Posted on 11/04/2004 11:58:22 AM PST by Diddle E. Squat
Republicans in Michigan are breathing a sigh of relief today - and not only because President Bush won a second term, despite narrowly losing Michigan.
In Detroit, mostly white Republican poll watchers dispatched to monitor mostly-black city vote counting encountered uncomfortable, racially charged situations. Poll watchers overseeing absentee vote-counting at Cobo Center, for example, reported widespread fraud in the counting of ballots. The incident raised the specter of a politically dicey GOP lawsuit, a move now less urgent given Bush's national victory.
"Craziest thing I've ever seen," said one poll watcher. "They had 100 tables and just five poll watchers trying to monitor them. Every table had a pile of empty ballots. If the machine rejected a ballot, the workers would just take a fresh ballot, fill it in the way they thought the voter wanted (Detroit voted heavily for Kerry), and then put THAT ballot through the machine." The poll watcher also reported unsigned ballots being counted in the machines, a violation of absentee procedures.
Alarmed by this open fraud, the party brought in more poll watchers only to be confronted, according to a Detroit Free Press account, by a Kerry campaign lawyer "who arrived and began yelling at the 20-30 GOP lawyers." Policemen were called to restore order to the proceedings after which the additional Republican poll watchers were all escorted off the premises.
The Cobo vote fraud was the most serious incident in an evening that included a judge ruling for Republicans when poll watchers were cast out of other polling places. Democratic voters, in turn, complained that "they felt intimidated by a stranger watching them and wanting to check identification" according the Free Press account. All in all, an unsettling evening here in Southeast Michigan.
It is imperative for the sake of our country that this not be allowed to stand.
Yeah, it's funny how one has that intimidated feeling when someone else is watching them commit voter fraud.
minus the fraud in Detroit, Bush wins Mi...
make no mistake, with real numbers this was a landslide.
ping
Yeah, it's hell when you are on the wrong side of the law .. always wondering who's watching you.
Quite nice of them to do that.
minus the fraud in Milwaukee and Madison, Bush won Wisconsin
This story could have been written in 2000. The exact same thing happened.
Did anyone hear any follow up to the story of the freeper seeing the chartered buses taking the Kerry Edwards people from Manhatten to Philly? I'm very curious what was going on there.
agreed: we need to get some indictments, convictions, and imprisonments this time around. this fraud crap must be squashed.
Only the U.S. Attorneys' offices are in a political position to prosecute vote fraud. Hopefully Ashcroft will direct such offices to make it a priority before he resigns. That will remove the onus from the new AG.
Thank you. I say the same thing on every thread .
Us Michiganders would LOVE them to dig into that mess in Detroit. I think it should be done.
These people should be arrested and prosecuted.
I was a poll watcher here in Minnesota (the state we still have to fix) :) I was thankfully in a location that went smoothly. I was still called names by the voters, had 2 election judges who wouldn't speak to me, but I knew this was something I was doing for the party & the President. It was an experience! What a happy day!
bump
Video covering the custody of each ballot from receipt to counting is the only way to go. Would I check off a box on my 1040 to pay for it? Yes.
after the absentee military ballots are counted he still will.
he is only 11,000 votes behind and those absentees will run 70% for bush, more than enough. GW gets wisconsin.
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