Call In The UN?
Published October 28, 2004
I went to other polling places throughout the day, and at 6:00, I was again at Crispus Attucks. The poll closed, and I removed my pins so that I could enter and observe the closing procedure. There I observed a pile of 'voided' ballots. I noticed that every one of them had a straight ticket vote for the Republicans. Some of those had the straight Republican vote as the only mark on the ballot. Others had both the Republican and Democratic straight ticket, making it a genuine void. A couple of the voids had the Democratic straight ticket and a vote for Brad, making it a genuine void, but telling me that handing them his palm card had an effect. I'm sure one of the nice old men 'helped the voter correct his mistake'.
How much of this was illegal? Probably a good portion of it. How much of it was legal but stinky? Another good portion, no doubt.
I'll say this again, though. The Democrats were well organized in the inner city. The people who worked the polls were not Abduallah supporters. I checked by asking. Many didn't even know who he was. They were purely Democratic Party people. You could have had Newt Gingrich or a hamster running for City County Council as a Democrat, and I have no doubt that the party faithful would have been there to do their jobs. Their jobs included staffing the polling places for better than $100/person, calling those who hadn't voted yet, providing rides- including cabs- to get voters to the polls.
I concluded that the LP will get nowhere in these inner city precincts without an organization to match the Democrats. Hell- the Republicans are nowhere without it. Doubt it? Here are the results of the whole 15th District:
CITY-COUNTY COUNCIL DISTRICT 15; Precincts Reporting 42 / 42 (100.00%)
Votes / Vote%
6A PHILLIP SCHOFFSTALL (REP) 531 / 10.90%
6B P. MUUMBA ABDUALLAH (DEM) 4,080 / 83.73%
6C BRAD KLOPFENSTEIN (LIB) 262 / 5.38%
A very Democratic District! But hey, we used to get excited when our candidates got 2% in such districts, so 5.38% is pretty fine. Where did Brad's votes come from? Not Crispus Attucks. Here are the results for Precinct 7-1, at Crispus Attucks:
BALLOTS CAST - TOTAL 138 / 100.00%
STRAIGHT PARTY
Votes / Vote%
REPUBLICAN PARTY (REP) 0 / 0.00%
DEMOCRATIC PARTY (DEM) 129 / 100.00%
LIBERTARIAN PARTY (LIB) 0 / 0.00%
CITY-COUNTY COUNCIL DISTRICT 15
Votes / Vote%
6A PHILLIP SCHOFFSTALL (REP) 1 / 0.72%
6B P. MUUMBA ABDUALLAH (DEM) 136 / 98.55%
6C BRAD KLOPFENSTEIN (LIB) 1 / 0.72%
Zero straight party for the Libertarians. Zero straight party for the Republicans. 129 for the Dems. How did those two votes for Brad and the Republican get by?
- Call In The UN?
- Published: October 28, 2004
- Type:
- Section: Politics
- Writer: Mike Kole
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Comments on this articleComments
Bryan- I would still urge you to vote, now matter how discouraging this can seem.
I believe that something great can come out of the Florida experience. What happened there caused many people to see for the first time that American elections can be deeply flawed. Americans joke about Chicago (vote early and often!), but really didn't get how pervasive the shaving of votes is. Now we're starting to see that it is very pervasive, and the realization is the first step towards making improvements.
Cleaning it up requires a certain vigilance. Look for improprieties at the polling places, and if you see them, point them out. Don't hesitate to whip out your cell phone and call the elections board or the media. That kind of citizen action goes a long way. Citizen apathy is exactly what is required to make the system slither along the trail of dirty tricks.
If you're voting at Fishers Town Hall, look for me! That's my home precinct polling place.
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(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/21525)
Thanks for this rightup. Fishers, IN here and I can't believe what I just read. I did not vote in 2003 because I was down in Evansville at the time, but this just makes me question the entire election process altogether.
It also solidifies my thinking that back in 2000 for the Presidential election, there was a bigger stink made about Florida simply because of the attention it had, but the point is, this was going on in every state in every location.
So from a media standpoint, Gore lost Florida, but in reality, he or Bush could have lost it in any number of states as the voting was not accurate.
Thanks for the writeup.
I will be posting this on my blog.