FReepers Against Voter Fraud

Since I am renewing this thread a little sooner than planned, I am leaving the original body of the thread in place and just making additions of references at this time. I think it is important to keep the statement of purpose and how we came to it at the forefront for now. Later on, as more people become aware of the thread and how it is set up, I will probably change it some and just give a link back to the original.

"The right of citizens to vote and have their vote count is the cornerstone of our democracy - the necessary precondition of government of the people, by the people and for the people. Enforcing the laws that guarantee voting rights and punish voting fraud is the duty of the Department of Justice. More than mere law enforcement, our responsibility to protect the access to and integrity of elections is the responsibility of upholding freedom itself.

America is a nation whose founding documents and most inspired words uphold the ideal of democratic self-government as a model for the world. The opening phrases of the Declaration of Independence declare that governmental power, if it is to be just, must be derived from the consent of the governed. The Constitution begins, purposefully and deliberately, with these three words: "We the people . . ."

America has failed too often to uphold the right of every citizen's vote, once cast, to be counted fairly and equally. Votes have been bought, voters intimidated and ballot boxes stuffed. The polling process has been disrupted or not completed. Voters have been duped into signing absentee ballots believing they were applications for public relief. And the residents of cemeteries have infamously shown up at the polls on election day.

Today, it is more important than ever before that we embrace the privilege that makes us unique among the peoples, nations and societies of human history. Our way of life is not a given, and our freedom is not an accident. Liberty is a rare gift for which millions have worked and suffered and sacrificed and died. It now falls to us to guard this gift from those who would destroy it. It falls to us, the free, to ensure that the cornerstone of our freedom - government of the people, by the people, and for the people - does not perish from the earth."

It has been quite a month and overall a victorious one for Republicans. The new year looms bright on the horizon with the promise of much needed changes taking place now that we have the majority in both the House and Senate and with the opportunity to finally have some conservative judges seated who will uphold the Constitution rather than legislating the socialist agenda of the Democrats from the bench and Tiny Tommy Daschle and his obstructionist thugs have been spanked soundly and sent to their rooms.

While we had several days of delirious gloating, drunk on the thrill of a hard earned and well-deserved victory, we know all too well that the election and the events leading up to it were not without incident and once again the deck was stacked against us as the Democrats tried every trick in the book in yet another shameless effort at stealing an election. With the blatant disregard for the law so characteristic of them when it obstructs their designs, they managed to get a liberal kangaroo court to uphold the replacement of Torricelli on the ballot in New Jersey beyond the legal deadline for doing so for no other reason than having determined that the scandal and corruption surrounding Torricelli rendered him incapable of winning. In Minnesota, prior to Paul Wellstone's ill-fated final flight, a plan was uncovered that had Democrats busing in students from out of state to take advantage of Minnesota's same day voter registration to vote illegally for Paul Wellstone. Even as this was being revealed, the campaign was underway to push a similar same day registration legislation in Colorado and California, thereby opening new avenues for illegal voting in those states. In South Dakota Democrat operatives (sorry, I cannot bring myself to use the word "Democratic") paid a field worker in excess of $12,000 over a period of 3 months to register native Americans on the reservations. It was later discovered that many registration cards that had been turned in by that worker had been written in the same handwriting. Among the newly registered was at least one who was known to be recently deceased. This and other irreglarities that were uncovered in South Dakota has led to 1 out of 10 ballots there being under investigation. Fish need water, plants need sunshine, an addict needs a fix and Democrats need power and these three cases are just samples of the extent to which they will go to get it.

The idea for this thread was born following the Arkansas Hog Wild FReepers' discovery of organized intimidation tactics on the part of Democrat and NAACP operatives in Jefferson County, Arkansas as relayed by FReeper, stop_the_rats, a Republican poll watcher who gained undesired and unfair national notoriety during early voting, and by a Republican campaign worker who "infiltrated" the Clinton led, pre-election campaign "event" there. The original story was posted as part of the after-FReep report with more detail added in a post-election update. The story generated such outrage that the thread turned into a FReeper brainstorm as we labored over how we might counteract the dishonest methods employed by the Democrats to hijack elections. The effort yielded an abundance of references and it was generally agreed that voter fraud is, or at least should be, of great concern to all of us. There is a strong probability that the South Dakota election was stolen and in Arkansas the fraud machine was spinning out of control and may well have cost Tim Hutchinson his senate seat as well, despite the shadow cast over him in the wake of his divorce and remarriage. Chances are that we'll never know. Thankfully neither of these races ended up being the tie-breaker that would determine the balance of power in the Senate, but either could have been and had that been the case, you can bet it would have gotten really ugly and may have produced an entirely different result.

Even as the Democrats are still licking their wounds and wondering what on Earth happened on November 5, they are already scrambling and scheming and conniving as to ways to prevent our intercepting their next power grab in 2004. This is revealed in their ongoing efforts to block any attempt to validate a voter's legitimacy whether it be by requiring a legal form of ID at the polls, the repeal of motor voter legislation, cracking down on absentee balloting and early voting, doing away with same day registration or by the presence of poll watchers at polling places. In every case they play the race card crying "black voter intimidation" when in reality they are simply thrashing against the net that could trap those guilty of voting illegally thereby inhibiting travel on their familiar roads of voter fraud. Thankfully, Republicans were more diligent this year and undoubtedly made an impact. More questionable ballots were challenged, more questions raised, more accountability called for and more light shed on irregularities. Until recently, prosecution for voter fraud has been virtually unheard of, but that is starting to change. There have been hundreds of stories published over the past several weeks relating to voting irregularities and credible allegations of fraud. Some have led to criminal charges being filed and still others have led to investigations which are ongoing. While it is unlikely that all election fraud can be stopped, it is much harder for it operate under a spotlight, which is exactly why we must each do our part to make sure that the spotlight stays on those "shadowy" recesses where voting machines mysteriously vanish, ballot boxes are obscured from view and the demons of electoral darkness run amok.

It was suggested that the opening remarks of Attorney General John Ashcroft be used as the basis of our mission statement for this thread. In these precarious times when we are at war and we are threatened daily by terrorism, our liberty has become more precious than ever and we must be vigilant to protect it not only from foreign invaders, but also from those who would erode it from within by compromising the integrity of our elections. In order to succeed in a battle it is essential to know the enemy and attack at his greatest point of vulnerability. Included here is a list of links, which while by no means exhaustive, can serve to enlighten the electorate. Many of these stories are from Arkansas only because this was the springboard for this thread and we look forward to other FReepers adding stories from their own areas as well as any based in personal experience. The original thread also produced a wealth of resources as we discussed who we should contact if we became aware of voting irregularities or suspected fraud. Again the list of links is far from comprehensive and additions are welcome. Of course the whole point of this exercise is to get more conservative voters involved in changing the laws to close loopholes which make it easy to cheat, to promote the enforcement of existing election laws and to take part in the election process at the local level all with the goal of intercepting future fraud campaigns. In other words our goal is to STOP THE RATS FROM HIJACKING THE ELECTION PROCESS AND TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!

Many thanks to all the wonderful FReepers who contributed their time, energy and ideas to produce the foundation for this thread:

On thread 2, I also want to thank Saundra Duffy, Mia T and mlmr for their alerting us to a couple more hot spots and also providing some additional information. Thank you to diotima, ffrancone, and Nick Danger for their efforts to move this campaign beyond Free Republic and disseminate information for public consumption. Updates on this effort will be posted regularly as well. Geist Krieger, has provided a very interesting and in depth analysis of methods of voting and their impact on our elections. If anybody has a means of storing a document for public access, please let me know and I will FReepmail it to you so that a link can be posted. It is quite long.

KNOW THY ENEMY! If you're like me, you once had a naive trust in the integrity of our elections in America. All that changed for me though, with the election debacle of 2000 when it became readily apparent that Al Gore was trying to steal the presidency and his operatives were so desperate that they were doing it right in the face of the American people. I was absolutely furious but I believed that now that people could see the Clinton/Gore political machination for the shameless assault on America that it was, they would wake up and demand accountability from those responsible. I really wasn't prepared for seeing how many people would continue to perpetrate the lies the Democrats told even in the face of that fiasco and how many would continue to buy into them. Even after that I believed that surely, now that it was out in the open, something would be done to fix it before the next election. I also was not prepared to discover the extent to which voter fraud had woven its way into our political system like a burrowing parasite with expanding tentacles entwining themselves around the arteries of freedom. The sense of betrayal I have felt has been disheartening, to say the least, but it gave rise to the outrage that made me determined to try to do something about it. If you read even a few of these links, it will change forever the way you look at future elections and will hopefully encourage you to be part of the solution.

If any of these links become outdated many of these articles are posted in their entirity on the original FReep thread. If you let me know via FReepmail, I will make editorial adjustments accordingly before renewing the thread.

In order to effect changes it is important to have channels through which we can make our voice heard. One reason the Democrats get away with as much as they do is because they make a lot of noise. It is time WE make some noise of our own. There are a number of individuals, organizations and media sources who support our Constitution and seek to protect the integrity of our elections. Here are a few of them. Rather than clutter the body of this thread with a long list of email addresses, I will post the websites. Most of these have contacts and email addresses on them. While I have not listed any here, it is important to keep in mind that just because a source is on the opposing side doesn't mean that they can't still be used to our advantage. Consider this parable of Jesus.

Election laws and practices vary widely from state to state, and therein lies part of the problem. In order to address the issues we need first to know what the law, as it currently exists is and work within it and where applicable work to see that it is enforced. Second, you will come to discover that many of the opportunities for fraud are born from flaws in the laws themselves, in which case we need to work on getting those laws changed. Below is a very brief list of some election laws and guidelines which we have referenced recently. I am sure this section will grow considerably as others add their contributions.

What can FReepers do? For starters we can identify states that will have key races in the 2004 election. Is your state one of them? Are there known problem precincts in YOUR county? Let's start getting important information about the race, the candidates, the electoral history of the state, the laws in that state and how open they may leave the process to tampering, history of voter fraud in the state, conservative media outlets there, and whatever else you can think of that might be relevant to equip the electorate to head off problems in advance.

Democrats LIE! Their biggest and most effective lie is that Republicans are deliberately trying to prevent blacks and/or other minorities from voting. In effect, they're calling us racists. The truth is that it is them who seem to consider blacks and other minorities so inferior and ignorant and lacking in initiative that they are incapable of voting without the benefit of THEIR (the Democrats') "guidance" and "protection". They squeal "intimidation" at every opportunity and intimidation certainly comes into play. The real question is "who is doing the intimidating?" Their greatest fear is that blacks will recognize how badly they've been duped and insulted by these people and leave the party in droves. That can work in our favor if we work with it. Black conservatives have perhaps the greatest responsibility for telling other black voters the truth about the Democrat party, although it is certainly something we should all work on. Independent thought is the enemy of the Democrats.

Talk about election fraud. Bring it up whenever an opportunity presents itself. Keep a notebook at all times and if someone tells you anything pointing to vote fraud, get more details. Write down such things as county, precinct, candidates in the race, name of the witness and whatever else you can think of. If it seems credible, report it to someone, then follow it up and find out what, if anything, was done with the information.

Have your elected officials, city attorneys, election officers and judges in your email address book, your regular address book and on speed dial. When you become aware of a credible allegation of voter fraud, get busy and push for them to prosecute offenders very publicly and to the FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW! If a few people are seen to be doing time for their electoral indiscretions, observers may be less willing to follow suit.

Rally others and spend election day in parking areas of and near problem polling places at ready with notebook and camera. A favorite technique of Democrats is to load up buses full of paid voters and haul them from precinct to precinct to cast multiple votes. Getting license numbers of these buses and observing them closely could yield enough evidence to prove fraud. Note or photograph anything "out of the ordinary".

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." (Josef Stalin)

Take part in the process. Here is a list of suggestions that stop_the_rats posted on another thread:

1. Plan to take election day off in 2004.
2. Be a poll worker. You get paid for this.
3. Be a poll watcher. Call your local Republican headquarters or the campaign office of one of your Republican candidates and volunteer to be a poll watcher.
4. Count absentee ballots. You get paid for this also.
5. Be a poll closer. It's a long day. Some people who can't poll watch because of work, could agree to come after work for 2 hours and close the polls to give poll watchers a break. Get final counts and make sure no "late" voters turn up.
6. Take lunches to poll workers and poll watchers.
7. Man the headquarters so if problems arise, poll workers or watchers have a place to call for help. Have a list of numbers: local election officals, state officals.
8. Find a person who will agree to "be in charge"of all the rules poll watchers and poll workers need to follow. Each state has rules and in some cases, state election representatives will come to your city and give a presentation.
9. Encourage others to get involved.
10. Smile; we have them worried!

Some might want to take it a step furthur, if that is an option in your area, and be an election judge. Or you may have specific talents and training that you could donate to the cause, such as legal assistance and advice.

Finally; ask questions. FReepers have an uncanny ability to ask the right questions in most any situation AND to find answers and we have an inexhaustable resource right here on Free Republic. Here are just a few questions to start with.

"How do we work to get cooperation between poll watchers and workers and clarify expectations on all sides BEFORE an election?"

"How can you prove fraud? What is legal in a given state (photos, tape recording, witness statements, compiling a list of names, video taping) and how can these techniques be implemented in a non-obtrusive way?"

How limiting is jurisdiction on working in some capacity at the polls? This may vary from state to state. For example, during the training for counting absentee ballots in Pulaski County, Arkansas, I was told that to be a poll worker or to count ballots, you had to be a resident of the county in which you served, but that a poll watcher could be from anywhere as long as he or she was authorized by the candidate or party. This could be very useful to pursue. In the 2002 election, in spite of all the Rat hype, there was still a shortage of Republican poll watchers in a number of "problem" locations. There were also quite a few FReepers who expressed a desire to do something, but there were no particular problems in their own areas. If we can, in fact, be poll watchers anywhere, that may have great potential for wider coverage of historically fraud prone precincts in future elections.

"If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14)

FReepers; your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get out there and STOP THE RATS!

As information has been posted, I have been keeping track of counties that have a history of voting "irregularities" and/or blatant fraud or in which there is legal action currently pending. From that information I have generated a county "watch list". This is not only to alert those seeking to combat the voter fraud travesty, but also to put those responsible for it on notice that the game is up and the heat is on. This list will no doubt grow as more cases come to light, and by all means, if you know of such concerns in your local areas, alert this thread and have the offending county "hot listed". It is the contributions of FReepers that will make this effort work!

Broward County

Duvall County

Lake County

Miami-Dade County

Orange County

Osceola County

Palm Beach County

Seminole County

Volusia County

Bennett County

Codington County

Dewey County

Minnehaha County

Pennington County

Shannon County

Ziebach County

The following states have been pinged, which means if your state's flag isn't flying, then FReepers in your state have not yet been alerted! The flags are posted in the order the states were pinged. It would be nice to have a representative FReeper from each state, particularly those states that are "fraud zones". If anyone would be willing to represent your state on this thread on a regular basis, please let me know and I will begin a list of FReeper contacts for each state.

Arizona:

The jury is still out on mail-in ballots. I think, if handled properly, it might help eliminate double voting, illegal alien voting, etc. Depends largely on the regristration process and control of the ballot process..

12/05/02

Next town election to be voted by mail.

Expected to increase voter participation, but some council members are cautious
Town officials plan to try out their first "mail-ballot election" in the spring when the only question on the ballot is expected to be a renewal of the town's franchise agreement with Arizona Public Service.
"It will be our first mail-in ballot too," Judy Swartz, APS franchise project manager, told the council Monday night. " ... it's a trial for us, just like for you, and we're excited to see what the results will be." After discussion among the council, it was determined the ballot will carry return postage, courtesy of APS.

The purpose of the franchise agreement is to allow APS to construct, maintain and operate the facilities necessary to serve the town and its citizens, Swartz said.

The franchise agreement also establishes a fee APS pays to the town for use of the town's right-of-way. In the past, this has amounted to 2 percent of APS's commercial and retail revenue in Florence, which last year was $124,076. The new agreement will add more classes of service to include irrigation and industrial - everything but street lights - to raise the town's fee slightly to an estimated $124,644.

Voter turnout to approve franchise agreements has been typically low in the 51 communities in which APS has such agreements, Swartz said. However, approval among the handful of voters showing up is typically high. "Seventy percent (of voters approving) is the lowest we've ever received," Swartz said. She said it's not unusual for 86 percent of voters to approve a franchise agreement.

Although the mail-in ballot is attractive for its convenience and potential for cost savings, council members had concerns.

"I don't think it's a good way to go," Vice Mayor Ty Morgan said. He said verifying the signature on the ballot against the signature on file with the County Recorder is apparently the only fraud protection.

Council member Tom Smith said he'd like to see this election done "as one experiment, not future voting." His own poll on Main Street found seven for and 62 against it, he said. "If it's for persons running for office, they're against it at this time."

Town Clerk Lisa Garcia said the council's approval would only cover this election, and if the town wishes to vote by mail in the future, it would require council approval again.

Council member Tom Rankin said, "It's the wave of the future," and if it leads to more people casting ballots, "we'd be crazy not to do it."

Council member Jerry Pomeroy asked how many people used mail-in ballots in the last Florence election. Garcia said she did not have that figure with her Monday night. Pomeroy said, "I think it's the wave of the future," and could "give more people the opportunity to vote. I personally hope we can eliminate the fraud thing."

Morgan asked, "Who all is doing it?"

Garcia said it has been done in Oregon, Colorado and Washington state. She wrote in a memo to the council that many jurisdictions have seen voter turnout increase in vote-by-mail elections. In Colorado, turnout has doubled and tripled. Thurston County, Wash., experienced a 152 percent increase over similar jurisdictions that still had polling place voting.

Garcia said the voter rolls are currently being purged of voters who have died or moved away, so the town will have a "precise and accurate" list of active voters to whom ballots will be mailed.

There will be no early ballots in this election; all ballots will be mailed 33 days prior to the election. Any voter uncomfortable with the process can still vote in person at Town Hall. Or they can bring in their mail-in ballots instead of mailing them.

The council voted 6-1, with Morgan voting no, to authorize the town clerk to conduct the May 2003 special election as a mail-ballot election.

Smith made a motion that the council reject a resolution requiring voters to pay for return postage, in keeping with APS' agreement to pay that postage. His motion passed unanimously.

Garcia noted in her memo that some believe requiring the voter to pay return postage amounts to an unconstitutional "poll tax." But a jurisdiction can avoid this issue by providing a drop-off point for ballots.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6290023&BRD=1817&PAG=461&dept_id=222076&rfi=6

An older but very revelant article on Computerized voting. If you don't instinctivly like the idea of computerized voting, here are some good reasons for your hesitation.

The next president of the United States may not be chosen by the voters of the United States. Instead, he or she may be the choice of whomever controls or manipulates the computer systems that tally the votes. A single, Berkeley- based firm manufactures the software used in the machines that compile more than two-thirds of the nation's electronically-counted votes. Analysts describe the software as "spaghetti code," tangled strands of instructions indecipherable to outsiders. The experts say the code could be manipulated without detection. In fact, that may have happened already.

Vote fraud by computer is an even greater threat to local elections, the experts fear. With the entire system shrouded in mystery and absent of assurances that the voting process is tamper-proof, voters these days have more reason than ever to ask, "Does my vote count?"

"The whole damn thing is mind-boggling," says Ronnie Dugger, a Texas-based writer who investigates computerized elections. "They could steal the presidency." "Any use of computer technology is subvertable," Peter Neumann of the Menlo Park research firm SRI confirms. "The consensus is that elections can be rigged easily locally, but nationally takes a lot more work." However, Neumann says, the task of fixing a presidential election is "doable."

Election-rigging is a time-honored tradition in the US, from the days of New York's Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall to Chicago's legendary Mayor Richard Daley, who, historians believe, engineered President Kennedy's narrow margin of victory over Richard Nixon in the 1960 general election by stealing a key bloc of Illinois votes. And Lyndon Johnson's 1948 Senate victory, according to a biographer, was the result of vote-rigging in Southern Texas, where ballots were burned before a recount could take place.

As recently as 1988, a US Senate race in Florida, in which Republican Connie Mack defeated incumbent Buddy MacKay by just 35,000 out of four million votes, stirred deep suspicion though no fraud was ever proved. The question, however, is whether a well-executed computer vote fraud ever would yield enough evidence to constitute "proof."

Ballot boxes can be stolen and stuffed, mechanical lever machines can be tinkered with, paper ballots can be forged. But computers seem somehow more sinister. Though defended, as one would expect, by professionals in the field who insist that computers are less vulnerable to error and tampering than counting paper ballots, the invisibility of computer functions and the esoteric languages they use make that assurance difficult to accept.

"Computerized elections could be made more difficult to defraud than hand-counted elections, but they're not that way now," says Erik Nilsson, a Portland, Ore., software engineer who monitors computerized voting for the Palo Alto-based Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR). "If you believe election officials deliberately defraud elections, if you really believe people are that dishonest, then we're kind of stuck."

Nilsson echoes many computer professionals who say that the internal security/measures of most vote-counting systems make tampering difficult to detect. He is cautious on the.....(Follow the link for the rest of the story)

http://www.conspire.com/vote-fraud.html

This article was posted on Freerepublic at some point. Page links back to us! Anyone know the Author?

VOTE FRAUD AND THE BANKRUPTCY OF THE UNITED STATES

Note: This article first appeared as a post written by myself at Free Republic. I was surprised to learn that it was copied from Free Republic and re-posted at dozens of sites around the world. So, it seems only fitting that the article re-appear here at my own web site.

In recent months, I have posted a series of article on the deplorable and quite frankly hopeless financial situation the government of the United States is presently in due to reckless and outright irresponsible fiscal policy.

In summary, the combined state and federal debt of the United States now stands at $14 trillion. The United States, the world's largest creditor nation when Ronald Reagan took office, is now the world's largest debtor nation. The federal debt has doubled in the last 8 years, during what is reported to the American people as being a record setting economic boom. During this same supposed economic boom, the federal government looted your social security trust fund for another 3/4 of a trillion dollars to balance the books.

A serious doubt exists as to whether this huge debt and its crushing interest payments ($60,000 per taxpayer since 1960) are really the responsability of the taxpayers. Considering that the law under which this debt was incurred was voted into law before most of us were born, it's clear that the taxpayers have never really had a choice in the matter. Certainly the young people of today, not yet old enough to vote, have had no choice regarding the continuing payment of interest charges for a debt not of their making. To hand such a huge debt to our children and order them to pay it is indentured servitude at best, outright slavery at worst. No valid argument exists as to why children not yet old enough to vote are obliged to pay the debts of reckless government officials who held office before these children were born. The government decides that children shall be slaves to the debt, so slaves they shall be (until some courageous parents decide to put a stop to it).

Virtually every argument coming from those who would convince us to go on parting with our hard-earned money to pay this massive and impossible debt amounts to a claim that we always have the choice to vote for politicians who will somehow change things, and that the election of a particular candidate amounts to approval of his or her policies. Put simply, the fact that the public voted for Bill Clinton amounts to permission by the public for him to run the federal government deeper into debt and loot our retirement money, or so goes the theory.

One can easily challenge the logic behind such a claim. If, after all, the only candidates on the ballot intend to borrow more money, does that mean the voters approve of the eventual loans? Does the fact that Hitler won his election prove that all Germans approved of the death camps?

But beyond that simple fallacy lies a greater issue, one that until now has never been fully and properly examined. And that is whether the public really voted for those who are in power at all. Are our elections truly fair, or are they simply an illusion that the public approves of whatever despot has cheated his or her way to power.

Cuba is a good example. It's now generally aknowledged by historians that the elections which kept Batista in power were rigged. The CIA is known to have rigged elections in numerous countries around the world, to put in governments friendly to American interest, often detrimental to the people of those nations (often leading to revolution). A search through the news reports of elections around the world shows that a truly fair and honest election is indeed a rarity. It is therefore naive (not to mention racist) to start out assuming American elections are honest simply because we are Americans.

Are the elections in the United States fair and honest? A review of the facts is far less than rassuring.

Since 1964, right after John F. Kennedy was assasinated, vote tabulation for national elections has been handled not by the government, but by a private company lacking any official oversight at all. This company, which changes its name on a regular basis, is currently called "Voters News Service" and is located in New York City. This company is owned by a consortium of TV networks and wire services, which are in turn controlled by the CIA through its Operation MOCKINGBIRD. The TV networks will make a great show of being "first with the election results", but in reality all of them rely on the numbers sent to them by VNS, while seldom aknowledging its existance during the election coverage.

This is the voting process most in use in America today. A voter punches a card in the voting booth. That card is run through a computer at the local voting center, then that computer contacts computers at Voters News Service, or the precinct official telephones the numbers the computer shows him to Voters News Service, which then announces the results via the networks. Poll watchers are allowed to watch the voting booths, to gaurd against polling place electioneering, but in most precincts, the actual counting of the ballots is concealed from the public, and nobody is allowed to see inside the voting machines, or review the computer software that counts the ballots. 70% of all votes in America are counted by machine, and nobody, not private citizen, not local election official, nobody, is allowed to examine how it all works. The accuracy tests conducted on the voting machines before and after the actual election are utterly worthless, as they cannot detect fraud designed to fool the accuracy test itself. In 1988, when voting machines in Illinois were tested with tens of thousands of ballots instead of the few dozen normally used for the accuracy test, over 1/4 of the machines which had passed the standard accuracy test were found to have mistabulated the larger test vote results!

While researching the book, "VOTESCAM", the Collier brothers actually managed to videotape members of the League of Women voters forging ballots, and found hard evidence that Shouptronics and Printomatic vote machines were rigged in the Dade County Elections. In the Shouptronics, the wheels of the mechanical counters were shaved to cause miscounts. In the Printomatic machines, a malfunction revealed that the paper tape with the voting results had been pre-printed before the voting even started! The Colliers, along with attorney Ellis Rubin, handed the evidence to the assistant State Attorney for Florida. Sadly, that assistant State Attorney was Janet Reno, who in a pattern we have all become too familer with, killed the investigation. 60 Minutes taped a segment on the Dade County Vote Fraud, but never aired it.

Mandatory voter registration laws, such as "Motor voter" have been a boon to election fraud, generating registered voters who don't vote and whose names may be used to obtain absentee ballots. In the California election that unseated Bob Dornan following his efforts to investigate the Clinton White House, canvassers discovered that nearly half of the names registered to vote in the GOP election from 7 precincts simply did not exist. The California Attorney General's office was informed by the precinct worker, but again nothing was done. In 1998, almost 20,000 fraudulent voter registrations were discovered on the voting rolls, but were allowed to remain on the excuse that their removal in time for the election would cost too much!

The evidence for massive vote fraud in the United States uncovered by the Voting Integrity Project and organizations like it are ignored by the government, which has obviously been the beneficiary of such chicanery, and by the media, which is complicit in the fraud. When vote fraud was suspected in the 1996 Arizona Primary (the one that ended Pat Buchanon's winning streak after New Hampshire), the Arizona legislature passed a special law forbidding a recount for that one primary election only! When the Miami Magazine ran a story on the Dade County Vote Fraud, the magazine was purchased just one month later by the editor of the Miami News, Sylvan Meyer, who ordered that no further stories on vote fraud be published. When precinct workers in the 1974 Dade County elections discovered that the voting machines they were using were rigged, they walked off the job and refused to certify the election process. Police and fire fighters took over the polling duties. The next day, the Miami Herald reported the walk out, but not the reason. When the precinct workers went to the media to report the election rigging, the media ignored them. So did the local attorney general. So did the FBI. Citizens who tried to observe the next election were arrested.

Typical of the horror stories associated with the media-owned Voters News Service is what happened in Dubuque County Iowa during the 1996 Caucuses. The county's 41 precincts met in 41 classrooms at two high schools and voted on old fashioned paper ballots, which were then counted in full view of all present (including representives of the candidates), and the results posted for all to see and verify. The vote totals were then phoned directly into Voters News Service by the county chairman, again in full view of all participants that night. Buchanon won the county by a wide margin, garnering 870 votes. By next morning, Voters News Service had dropped Buchanon's vote total for that county down to 757 votes, a 13% drop. Buchanon lost Iowa by a much smaller margin than 13%.

The Iowa state GOP claimed it could do nothing about the problem; they were "in VNS' hands". VNS, despite the paper ballots proving Buchanon's 870 votes, refused to admit error and refused to change the results for the county. Needless to say, the question of whether Buchanon had had 13% of his votes shaved off in other Iowa counties, ones in which computerized vote machines meant there was no audit trail to check, was ignored. The fact that an obviously fraudulent vote had made it all the way through the system to be reported on national television was also ignored by the media. (Iowa is the state, it should be noted, where a columnist for Salon magazine was charged with vote fraud.)

The complicity by the law enforcement machinery of this nation is astounding. In one election in Boston, a judge declared 968 ballots which had been declared "blank" due to multiple punches to be valid, arbitrarily assigning most of the disputed votes to the incumbant candidate, thereby reversing his defeat. In a computer vote fraud case in West Virginia, an expert witness testifying for the plaintiff sat down at a CES voting machine provided by the defendants, studied it for a while, then with a single ballot card added 10,000 votes to one of the fictional candidates. The judge refused to allow the jury to see the demonstration and the charges were eventually dropped.

Only three states, California, Florida, and Michigan, have laws requiring that the voting machine source code be placed in escrow should it need to be examined after an election. None of those states have any means to verify that the source code placed in escrow is in fact the origin of the compiled code running on the machines election night, and in Michigan, the escrow is simply handled by the voting machine company itself with no overview by a state agency or public interest group.

All the voting machines used in the United States come from just three companies. The Presidents of two of them have been convicted of vote fraud and yet all state governments continue to do business (at very steep fees) with just these three companies. The largest of the three companies has direct access to 50% of the nation's votes. Nobody is allowed to inspect the machines, or watch as the vote totals are accumulated and counted, and there is no audit trail anywhere along the path from the voting machine to Voter's News Service, the private media-owned company that without any official oversight, tells us all what the election results are.

Most states have now passed laws requiring a challenge to election results to be filed within a few weeks of the election, far too short a time for anyone to properly determine if such a challenge is warrented.

Despite such an obvious inhibition, a Democrat who lost a legislative seat in the 1998 Hawaiian election did file a challange, claiming there was vote fraud. A quick audit showed that vote fraud involving absentee ballots had indeed occured, but mostly by the Democrat; who had cheated, but not enough to win. This scandal triggered public questions about several races, including that of the Democratic Governor, Ben Cayutano, who had been trailing his Republican challenger all during the election night, only to have a sudden surge of votes at the last second push him over the top. The governor offered to over-ride the state's two week filing deadline for election challenges and allow a full recount, then back-pedaled and made a full recount contingent on a "pre-audit". The "pre-audit" was assigned to the company which had run the election, along with a warning that if it turned out the election was flawed, their final payment would be withheld by the State of Hawaii. Needless to say the pre-audit found no errors in the election, and despite the urging of the Voter Integrity Project (which was conducting its own investigation) the full recount was canceled. The voting company, ES&S was again been awarded the voting contractr for the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections, without any open bidding.

Who chooses what government we live under? Those who cast the votes, or as Stalin observed, those who count them? Do We The People pick those who govern us, or does a private company, owned by the CIA controlled media, and operating without any public oversight? Have We The People consented by vote to bear the $14 trillion burden of a government's reckless fiscal policy, or was that consent and that vote fraudulently obtained?

Just think about all it really means if the elections are being rigged on a massive scale.

It means that the contract between ruler and ruled is broken. The government does not govern with the consent of the governed, it rules by treachery and deception. The crown it wears is a stolen one, usurped from the people by three voting machine companies and one media owned results-announcer totally beyond review and reproach.

So, now we come back to the issue of government debt and who is really responsible for it. If, as appears to be the case, our elections are routinely being rigged, then it cannot be argued that We The People either chose, or approved of, those officials who borrowed trillions of dollars without our permission and sought to enslave us to that debt.

In an atmosphere of doubt about the validity of the voting process, it cannot be assumed that the American people have actually voted for or approved of any of the government's actions and policies for the last 35 years. That includes a couple of wars and some $14 trillion in debt, and the $60,000 in interest payments alone each taxpayer has had to fork over since the 60s.

In light of the numerous incidents of vote fraud uncovered through the years and the quite obvious stonewall on the subject by the officials who benefit from rigged elections and the media that at least helps in the rigging, it is dangerous to assume that American elections are honest. The burden of proof must lie with VNS and the voting machine companies to prove their honesty.

In an atmosphere of doubt about the validity of the voting process, it appears that the entire voting process is a sham, a trick to fool the American people into accepting whatever is done to them by creating the illusion that the people somehow voted for and approved of whatever is being done. That's how Batista fooled the Cuban people. That's how the USSR fooled the Soviet citizens. And that's how the American government fools us.

Do We The People owe that $14 trillion? No, we do not. It was borrowed without our permission. No citizen agreed to repay that money.

Those government officials who borrowed that money and intend that We The People should be forced to repay it can no longer do so on the assumption that they rule with the consent of those who vote.

The best that can be said is that they rule with the consent of those who count the vote.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE3/

This is one I missed....Unbelievable!

Reno Blocks Effort to Stop Vote Fraud
Chuck Noe, NewsMax.com
Saturday, Nov. 2, 2002
Former Attorney General Janet Reno launched a full-scale legal action Friday in Miami to prevent an independent committee from monitoring Tuesday's elections.
Reno, acting as a plaintiff and represented by Al Gore's 2000 election lawyer Kendall Coffey, sought and received an emergency injunction to prevent The Emergency Committee to Stop Bill McBride from sending independent poll watchers to precincts in Miami-Dade.

A "liberal Democrat" judge sided with Reno and banned the organization's poll watchers from trying to curb Florida's notorious election fraud.

Miami-Dade Judge Eleanor Schockett decreed Friday that The Emergency Committee to Stop Bill McBride may not supply 456 poll watchers in Miami-Dade County.

Her reason? Merely because Democrats claimed the group might disrupt the election.

'Blindsided'

"We were blindsided by this. We were never even served officially," said Mark Goodrich, political coordinator of The Emergency Committee to Stop Bill McBride.

In an exclusive interview, Goodrich told NewsMax.com that he received a voice mail at 7:30 p.m. Thursday telling him to be in court at 10:30 a.m. Friday.

Without being given reason to believe he needed legal representation, Goodrich had no attorney present and was sandbagged.

"Janet Reno's the plaintiff, Kendall Coffey – Al Gore's lawyer – is the lead lawyer, and there was little old me, getting thrown out of her [Schockett's] office," Goodrich said.

"This is a liberal Democrat judge who's retiring, who said as soon as she sat down at the bench, 'I don't know anything about election law; you're going to have to bear with me.' She's a bankruptcy judge who wrote a new law for herself today," Goodrich fumed.

According to a 1986 ruling by the state board of elections, poll watchers could include political action committees, Goodrich said. "She totally disregarded it."

His group plans to appeal the judge's decision Monday.

[Editor's Note: The Emergency Committee to Stop Bill McBride has an urgent letter to you. Please read it – Click Here.]

Reno and Rep. Carrie Meek, D-Fla., "had said in their complaint that GOP officials unfairly benefited from new rules the Democrats did not learn of until it was too late to submit forms," the Associated Press reported Friday.

Goodrich believes Reno is acting partly on McBride's behalf, "because she knows we are a serious organization, and partly because it's payback for us opposing her in the primary."

Previously, The Emergency Committee was called "Americans for [Jeb] Bush" and led a massive effort to defeat Reno in the Democrat primary.

The Stop McBride committee has no affiliation with the campaign of Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, he said. Still, the organization, which "has over 2,000 volunteers on Election Day to guard our rights," draws from Republicans and conservatives who would like to see Bush re-elected.

Friday's ruling has energized the volunteers, Goodrich told NewsMax.com. He said his organization has been flooded with calls from media and supporters.

[Editor's Note: The Emergency Committee to Stop Bill McBride has an urgent letter to you. Please read it – Click Here.]

Unintended Result

"This is motivating more people." Some volunteers plan protests at campaign appearances Saturday by Bill Clinton and Monday by Gore, he said.

Goodrich said his organization was still moving ahead with a massive get-out-the-vote effort, with phone banks and door-to-door canvassing. He still plans to field poll watchers.

"If the judge overrules them, we go to work Tuesday," he said.

No Repeat of 2000

Stop McBride hopes to prevent the sort of abuses that marred the 2000 election. In Democrat-ruled Miami-Dade, government employees made "efforts to suppress the vote in Republican precincts," he said. Examples he cited:

"They were telling people in line at 7 o'clock [p.m.] they had to leave," but people already in line are allowed by law to vote.

People who had no voter registration card were turned away, but the law calls for a provisional vote to be cast.

People who didn't know how to use the machines were not allowed to have someone help them, which the law permits.
[Editor's Note: The Emergency Committee to Stop Bill McBride has an urgent letter to you. Please read it -- Click Here.] In Democrat precincts, the story was far different, Goodrich recalled.

"People voted two and three times."

The Democrats shipped in voters from outside the county.

He recalled news accounts of Democrats ordering frightened, confused Haitian immigrants to vote for Gore and other Democrats.
"They were cooking the books. As to what extent, it's undefinable."

Goodrich had one final remark for Reno, Gore, Coffey, Meek, McBride and company:

"What are they afraid of? What is it they don't want us to see?"

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/11/1/194422.shtml

Louisana: "Voter Haul"....hadn't seen that term before. Very revelant article.

Voter 'haul' concern to Terrell - Elections chief asking Democrats to follow law (October 29, 2002)

By MARSHA SHULER - mshuler@theadvocate.com
Capitol news bureau

Red Taping the Debate State law allows hauling voters to the polls in upcoming U.S. Senate and congressional elections, and that's got Elections Commissioner and Senate candidate Suzanne Terrell worried.

"We know what kind of allegations were in the 1996 (Senate) election and other elections where people haul voters," Terrell said.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu won election six years ago by 5,788 votes out of 1.8 million cast in an election clouded by allegations of voting irregularities, especially in New Orleans.

Terrell, a Republican, is asking Landrieu and the Democratic Party to follow state law, which bans paying people to take voters to the polls on Election Day.

Landrieu and state Democratic Party Executive Director Scott Arceneaux said Terrell should not be concerned.

"I wonder if this is not an effort by our elections commissioner to discourage people from voting," Landrieu said.

The Louisiana Board of Ethics recently issued an opinion saying state law excludes federal offices from the "voter hauling" ban.

State law cannot supersede federal law, so candidates for federal offices can pay people to take voters to the polls even though state and local races are on the ballot too, ethics lawyer Maris McCrory said.

The opinion came in response to a request from Terrell, one of three Republican elected officials challenging Landrieu on Nov. 5. Beside Terrell, U.S. Rep. John Cooksey, state Rep. Tony Perkins and five other lesser-known candidates are challenging Landrieu.

Terrell said Landrieu and "the Democratic machinery" should "respect the laws of Louisiana rather than use 'loopholes' to get around the intent of Louisiana lawmakers."

The Legislature banned voter hauling at the urging of some lawmakers who said it would discourage vote buying.

Landrieu said her campaign will operate within the federal law.

"It's a federal campaign," she said.

However, Landrieu said her campaign will rely heavily on volunteers to help get people to the polls on Election Day.

"Not everybody owns an automobile, and there are many senior citizens who need help to get to the polls," Landrieu said. "I'm certain that Mrs. Terrell's friends in Washington won't give them a lift."

Landrieu was referring to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has pumped $2 million into a television ad campaign knocking Landrieu's record and supporting Terrell.

Arceneaux said the Democratic Party has gotten away from driving people to the polls.

"The Democratic machine is not planning on having a major driving-people-to-the-polls effort," Arceneaux said. "Frankly, that's a large expenditure."

The party might take advantage of a provision in the law that allows paying for vans and buses with commercial licenses to transport voters to the polls, Arceneaux said.

He said vans and buses may be used in New Orleans. "We have done that in the past," he said.

Arceneaux said he's not sure why Terrell, a lawyer, had to ask the Ethics Board to find out that federal elections aren't governed by state law.

And, he added, "I don't consider the U.S. Constitution and supremacy laws loopholes."

Terrell said reports of "voter hauling" and "vote buying" have begun to come into the Department of Elections Fraud Hotline.

However, Terrell said she did not think it proper to talk about complaints that her office has received. Since it's a federal election, all complaints have been forwarded to U.S. attorneys and FBI offices, she said.

Terrell's elections chief of staff Pat Bergeron said there have been about a dozen calls with allegations "of an assortment of different offenses" since the Oct. 5 election, when local races were on the ballot. They came from seven parishes mainly in south Louisiana, he said.

http://www.suzieterrell.com/voterhaul.html

Oregon:

So you think your vote is sacred, do you? Well, good Democrats may think otherwise.

VOTESCAM OREGON

STOP THE ELECTION !

STATE ELECTION FRAUD, BALLOTS ALREADY OPENED AND ALTERED BEFORE ELECTION DAY

GROUP OF PEOPLE GO OVER THE MARKS ON EVERY BALLOT WITH PENCIL IF A PEN HAS BEEN USED - ALTERING THE BALLOT WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT OF THE ELECTOR AND AFTER THAT ELECTOR HAS SIGNED OFF ON THAT BALLOT

THE POTENTIAL FOR FRAUD SO HUGE IT INVALIDATES THE WHOLE ELECTION !!!

CURRENT SEC. OF STATE BRADBURY, WHO HEADS THE ELECTIONS DIVISION, IS RUNNING A CAMPAIGN FOR CONGRESS AT THE SAME TIME AS OPERATING THIS VOTESCAM

Unbelievably, todays Oregonian says the ballots for the November 5 election are already being opened and a group of people are going over each one with a pencil if ink was used, or the mark is not dark enough !!!

The article states that a ballot comes through some of the machines BLANK if a black pen was used instead of a pencil !

In Marion County our ballot SPECIFICALLY SAID "BLACK PEN OR PENCIL".

THE WHOLE ELECTION IS HOPELESSLY COMPROMISED !!!!

Think of what they can do with their pencil ! Think of the ones you left blank, not wanting to vote on issues you did not know about.....they can fill in anything they want to !

Think about that if it was done in ink, it comes in registering BLANK, and with your signature, can be fraudulently filled out however someone would mark it without your knowledge or consent.

And what about the ones in pencil too? They are going over every ballot ....

Voting is SACRED.

In court, writing on a document INVALIDATES that document as a lawful court record. Altering a ballot does the same thing !!!

The whole idea of the voting day, you showed up IN PERSON, you signed a book and got a ballot - it went to a box - UNOPENED these boxes go one place only and are opened ONE time only and not handled !!!

And on top of this unbelievable FRAUD, in Oregon right now the current SECRETARY OF STATE BILL BRADBURY who is HEAD of the elections in his department, is RUNNING a campaign !!!!!

NO CONFLICT OF INTEREST THERE !!!! AND THESE ARE HIS POLICIES .....

ALSO BOTH GOVERNOR CANDIDATES ARE BAR MEMBERS WHO SHOULD NOT EVEN BE IN AN EXECUTIVE BRANCH BEING MEMBERS OF THE JUDICIAL BRANCH THROUGH THE BAR ......

STOP THE ELECTION !!!! IT IS VOID OF LAW !!! TOTAL AND TRANSPARENT FRAUD AND VIOLATION OF THE PUBLIC TRUST.

It is up to the People to restore Constitutional Authority of the People, and Courts of Judicial Due Process according to original Article VII in the Oregon Constitution and to repeal the Amended VII that allows all this fraud and manipulation.

The state plan is to move toward email voting, worse than this new "vote by mail" scheme ......

we have to get REAL - real people, real rights, real paper ballots, real voting day, real humans in courtrooms real constitutional policy making - GET THESE TRAITORS OUT OF OREGON GOVERNMENT AND THE LAWFUL OFFICES THEY ARE OCCUPYING - THEY ARE DECIEVING THE PEOPLE, VIOLATING THE PUBLIC TRUST

pamela gaston
a voice for children
fifth amendment coalition of Oregon

Note that the soft title and attitude of the Oregonian article is not surprised or outraged - does not even express an opinion that these policies may raise serious issues of TRUST and CONFLICT OF INTEREST

And this follow up!

An election made for No. 2

by DON COLBURN

A nybody got a No. 2 pencil? What is a No. 2 pencil?

For thousands of Oregon voters, voting brings a flashback to standardized achievement tests and college boards.

Three Oregon counties -- Washington, Clackamas and Lane -- use punch-out ballots. The rest require voters to mark choices by blackening ovals or arrows. Some counties, such as Marion,
specify black ink or pencil.

But others, including Multnomah, hold out for No. 2.

"USE A PENCIL ONLY," it says at the top of the Multnomah ballot. But the bold red lettering on the secrecy envelope goes further:

"We suggest you USE A #2 PENCIL to vote," it says. "If you use a pen, mark over any votes with a #2 pencil."

Uh-oh.

A call to the Multnomah County Elections Division goes like this:

Reporter: So you have to use a pencil?

Clerk: "Yes, a No. 2 pencil."

Reporter: It has to be a No. 2?

Clerk: "That's sort of the preferred way."

Reporter: What if you use a pen? Does your vote count?

Clerk: "Just a second." Then she's back, saying: "OK, it's highly
recommended that you use a No. 2 pencil -- but you can use ink and we'll still count it. Dark ink."

Come again?

In the end, elections come down to optics -- the light-sensors of the vote-counting machines and the sharp eyes of inspectors such as Sarah Hansen.

The 10 vote-counting machines in Multnomah County -- ES&S 550s -- read only the graphite carbon in pencil marks. An ink spot shows up blank.

"Machines aren't smart," says Eric Sample, spokesman for the county elections division. "They're quick but not smart. They can't interpret."

Between 5 percent and 10 percent of ballots need some extra attention.

"People use pens," Sample says. "Or they don't fully erase. Or they spill coffee on the ballot. Or it gets torn -- the dog-ate-my-homework kind of thing."

Which is where Hansen and her fellow inspectors come in.

In the cavernous basement of an old car barn on Southeast Morrison
Street, Hansen and more than 80 other temporary inspectors are
scanning ballots this week to make sure they're fit to be read by a
less-forgiving machine.

They sit at oblong tables in bipartisan groups of four. It could be a church supper or a bingo game, except for the stacks of ballots and the six portable toilets along one wall. The concrete floor still has yellow stripes where county vehicles once parked.

The inspectors, in Sample's view, are unsung heroes of the democratic process. For $8.83 an hour, they make up for some voters' inability to follow instructions and the machines' inability not to.

"Ink -- that's the most common error," Hansen says.

On inked ballots, Hansen uses a black-tipped wooden cylinder called a graphite enhancer -- she calls it "the dauber" -- to over-blacken the voter's mark. She presses the dauber into a stamp pad of black graphite, then marks over each inked oval.

"You do it at a systematic pace," says Hansen, 77, who has been
working elections in Portland since 1951, when she started as a volunteer, bundling ballots to be counted in Lincoln High School.

More than 50 years later, she remembers the precinct number -- 1315 -- but not the name of any candidate on the ballot.

http://www.avoiceforchildren.com/news/2002/November/VOTESCAM_BALLOT_FRAUD_OREGON.htm

Latest from South Dakota:

S.D. officials reviewing vote fraud claims

By Mark Haugen and Dan Olmsted
From the Washington Politics & Policy Desk
Published 12/6/2002 8:35 PM

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- The South Dakota attorney general's office is reviewing allegations of fraud in the November election in which Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson beat his Republican challenger by 524 votes, an official said Friday.

Meanwhile, United Press International received further details from several Republican poll watchers about alleged improprieties they said they witnessed, including operation of a get-out-the-vote effort from within polling stations and attempts to vote using a variety of names.

Democrats have denied these claims, which were first reported by UPI Wednesday.

"We have gotten allegations and accusations of various improprieties," Deputy Attorney General Robert Mayer confirmed to UPI Friday. "We are reviewing them. If some merit follow-up, we would ask the Department of Criminal Investigation to investigate."

But he added that because some of the allegations center on polling places on Indian reservations, "there is a very serious question whether we would have jurisdiction" to pursue alleged crimes there. He said that might be up to federal officials.

Mayer cautioned against making too much of the review, saying "it's our job" to look at any allegation of illegal activity. He said he was "not a liberty" to say how far the review had proceeded.

UPI first reported on Wednesday that several South Dakota Republicans say they witnessed serious irregularities in the Nov. 5 election in which incumbent Johnson eked out a narrow victory over Republican U.S. Rep. John Thune. Democrats said the charges are untrue and that Republicans have made a habit of claiming fraud after losing close elections.

Among the allegations leveled in interviews with UPI and in affidavits collected by the Republican Party:

-- Three people being offered money for voting for Johnson.

-- Voters giving two or three names to election personnel before finding a name that matched on the voter rolls, which they would use to cast their ballot.

-- The Democratic Party organizing voter rides from inside the polling place.

Thune decided not to seek a recount, but Republican National Committee spokesman Jim Dyke said, "The RNC is very interested in investigating fraud and putting a stop to it if they find it."

Johnson's campaign manager, Steve Hildebrand, dismissed the complaints as unfounded and uncorroborated and said the campaign was conducted honestly.

The poll watchers say they witnessed pro-Johnson electioneering activities inside of polling places located near Indian reservations and saw partisan pro-Johnson, anti-Republican literature left out in balloting areas. Both are violations of laws concerning the conduct of elections.

They also say they witnessed efforts to intimidate poll workers who questioned the activity.

One focus of alleged problems is Todd County, home to the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Registered Democrats there outnumber Republicans 5 to 1, making it a target for state Democratic Party and Johnson campaign get-out-the-vote efforts. Johnson won Todd County 2,027-464.

Several Republican poll watchers assert they witnessed voters giving multiple names to poll workers until a match permitting them to vote could be found on the voter rolls.

"They'd go through two or three names and say, 'Okay, gotcha here,'" said Darla Assman (pronounced ahs-mahn), a poll watcher in the South Mission Precinct in Todd County.

"What I thought, and a lot of people thought, is they could do that in Mission, because there was a lot of confusion with the lists, and then go out to Parmalee and vote again. It's sure possible the way they were hauling them around."

South Dakota election law says anyone impersonating a registered voter is guilty of a felony.

Her brother-in-law Ed Assman said he witnessed similar activities at the Parmalee precinct. "A voter would say: 'I'm Joyce Two Elk.' The election official would say: 'There's nobody registered under that name.' Then the lady would say: 'Check Joyce Two Bulls.' They might go through three names until they got a hit. I'm not sure what was going on with that. Who she really was, I don't know." He said that happened 30 to 40 different times while he observed.

A third poll watcher, Ray Stewart of the North Antelope Precinct, said he also witnessed similar activity. "We had one lady come in to vote. She was registered to vote on South Antelope and also registered at North Antelope on another name. She had the potential to vote twice. That's not an isolated case, either."

Other complaints are described in the upcoming Dec. 23 issue of National Review, a conservative news and opinion magazine. Byron York reports that Republican Noma Sazma, a member of the local election board who votes in the St. Thomas Parish Hall in Mission, was surprised when a group of Democratic lawyers arrived to serve as poll watcher.

"The Democratic team quickly set up shop in the Parish Hall kitchen, just a few feet from the tables where voters would cast their ballots," York wrote. "The party had rented dozens of vans and hired drivers to bring voters to the polls, and the out-of-state lawyers make the kitchen their transportation headquarters. It took her a few minutes to realize that the Democrats intended to run their get-out-the vote effort from inside the polling place."

Democrat Nancy Wanless told York she witnessed the same things. "They were on the phone using it to call I don't know where," York quotes her saying. "I needed to call because we had some new districting. They were always talking on it."

"When Wanless protested," York writes, "she got a chilly reaction from the out-of-towners. 'I felt like they were trying to intimidate me.'"

The Johnson-Thune race was one of the nastier contests in 2002. At stake in the South Dakota race and in a half-dozen other key races across the country was whether the Republicans or Democrats would be the majority party in the U.S. Senate.

As it turned out, Republicans regained control of the Senate even as they lost the South Dakota race. Thune declined to seek a recount, saying that it was in the best interests of the state to avoid a messy post-election challenge.

Some conservatives criticized the decision, saying voters had been deprived of their franchise and the case should be pursued whether or not control of the Senate hung in the balance. They believe Thune did not pursue the matter because he feared the political fall out would prevent him from challenging Tom Daschle in 2004 should the Democrat's senate leader seek re-election.

Allegations of fraud were made prior to the election involving activists working on voter registration and absentee ballots for the Democrats' coordinated campaign effort. Auditors in several West River counties raised concerns about some of the documents submitted to their offices. An initial investigation revealed that absentee ballot applications had been filed for people who don't exist or had recently died.

One man was charged with forgery for allegedly submitting fraudulent registration cards. Officials said the man turned in 226 voter registration cards, most allegedly fraudulent.

UPI obtained copies of affidavits taken by the Republicans from two women and one man, all Native Americans, who said: "I was promised $10 if I would go vote. I was given a ride to the polls in a van with Tim Johnson for Senate signs in the window. The name of the van driver was Terry. After I voted, the van took me back from the polling place. When Terry dropped me off, he offered me $10 for voting.

It is a Class 2 misdemeanor in South Dakota for any person to pay money to induce a voter to vote.

Copyright © 2002 United Press International

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021206-052001-9786r

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