The wife and I would be honored. You have my humble acceptance.
One prerequisite. A loud jam with Mud and the boys. With Mud singin' the new lyrics!LOL
Newsflash - The Grand Jury is investigating democrat shenanigans in the State Assembly 30th District race (California). Nicole Parra (Dem) has declared herself the winner and will be sworn in Monday. BUT HER REIGN MAY BE SHORT LIVED. READ ON ABOUT VOTER FRAUD UP THE WAZOO!!
Here's the latest: The Grand Jury is investigating. From a reliable source: There were 1,500 ballots in Kern County alone that were thrown out (absentee ballots) because the REAL signature on the outside of the envelope of the ballot did not match the phony signature provided by the UFW (United Farm Workers) on the inside ballot. These were all from high-propensity absentee Republican voters. Also, out of 200 provisional ballots investigated, 67 had voted twice, 47 did not live in the district, and 23 were not even citizens.
And don't even get me started on the 1,500 military absentee ballots that were thrown out; Lemoore Naval Air Station is in this district.
Also, there was a gift of fresh flowers that was sent to democrat voters; follow-up investigation by Gardner's attorneys posing as Parra supporters, found that the voters all said that the flowers had made them decide to vote for Nicole and when asked "and how many times did you get to vote" the numbers ranged from two to six. It is against the law to spend more than $1.00 per voter for such gifts.
This is such a disgrace; you'd think the democrats would be humiliated and disgusted. When Nicole is sworn in on Monday, I'm going to stage a one-woman protest at the capitol. She does not deserve to serve in the Assembly with the likes of RAY HAYNES! Have a great Thanksgiving, anyway, pals. For victory & freedom!!!
Speaking of Controlling Voter fraud. This site has some infomative links as well.
http://www.aceproject.org/main/english/pc/pc23.htm
Controlling Fraud, Corruption and Unfair Practices
file info
Controlling fraud, corruption, and unfair practices is a fundamental objective of any system of regulating political parties and candidates. When an election has been held, it is essential to ensure that citizens at large, whether they have supported winning or losing parties and candidates, should have faith in the integrity of the process. Serious electoral fraud, corruption, and unfair practices bring the reliability of the electoral process into question. They thus undermine democracy itself.
In countries where free elections have not been held regularly in the past, or where elections have been rigged, a 'loser culture' is unlikely to exist. Even if an election is fairly conducted, the defeated candidates and parties are likely to call 'foul'. This happens in parts of Africa. In such countries, it is all the more important to ensure that the fairness of elections is beyond reasonable doubt.
Electoral Fraud
Conducting elections that are fair, and are seen to be fair, poses a variety of technical challenges. The official procedures must be reliable. Voters must be assured that only eligible voters have voted, that they have been given the chance to cast their ballots under circumstances that guarantee freedom from pressure, and that their votes have then been properly recorded.
An initial problem is drawing up an accurate register of eligible voters - a register that manages to include those entitled to vote, while excluding voters who have died, or who are otherwise unqualified. There must be checks against impersonation - those presenting themselves at polling stations must be the voters they claim to be. In many parts of Africa and elsewhere, a finger of each voter is marked with indelible ink to ensure against voting twice. Voters must be permitted to cast their ballots without feeling under threat of violence or under an obligation to support a particular candidate or party. There must be measures to ensure against the stuffing of ballot boxes with ballot papers other than those legitimately cast. Ballot boxes need to be sealed before being used, and when the voting period is over. If ballot boxes are transported from the polling place to a central location where the votes are to be counted, there must be a guarantee that the same boxes that have left the polling station are the ones that arrive at the vote counting location. Integrity of vote counting and recording must be assured.
Where there is significant inefficiency or deliberate cheating by the authorities responsible for administering an election, the whole purpose of holding an election is negated. It is because electoral fraud is such a risk in countries emerging from non-democratic rule that the practice of mounting international election observer missions has burgeoned.
In developing countries, party agents have a potentially important role in observing the process of voting and in attending the counting of votes. However, experience in Tanzania, Ghana, and elsewhere suggests that when foreign governments or international organizations provide grants for party agents, those agents may, in many parts of the country, be more interested in collecting a fee than in carrying out their duties conscientiously. See also Political Parties as Election Monitors.
Electoral Corruption
Corrupt electoral practices include bribery of voters, raising campaign funds by making promises of illegal benefits (such as favourable government contracts) as payoffs to donors, bribing opposing candidates to withdraw, and (where there are legal limits on permitted campaign spending) fiddling election expenses in order to exceed the limit.
Such practices were common in Britain until the late nineteenth century. Vote buying is reputed to remain common in some countries, such as Taiwan. The secret ballot is the main device to restrict vote buying. If voters cast their ballots in secret, there is no way for candidates and party organizers to be certain that they will vote in the way that they have promised to those offering the bribes. However, in some communities, the secret ballot has proved insufficient to stamp out vote buying altogether.
Unfair Practices: Negative Campaigns and 'Dirty Tricks'
Whereas electoral fraud and electoral corruption are clearly undesirable and illegal, 'unfair practices' are harder to define and more controversial. What is 'unfair' to some is merely 'robust electioneering' or 'negative campaigning' to others.
Obviously, candidates have an incentive to present their opponents in the worst possible light. How is it possible to prevent candidates from telling deliberate lies and maligning their rivals without restricting the freedom of speech, and without allowing the government to dictate the terms of public debate?
Though it may be impossible to regulate unfair electoral practices by law, there may be some moral value in codes of conduct. Such codes may be developed for electoral officials, political parties, and election observers. See also Codes of Conduct for Political Parties.
A famous example of unfair campaign practices emerged amid investigations into the Watergate Affair. In 1974 the inquiries led finally to the resignation of Richard Nixon as President of the United States. The Watergate Affair centred on allegations, later proved, that Nixon's 1972 presidential election campaign organization had arranged for a team to break into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee to plant eavesdropping equipment. This was not only unfair, but also illegal. Earlier in the presidential election campaign Nixon's supporters had set up a 'dirty tricks' team which carried out activities in the classic mould of unfair electioneering.
On behalf of Nixon, the incumbent Republican President, the 'dirty tricks' team set out to discredit the nomination of Edmund Muskie, the Democratic candidate, who was seen to pose the greatest threat to Nixon. Muskie later claimed - and was shown to be justified - that he had faced a "systematic campaign of sabotage." As reported by Herbert Alexander, this effort included "theft of documents, middle-of-the-night phone calls to voters made by impostors claiming to be Muskie canvassers, false items in newspapers, and - the best known incident - a phoney letter, published by New Hampshire's largest newspaper less than two weeks before the New Hampshire primary, claiming that Muskie had humorously condoned an aide's use of the derogatory term "Canuck" (a description of Americans of French- Canadian descent). This report2,was calculated to shock this group of New Hampshire voters.
Unfair Practices: Distribution of Television Time
Whereas 'dirty tricks' may be difficult to regulate, there are other forms of unfairness that should be easier to control. For instance, it is important to ensure that opposition candidates and parties are given a proper opportunity to present their case on national television. In the frequent cases where national broadcasting is a public monopoly, the government should not use its control over the airwaves to stifle free and fair debate during an election campaign. The question of what constitutes a reasonable allocation of broadcasting time is discussed later, see Broadcasting Time,Public Broadcasting Allocations and Formulas for Allocating Time
This was a very prophetic post on a forum...includes gerrymandering.
Posted by Skylar Coalfax at November 5, 2002 10:06 AM
>> But (and this is a very important "but"), Republicans got more votes for Congress than Democrats did in 1998, but lost seats. The same exact thing happened in 2000, with more people pulling the Republican lever for Congress but Republicans losing seats anyway.
One underreported aspect to these election figures is redistricting i.e., the gerrymander. Democrats controlled the gerrymander in the majority of states in 1990-1991. That is one likely reason for these skewed statistics favoring Democrats Dean accurately reports. Since Republicans controlled the 2000-2001 gerrymander in more states with contested races in 2002, they are more likely than Democrats to pick up new seats and less likely to lose seats they currently hold.
The importance of controlling the gerrymander is no better illustrated than in Georgia. Republican congressional candidates consistently got 100,000 more votes statewide than their Democrat counterparts throughout the 1990’s. Republicans currently hold all but two of these nine congressional seats.
Georgia Democrats drew the “most partisan redistricting map in the country” according to Roll Call magazine in September 2001. The U.S. Supreme Court is most likely to rule the Georgia 13th congressional district unconstitutional since it observes no community of interest, extends from suburban to exurban Atlanta, and is not compact. Look for the Republican congressional nominees to outpoll their Democrat rivals by over 100,000 votes once again, but this time to lose the majority of congressional races statewide.
>>In addition, the polling data from Zogby and Gallup measure "likely voters" rather than simply registered voters. If they get that wrong, they can be badly embarrassed, as at least a couple of major pollsters did in 2000 when they predicted a Bush landslide
I consider this unlikely. Zogby proved himself to the most accurate pollster nationwide in 2000. The reason he is so accurate is precisely that he tracks ONLY likely voters. Remember, Zogby CORRECTLY tracked the late surge for Al Gore just before November 5, 2000 Presidential election. The most recent Zogby poll you cite is from 10/31. This is five days before the election. This means that Zogby conducted his latest poll even before that, say five to seven days before 11/05/02. Pollsters did not track the late shift toward Republicans until two days before the election. If voters prove Zogby inaccurate, it will not be because of poor science. Instead, it will be because Zogby finished his poll before undecided voters made up their minds.
>>Update for Bush watchers: Mason-Dixon, one of the most respected regional pollers in the country, still has Jeb Bush in an 8-point led in Florida. I have to wonder if that's too optimistic for Bush, but we'll see.
I cannot speak for Florida. But Mason-Dixon polls tend to favor Democrats in Georgia. This may bode well for the GOP nationwide if Mason-Dixon has any Republican ahead by 8 points.
Of course, everything here hinges on voter turnout. For Democrats this means doing any illegal, unethical thing to get any vote possible. For Republicans this means doing all the door knocking and phone banking you can to turn out your voters.
Expect the biggest Democrat counties to turn in their votes late, very late after all the Republican counties have reported their vote totals. By late I mean around 1:00 A.M. or 2:00 A.M.
It always takes a few extra hours to count the number of votes you need, punch a few thousand extra punch card ballots, then turn in the correct number of corresponding voter certificates to equal the number of extra late ballots (you can exclude this last requirement for Bernalillo County NM) without getting caught.
Watch for massive voter fraud on Indian reservations in South Dakota. Also, listen for accurate accusations of vote fraud in the Wisconsin governor’s race. Pundits were smart calling that race for the Democrat two weeks ago after the Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate reportedly got away with paying voters to vote absentee inside back rooms. These races are most likely to have their vote totals reported around 1:00 A.M. November 6, 2002.
http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/000450.html
One last post for the night! While 2 years old, it still has some relevant information.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0211/S00067.htm
Recovered History: U.S. Election Fraud Circa 2000
Monday, 11 November 2002, 12:19 pm
Opinion: Guest Opinion
Vote Fraud: Will YOUR Vote Be Stolen This November?
by C.M. Ross
First published in the October 2000 edition of Catholic Family News
© 2000 Reproduction without authorization prohitibed, reproduced here with permission.
The August 25-27 Citizens for a Fair Vote Count Convention 2000 in Cincinnati, Ohio, affirmed what the Supreme Court has ruled in Wesberry v. Sanders "the right to vote is the highest right that we have as citizens and if that right does not exist, then all other rights that we have are purely illusory."[1]
Indeed, the United States cannot continue as a constitutional republic without the fair and honest exercise of the right to vote. Or, as Josef Stalin said "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."
When Constitution Party Presidential candidate Howard Phillips spoke at the convention on Sunday, August 27, 2000, he pointed out that the purpose of having a vote is to peacefully remove a government from office. Likewise, Jim Condit, Sr. pointed out, we use ballots. Other people use bullets.[2]
The Fourth Commandment of Almighty God is "Honor thy Father and Mother." As part of that commandment, the Church teaches us that we are obliged to vote for the sake of the common good. We must vote for the best qualified candidate . "It would be sinful to cast a ballot for one who, in the judgement of the voters, would do grave public harm."[3]
But how can we exercise that right if the vote is not fair? The Supreme Court has ruled that the right to vote includes the right to have the vote honestly and fairly counted in US v. Mosley and again in Reynolds v. Sims.[4]
The fact that the speakers and convention-goers came from Alabama, Arizona, California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, and even Canada, attested to the widespread nature of vote fraud.[5] Former DEA agent Wayne Roques of Florida and Brent Beleskey of Canada also spoke on the ominous and looming trend of "direct democracy."
Like many of us, Ron Keller of Texas knew there was something wrong with his local elections but couldn't quite put his finger on the nature of the problem.
After further investigation, Ron Keller showed how to rig the mechanical Shoup voting machine in 1964 while TV cameras from ABC, CBS, and NBC were rolling. The networks showed the footage on television that night. Incredibly, as he recounted at the Convention, these TV networks never discussed the incident again.
Before the advent of mechanical and computerized voting machines, vote fraud was a difficult crime to perpetrate from a central location.
All ballots were made of paper and marked by the voter. For most of American history, the vote was hand counted at the local precinct by local citizens who were watched by the local press and other concerned local citizens to ensure that the count was fair and honest.
The results were posted at the precinct before the ballots were removed from the balloting area.
However, mechanized and computerized voting machines have changed all that. Jim Condit, Jr., Founder of Citizens for a Fair Vote Count, says that hand counting has become outlawed in every state but New Hampshire and the Iowa Caucus. Worse, Condit says the right to observe the vote count has been effectively outlawed in those 49 states.
Citizens such as Dan Gutenkauf of Arizona, another speaker at the Convention, who attempt to exercise their right to observe elections have met with threats from election officers. It has now fallen to the Board of Elections to ensure that elections are fair and honest.
Chuck Geshlider of Pahrump, Nevada, made the following analogy during his speech Saturday night, August 26, 2000: Suppose you ate at a restaurant and got a queasy stomach. Wouldn't you ask to see the kitchen? And what would you think if they said no?
Sadly, the answer to many citizens' questions about verification of the validity of elections has been a resounding "NO!" from local Boards of Elections. Yet, it is the duty of the Boards of Elections to ensure that no vote tampering has taken place and that the vote count is fair and honest.
Thus, as Jim Condit, Jr. pointed out, we as citizens have no way of verifying whether or not thousands of elected officials have been validly elected. These officials include Governor George Bush of Texas and Vice- President Albert Gore, both running for President this year.
According to Howard Phillips in 1974, the US election laws were changed. These changes gave the national party a greater control over its state and local affiliates. If a Republican official in the Board of Elections does not co-operate with the national party, he will be fired.
Computer Vote Fraud
On Friday, August 25, 2000, in the evening, convention-goers saw a video of Dan Rather's five-minute 1988 televised report on computerized vote fraud.
Mr. Rather asked computer expert Howard J. Strauss of Princeton University: "Realistically, could the fix be put on in a national election?"
Mr. Strauss responded "Get me a job with the company that writes the software for this program. I'd have access to one third of the votes. Is that enough to fix a general election?"
Strauss also said "When it comes to computerized elections, there are no safeguards. It's not a door without locks, it's a house without doors."
During an interview on the Catholic radio program Choose Life , Mr. Condit stated that "There is not one paper written by a computer authority defending that the elections we have are verifiable. There are many things written by authorities saying that they are not verifiable."
Mr. Condit further explained that when lawsuits requesting that the source code for the software of computerized voting machines be examined by the public, the judges have routinely ruled against such lawsuits on the basis that this violates copyright law.
"Their copyright has now become more important than the fair count of the election" says Mr. Condit.
This writer asked Dan Gutenkauf if a generic software code could be written for use in all of the computerized machines. He replied in a telephone interview that Relevance magazine in its November 19, 1996, edition demonstrated that the modem within a computerized voting machine can be accessed by a laptop computer and a cellphone. Thus we must return to paper ballots if we wish to restore a fair and honest vote count.
At the Vote Fraud Convention, Mr. Condit also showed a video of the late Jim and Ken Collier, authors of Votescam who attempted to videotape an election in process in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The video demonstrated how very difficult it is for American citizens to exercise their right to observe an election to ensure that it is fair and honest. The Colliers videotaped women altering the punch- cards in a Florida election.
They also "caught women on camera plucking votes out of punchcard ballots in Cincinnati, this time using household tweezers. Judge Niehaus (in his tennis shoes) was summoned down to the Board of Elections at about 7:30p.m. on that 1985 election night by the heads of both the Republican and Democratic Parties.
The judge, in a highly unusual move, modified his court order on the spot insisting that observing ‘all phases of the election process' did not include videotaping. … The Colliers were told to quit videotaping under threat of arrest."[6]
Jim Condit said that we are dependent on the "Three black boxes" of public opinion polls, phony exit polls, and computerized voting. The networks cover the same issues and appear to be attempting to manipulate public opinion with public opinion polls.
Can we really expect an accurate representation of the viewpoints of 260 million Americans when polls are usually conducted with about 1,000 people? According to Jim and Kenneth Collier, all of the exit poll data appears to come from Voter News Service. Margaret Sims of the Federal Election Commission says that ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox all contract with VNS for their services.
In his talk Friday, August 25, 2000, Jim Condit mentioned that The Wanderer recently published an example of vote fraud in Missouri.
Bill Federer ran against Dick Gephardt, Minority Whip in Congress, in 1998.
"On election morning 1998," Federer told The Wanderer in an interview, "the phones at my headquarters started ringing and people were telling me my name was not on the ballot in five wards in the city of St. Louis. When I complained to the county clerk, Gephardt's people responded by asking that polling stations around the district be closed. We had to get attorneys to keep the polls open.
"At noon, by the time returns started coming in, I was ahead of Gephardt 52% to 48%, but then, the computers went down in the city of St. Louis, and the electricity went off in the Jefferson County clerk's office. This was the third time the electricity went off at that county clerk's office in a close election," he said.
Mrs. Devvy Kidd of California arrived with a sheaf of statistics from the California Secretary of State demonstrating the vote fraud in her election when she ran for Congress.
Reform Party activist Chris Schaper, also of California, gave his eyewitness account of vote fraud in the 1996 Buchanan caucus in Iowa.
Chuck Geshlider also related his encounter with vote fraud during his election in Pahrump, Nevada.
Howard Phillips of the Constitution Party and independent Presidential candidate Charles Collins, spoke at the Convention on the need to address the problem.
Sadly, most candidates whether Democrat or Republican, are unwilling to discuss the problem. When asked why, Jim Condit, Jr. said that they are afraid of demoralizing their supporters. He added that their supporters are already demoralized.
Considering that both candidates and citizens put a great deal of time, money, and effort into running for office, one can only wonder if that is all there is to it. After all, the candidates owe it to their constituents to see to it that their elections are free from tampering.
Likewise, one can only speculate as to why the major news networks are for the most part silent on this crucial issue and who is behind their silence. In a telephone interview, Jim Condit, Jr. said that there appears to be a co-ordinated effort by the judiciary, news media, prosecutors, and the two major political parties to stop resistance to vote fraud.
Susan Madori, also from the Reform Party, described the attempt at Internet voting in her party. She learned that people were registering their deceased spouses, and one voter registered his doberman pinscher. Ballots were sent to voters by mail. Some received more than one. Others received none.
"Direct Democracy"
Brent Beleskey, founder of the International Voters Coalition of Barrie, Ontario, Canada, at has uncovered a newer and more sinister twist to vote Fraud, direct democracy.
Most of us have heard ancient Athens, Greece, described as a direct democracy. But that's not what the new "direct democrats" mean. (By law, both the governments of Canada and the United States are constitutional republics with elected representatives.)
Direct democracy circumvents the constitution with a modern version of the Roman Coliseum. Instead of using thumbs up or thumbs down, however, the modern direct democracy uses telephone and Internet voting.
Citing David Broder's Democracy Derailed, Brent Beleskey says that many ballot initiatives are funded by wealthy individuals and groups to buy influence. In addition to the fact that both of these types of voting are completely unverifiable, they also abolish privacy. The voter must identify himself by telephone and Internet to "vote."
When Mr. Beleskey contacted Bell Canada regarding telephone voting, they admitted that Bell Canada keeps records of the PIN number of each voter, his name, and how he voted. Thus they open the voter to coercion by his government.
What is a Direct Democracy?
Mr. Beleskey described the progression of vote fraud from the mail-in, or absentee ballot, mechanized voting machines, computerized voting machines, Internet voting, and finally the telephone vote. All of these methods of voting are completely unverifiable and thus says Jim Condit Jr., should be outlawed.
On June 7, 2000, Bill Kimberling, deputy director of the Office of Elections for the Federal Elections Commission, attacked Internet voting as "a breeding ground for fraud"[7] and was driven by the vendors of computerized voting.
Mr. Kimberling spoke at the Maryland Association of Elected Officials and said that his views were personal, not reflecting those of the FEC. He agreed with Brent Beleskey that "intimidation and vote-buying would be more likely when someone votes away from a polling place. In addition, the sanctity of the secret vote would also be in danger if votes are cast on the Internet," he said.
Mr. Beleskey believes that through ballot initiatives and voter referendums, the direct democracy movement wishes to remove politicians from the political scene and replace them with tyrants.
He says that this is treason and is gathering petitions in Ontario to demand a return to the paper ballot vote now that Ontario has become a "direct democracy" under the recent Bill 62.
Jim Condit, Jr. said, "The new dictator and tyrant of the 21st Century doesn't want to say, as did the old crude dictator ‘I am making you do this.' Instead, they are going to announce phony polls, phony exit polls, and phony Internet or computer results and then they are going to say ‘You demanded this. We're only doing what you wanted.' "
The Church teaches us that we ought to love our country. To show that love, we must protect and defend it from vote fraud.
You are surely a wealth of information gathering, TheLion! Happy Thanksgiving, btw. : )
Good morning bump. Snowing here in upstate New York : (. Hope you all have a nice weekend.
Thanks for your comments, are you getting snowed in? I have a feeling we will see lots of white stuff this year.
A mid day bump. I'm off to the shop soon....to catch all those shoppers!
I will echo nicmarlos comments. You are doing a great job! Wish you were closer so we could meet and work in person.
