Posted on 11/25/2013 12:59:21 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Republican Mark Obenshain is trailing Democrat Mark Herring for attorney general by 164 votes. Obenshain could win with as few as 71 — with not a single one cast by an ordinary Virginian. It is a nuclear option that takes the election out of the hands of the electorate.
Obenshain could initiate what state law calls a “contest” in which the 140-member legislature decides the attorney generalship by a majority vote. That would be a minimum of 71. They shouldn’t be too difficult for Obenshain to round up. There are 87 Republican legislators. Many of them don’t like one bit that their party could be completely shut out of statewide office.
A contest would be high-risk. Democrats would almost certainly accuse Obenshain of stealing the election, having overridden the popular vote in an increasingly blue state. A contest also could be high reward. Obenshain would cement his status as his party’s titular leader and its likely gubernatorial nominee in 2017. But the big issue that year would probably be Obenshain’s scheming four years earlier.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesdispatch.com ...
Republicans don’t go nuke. They just shut up and take it.
Indiana congressional district in 1984 won by a razor thin margin by a Republican, but the Rats seated the Rat.
The (R)s must play the game that the corrupt "Two-Party Cartel" requires in order to keep your status.
Shapiro isn’t serious. He is postulating a scheme that republicans would never do (because it would be the WRONG thing to do in the absence of evidence of a fraudulent vote). And he is doing so just so he can ATTACK republicans for considering this move, and to attack Obenshein for something that happened years ago.
Shapiro is a liberal hack pretending to be a journalist.
But just like one poorly phrased and oft-misquoted comment by Todd Akin cost the Republicans countless elections across the country, so to would the 'rats use a move like this to beat us over the head for the next 10 years. They'd love for him to declare a contest, because the left excels at taking minor/local/isolated comments and actions by one person and using it nationwide as a brutally effective campaign tool -- all due to their loyal lapdog media of course, but it gets the "correct" results for them whatever the case.
I assume that hundreds of votes were cast in the election by people who were not legally entitled to register or vote: non-citizens; residents of other states; outright fraudsters using other people’s indentity to vote; casting absentee ballots for mentally incapable individuals, etc. Rather than play games in the legislature, why not file suit against the Virginia BOE, Arlington, Fairfax, and Richmond Registrars and election officials charging that they allowed illegal voting in more than enough numbers to invalidate the election. It is hard to prove who these votes were for, but that doesn’t matter, if you can show that more illegal votes were cast than the margin of victory for Herring (but show three times as many for good measure). Investigate, demand documents from all defendants, show the facts in court, demand that the November election results be awarded to Obenshein or a new election be held. Of course, all that requires two things: an honest court and actual evidence of illegal voting.
Today is the first day the recount can start.
The whole election needs to be recounted. And checked.
The chances of a 2.2 million vote election coming down to less than 200 votes is astronomacally remote.
There’s whole lotta cheatin’ goin’ on here.
Republicans need to have people that find trunks filled with ballots, like the democrats do.
How sure are they and we that there is nor fraud in the vote? Fraudulent votes are picked up--with I'd guess a low efficiency--years later, but elections are never changed. Look at Al Franken, where recount after recount was done as new boxes of overlooked votes were found; or look at the 2012 Presidential election, where Philly had districts with over 100% turnout and not a single Romney vote. Is Virginia so pristine that fraud is unthinkable?
After violating their own rigged recount rules and throwing out properly and timely voted military absentees that had arrived late due to postal delays.
It is mathematically impossible for the Democrat to gain votes on the Republican in every single election. The law of averages dictates that nearly half the time the R candidate should gain on the D. The fact that the D gains in every single recount proves that fraud is occurring.
I’m shocked Herring hasn’t won by a landslide... Urrr, I mean.. With the brilliant job Team Barry has done representing the Communist party and all. /s
There were no precincts in philidelphia with more than 100% turnout. And there was no surprise in the precincts in which no romney votes were cast (these are small precincts).
It is unlikely you could find and catalog 160 cases of fraudulent voting.
I guess that there could have been cases of democrats filling out absentee ballots for old people or mentally ill people without their knowledge, but there would be little chance of actually catching and proving that type of subterfuge — unless you got lucky and turned someone who was responsible for running such a plan.
Here is how one type of plan could work to commit fraud in a Virginia election. We have provisional ballots, used if you don’t show up with your proper ID.
So, let’s suppose you think it is going to be a close race, and you know there are democrats who aren’t going to vote, because either they told you they were tired of the whole thing, or weren’t available.
So, you send your volunteers out to those precincts, and have them say they are these voters. But they don’t show ID, or sign anything proving they are the voters, they simply cast ballots.
Now, the election is really close. SO you go back to those democrats, and get them to show up with their ID, and “validate” their ballots.
This would technically work, unless we had pictures taken of the voters. But you couldn’t pull this off, because what ordinary voter is going to agree to go PRETEND they voted. But if they were in on the thing, it would work. However, if they were in on it, it would mean they DID have a right to vote, and simply couldn’t vote that day, and they SHOULD have done absentee.
So while in that case they are committing a crime, they really are voters who had a right and could have cast a valid ballot. I’m more interested in the fraud that casts ballots people did not have a right or an interest in casting.
The republicans are looking for fraud, or possible fraud, and if it is found then action will be warranted. I just don’t expect that. There was considerable focus on the provisional ballots (which was what put Herring over the top). But I haven’t read any indication that someone suspects those were fraudulent — it’s just that liberals tend to be stupid and can’t cast their ballots right or show up with the right identification.
The Democrats would accuse Obenshain of stealing the election no matter what he does! That is a given.
What justification does Obenshain need to take the election to the legislature? He should do that if he can.
Democrats are known to lie and cheat as a way of life because to them the end is more important than the means.
The Democrat playbook options include the blame game, name-calling, character assassination via false charges, and raising taxes, not to mention mindless spending. That strategy works for them!
Obenshain has nothing to lose.
“Shapiro is a liberal hack pretending to be a journalist.”
True to the nth degree.I need to shower after talking to him on the phone.
That sounds logical, but it probably doesn't work that way. We had a similar situation in Washington State a few years ago in our Governor's race. The GOP candidate sued for a Contest - the formal process to contest an election. He *proved* that their were more illegitimate votes than the margin of victory, but unbelievably this is not the standard for invalidating an election in Washington, it is that the evidence shows the election was stolen. Seeing as it was impossible to determine (in many cases) who the illegitimate votes were for the election was allowed to stand.
I don't think you can sue to overturn an election as long as you have not taken full advantage of the process given in law for setting things right.
What ever the "contest" rules are in this case are what the candidate should follow. If that results in the GOP House giving him the win, so be it. Politics ain't softball.
The election was held on November 2, 2004, with the initial count showing Gregoire trailing Rossi by 261 votes. However, a legally mandated machine recount reduced that lead to only 42 votes, then a hand count that was requested and funded by the state's Democratic Party gave Gregoire a 10-vote lead.Donks take their wins however they can get them, we need to start more aggresivly fighting these BS recounts and blatant vote fraud.Following a State Supreme Court ruling that allowed several hundred ballots from King County to be included, her lead was further increased to 130 votes,[15] but when the vote was certified by the state's Secretary of State, Sam Reed, at the end of December, one vote which had been counted in Thurston County past the deadline was disqualified and her lead was reduced to 129 votes.[16] Washington's Republican leadership then filed suit, claiming that hundreds of votes, including votes by felons,[17] deceased voters,[18] and double voters,[18] were included in the canvass, but on June 6, 2005, Judge John E.
Bridges ruled that the Republican party did not provide enough evidence that the disputed votes were ineligible—or for whom they were cast—to overturn the election.[19] Judge Bridges did note that there was evidence that 1,678 votes had been illegally cast throughout the state,[20] but found that the only evidence submitted to show how those votes had been cast were sworn statements from four felons that they had voted for Rossi.[20] He subtracted those four votes from Rossi's total and upheld the election.[21]
I was engaging in idealistic thinking of what should be, and agree with your more realistic assessment. Certainly the re-count drama has to be played out (and sometimes these do change the results), before pursuing other avenues. There are massive gaps between the law and common sense. In the Washington State case as presented, an honest court would have voided the election, based on the logic of its own ruling: if it was not possible to determine who received the illegal votes, neither was it possible to determine which candidate received the most votes. No doubt the question was framed in such a way as to allow the court to find it had no basis to change the status quo, rather than to force the court to judge whether the election process yielded legitimate results. This accords a large advantage to cheaters.
It would be interesting to know the applicable law in Virginia. There always seems to be a barrier to opening the real can of worms for all to see.
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