turn over any training materials they provided to "poll watchers, poll observers, exit pollsters or any other similarly tasked individuals."
At the hearing, the Trump campaign and the Nevada GOP should be prepared to respond to the motion for a temporary restraining order that the Democrats requested in the lawsuit, the judge's order said.
The Nevada Democratic Party's lawsuit was filed along with lawsuits from three other Democratic state parties against their GOP counterparts and the Trump campaign in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Arizona. They allege that the Trump campaign and the state Republican parties have violated the Voting Rights Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act, with an approach to elections monitoring that Democrats described as "vigilante voter intimidation." ...
In a surprise ruling, a US district judge in Ohio issued a restraining order against Donald Trump's campaign to prevent anyone working on the campaign from harassing and intimidating voters at the polls on Tuesday.
The order came after a two-hour hearing in which the judge pressed Trump's lawyer to justify the candidate's inflammatory rhetoric about voter fraud. It also applies to close Trump adviser Roger Stone, who has organized poll-watching activities, and the "officers, agents, servants, and employees" of Trump and Stone.
Voter fraud has been a popular theme among Republicans this year, from Trump to state Republican leaders who cite fraud as a reason to make it more difficult to vote. But as Friday's ruling shows, it's a lot easier to warn about fraud on the campaign trail than in front of a judge.
The restraining order is the result of a lawsuit filed by the Ohio Democratic Party against Trump, Stone, and the Ohio Republican Party. The suit asked the court to declare it illegal to intimidate voters at the polls. Similar suits have been filed in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Michigan. ... The complaint cited provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 that prohibit voter intimidation.
The GOP has been talking about this for years, through talking heads and other right wing "sources" of misinformation. Once again we see Trump playing to the base that believes the propaganda.
One mantra i keep on hearing is how the two candidates are so bad, there will be low turnout. It appears that Trump terrifies enough minorities that that might not be true. ...
We may well see minorities deciding this race. Think about that. That will be another nail in the coffin for the GOP.
And I do think there is a significant portion of the democrat party that is less than thrilled with Hillary, so you may see some "privileged" white male democrats staying home.
And I think there will be a significant number of republicans that are less than thrilled to vote for Trump, but will be happy to vote against Hillary, just because it is Hillary.
... Of course, most of the people who have been saying that have been republicans.
Tell them that Obama is coming for their guns on Nov 8th and they need to stay home for protection.
I have a theory explaining Trump's Republican support: Get him elected, get him impeached and convicted (shouldn't take long for him to commit an impeachable offense), ...
He could be convicted of fraud AND child rape before innaugeration or shortly thereafter.
... then inaugurate Mike Pence and voil, the country has a Republican president who isn't stark raving mad.
... I think that she is a candidate that the GOP hate, and will try to obstruct like crazy. ...
I think we can take that as a given. There will be no honeymoon.
Even if she wins AND the democrats retake the senate, they will likely lose it again in 2018. That gives her two years to appoint court judges (lots of federal judge vacancies, not just Supreme Court) and the senate can invoke majority votes to approve with no filibuster. And that's it.
Actually that would be far more than I could even hope for. There are over 100 current Federal Judgeships open plus the deciding one on the Supreme Court. Federal Judges serve for life or until they retire. ...
This is why the senate is more important than electing the first female president. The democrats need to up their game in house and state races if they hope to survive, and they need a major ground game to focus on 2018 ... because the next census is 2020 and results WILL be used to gerrymander districts.
And that "ground game" does not include an favors for corporations, it must be focused on restoring the middle class and lower economic groups to restore the "American Dream" for the working people.
... Add 100 progressive Federal Judges ...
And that's another problem that I cannot expect\trust the current DINO DNC and Hillary to do. She is much more likely to try packing the seats with pro-corporation pro big business types unless held to the fire by progressives in the Senate (With Bernie and Elizabeth leading the charge).
We will likely see the GOP rush to approve Obama's last (corporatist) nomination so that she won't have a SCOTUS seat to fill.
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