This is a long post - but I caution the reader to refrain from just quickly scanning the interesting parts, but to read all three parts - the introduction, the evidence, and the final reason.
Freedom, and Democracy. These are our birthrights, our most guarded traditions, our most cherished national treasures. Nothing else of this earth comes close. How many times have we all watched elections in emerging democracies and hoped that the will of the people would be manifest by free and fair elections? We want those countries to be like us, democracies with governments of, for, and by the people. America is the country that has been the inspiration for activists for generations - can anyone forget Tienanmen square, the paper-mache statue modeled off our own Statue of Liberty, the nameless man with a briefcase stopping a line of tanks in their tracks by his own sheer courage and indomitable will?
America is a land of immigrants. My own wife was once one of the tired, the poor, the tempest-tossed yearning to breathe free - and she, like the vast majority of immigrants, is fiercely patriotic. Why? Because here we have rights. Here we believe in equality. Here we have a voice. Here our votes count every bit as much as does the president's...and to vote is patriotic, for more than anything else, our votes are what make America great at the most basic level.
To the Republican party elite, one must ask, "WHY do you not believe in Democracy?"
If one is a true patriot, then one should strive to ensure that EVERY vote is counted without regard to one's personal political, social, or religious beliefs. And the converse is every bit as true - if one makes the least efforts to prevent others from voting or tries in ANY way to corrupt the votes of others, then I say to you that such people are at best unpatriotic and at worst treasonous felons tearing away at the most crucial foundation of our great nation.
There has always been fraud in elections, but our elections have usually been fair and equitable to a reasonable extent. But no more. Now there are concerted efforts at voter suppression, voter caging, and outright election fraud...and the fact that little is being done about it makes our democracy a cruel joke before those who once looked to America for inspiration.
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
You missed some links, Glenn:
Democrats buy votes in WV
Summary of 2004 voter fraud prosecutions in Missouri
And vote buying in Louisiana.
And some more democrats buying votes in Michigan.
And some democrats got caught on video buying votes in Wisconsin.
And more vote buying in Kentucky.
And we've got bogus absentee ballots in Oklahoma.
And voting machines switched votes in NJ.
And yet another vote buying case from Kentucky.
Finally this story is just bizarre.
I could go on and on with this.
With this history, what we see with the pending ACORN situation is an old pattern being raised to a national level. We can't let it happen.
Dave
2 - Dr Dreadful
This article and Dave's response just proves four things:
1. You Yanks can't organize an election to save your lives.
2. Electronic voting machines just shouldn't be allowed. They just shouldn't.
3. Electoral fraud is nonpartisan.
4. You guys shouldn't be allowed to hold an election without UN observers. I mean, seriously. Just look at yourselves.
3 - moon
I would like to massage Doc's comments just a bit:
1. Gringos can organize FRAUDULENT elections just fine. So far only Mexico has them beat.
2. Electronic voting machines that print out a paper receipt so that the voting can be AUDITED are fine.
3. Electoral fraud is part and parcel of any SIMULATED democracy.
4. Observers don't mean squat. Elections need to be audited and certified. The OAS, EU and Carter Center have done a pretty good job when PERMITTED to do so. The problem in Gringolandia is that Gringos don't need no stinkin' audits. they are above all laws, be they international, doemstic of natural.
4 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
In my post I stated that the Democrats are not completely innocent either...but - and you cannot deny this - what fraud has been committed by Democrats is small potatoes indeed compared to what the Republicans have done. It truly is a matter of degree. To wit:
In WV - FOUR voters who voted fraudulently.
In MO - Out of the mishmash of the obviously partisan reporting, certainly less than a hundred.
In LA - There's NO evidence, simply an unidentified woman's voice. That's NOT proof, Dave.
In MI - "Barklage acknowledges the videotapes did not capture any actual vote-buying." But apparently the accusation is enough to convict?
In WI - Okay, it was done at a home for mentally-disadvantaged. ONE home. Let's be REAL generous and call it maybe another hundred.
In OK - Hey, another FIFTEEN!
In KY - INDICTED, Dave - there's a difference between 'indicted' and 'guilty', y'know - and this appears to be in a MAYORAL race. ZERO on this one.
And in NJ - That's a voting MACHINE problem...and thanks to the REPUBLICAN Bush administration, we are not allowed to have a paper trail at all. In Diebold we trust, huh?
Okay, Dave - is that all you've got? Dude - what you were able to bring against the Democrats was even in its worst case LESS THAN THREE HUNDRED nationwide...whereas the links I gave indicated a FAR greater extent in EVERY case.
Dave, it's a matter of degree. You can't compare a jaywalker to a bank robber...and you cannot get around what the founder of the Heritage Foundation said. Do you really think those 15,000 Baptist preachers and Jerry Falwell and Ronald Reagan weren't listening?
5 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave - just to do a quick follow-up. If we give you the maximum numbers of possible votes fraudulently cast according to your list, that's maybe three hundred votes for the Dems.
The links I posted show a very real possibility that the Republicans' efforts resulted in voter suppression of well over one hundred times that.
That's why I said you're comparing a jaywalker to a bank robber...but maybe that's not an accurate metaphor. How about a shoplifter and a bank robber? Does the shoplifter's crimes justify the bank robber's crime? No? Then why are you justifying the Republicans' crimes by pointing out the Democrats' crimes?
As I said, it truly is a matter of degree.
6 - Dr Dreadful
Moon,
The US has made such strenuous and vocal (and often a lot more than vocal) efforts to promote itself as the shining beacon of democracy and to encourage it in other parts of the world that there's no way any team of outside observers would ever be allowed near an American election. It would just be too humiliating.
In the UK, we've resisted the lure of electronic voter machines, and at the time I emigrated all voting was done in a reassuringly old-fashioned way, with a ballot and pencil in a little wooden booth at the local church hall. I don't recall ever having heard of an incidence of electoral fraud that anyone took at all seriously.
(Although I still think that Major's last-minute comeback to win the 1992 general was more than a bit fishy!)
Recently, they've been experimenting with more high-tech solutions such as text messaging and e-mails in an attempt to increase voter turnout. I hope we're not going to go the way of the shambles that is the US.
7 - moon
Probably the perpetrators of the various fraudulent elections in Gringolandia would tell you that there are too many people there to do it the old way.
I have a feeling that in the not-so-distant future those folks left on the planet who participate in elections--if the elections even exist--will be voting with a show of hands.
8 - Clavos
500000000
9 - Dan(Miller)
According to this article, predominately Democratic party Fairfax County, Virginia (where I lived for a long time) has decided to disenfranchise 98% of the military absentee voters.
Oh well. Dogs and soldiers stay off the grass. Fight if you must, but your vote does not count.
Dan(Miller)
10 - Clavos
Who cares, Dan(Miller)? They're just cannon fodder, and our children aren't among them...
11 - pablo
Clavy, Thats exactly what Henry Kissinger said! Nice one :)
12 - Franco
LOL, it's worth repeating......
#2 â€" Dr Dreadful
This article and Dave's response just proves four things:
1. You Yanks can't organize an election to save your lives.
2. Electronic voting machines just shouldn't be allowed. They just shouldn't.
3. Electoral fraud is nonpartisan.
4. You guys shouldn't be allowed to hold an election without UN observers. I mean, seriously. Just look at yourselves.
All true Doc and I could'nt agree more with the exception of the UN observers. Keep those disfuntional 'Oil for Food" guys and gals out of it!
It's really pretty simple. (1) Current photo ID with proof of current residence. You can't do anything else in life in the US without at least one of these, and voting sould be no different. Having both in current standing which are fully varifiavble pretty much settles it and with an election that can be audited. Start thowing violaters in jail with some accural time to have to due, this will send a stronge message. (2) Get rid of the electoral collage and go with the popular vote.
But there are powerful forces at work to keep both these two things from happening.
But Doc, how well to you really think that the EU with all its 360,000,000 citizes in all it many diverse states could carry out a vote on this scale without just as many problems, if not more, then the US? You can'r really compare the UK to the US. It really should be copaired to the whole EU for a fair comparistion.
In any event, what you said was funny as all get out, and sadly true. The the sadist part to me is we should be setting the example to others. Maybe if enough consevitives find themselves out of work from the ressioin they can find the time to organize some non-profit activiests groups and push such laws through.
In reply to this opinion pieces, it accounts for some serious charges againts the Republican GOP and because at this point that is all they are, charges, we have to wait and see what shakes out in inditments. If indited, they should do time.
However, it is most interesting to note that it seem to be members of the Republican GOP itself who are blowing the whistle on itself as sighted my the links about Mr. Spoonamore and Mr. Curtis, both GOP members taking the GOP to task over it. Something I am not seeing by the Democrats. If the Dems are blowing the whistle on other Dems, please point that out to me.
13 - Dr Dreadful
But Doc, how well to you really think that the EU with all its 360,000,000 citizes in all it many diverse states could carry out a vote on this scale without just as many problems, if not more, then the US? You can'r really compare the UK to the US. It really should be copaired to the whole EU for a fair comparistion.
Oh, but it does, Franco, and has done so every five years since 1979, with minimal problems. Of course the EU elections don't remotely approach the US presidential/general elections in importance - the European Parliament is little more than a talking shop. But their importance isn't really the issue. The point is that each EU nation is responsible for organizing its own part of the election - just as the various United States are responsible for overseeing the election process in their territories. It can be done.
That said, I don't really think that even the EU vs. the US is a fair comparison. There's much less at stake in the European Parliament elections, and therefore less motivation to cheat or to allege cheating.
14 - pablo
CLAVOS!
Franco needs your spelling comments badly.
I don't remember the republicans making any comments about how they disenfranchised over 57,000 Floridians in 2000 Franco, over 40,000 of those citizens denied their right to vote illegally, most of whom were African-Americans.
I don't recall any republicans making any stink about paperless voting machines with hidden source codes made by republicans at Diebold, do you Frankie?
15 - Franco
#14 â€" pablo
CLAVOS! Franco needs your spelling comments badly.
pablo, I am dyslexic and not even spell check and help me all the time. I have had it all my life and do the very best I can at spelling, which is not easy for me to do. Just be thankful you don’t have it.
Now if there was something I said that you did not understand due to my spelling in my post, then kindly point that out to me and I will be happy to further explain it.
I don't remember the republicans making any comments about how they disenfranchised over 57,000 Floridians in 2000 Franco, over 40,000 of those citizens denied their right to vote illegally, most of whom were African-Americans.
I asked what Democrats had blown the whistle on themselves. I’ll take your statement above as an ad hominem counter argument it is to simply mean you can’t find any either.
I don't recall any republicans making any stink about paperless voting machines with hidden source codes made by republicans at Diebold, do you Frankie?
Um, pablo, it was in fact a Republican GOP cyber-security expert that suggested Diebold tampered with 2002 election paperless voting machines that in fact had worked against the Democrats. The link is sighted in the opinion piece itself.
Now, have you got and more intelligent statements you would like to make?
16 - Franco
That said, I don't really think that even the EU vs. the US is a fair comparison. There's much less at stake in the European Parliament elections, and therefore less motivation to cheat or to allege cheating.
Doc, that waa my very point. so imagin if a EU election held the exact same importance as the US election now. I mean, what whould it be like with such an increase in a potelcal or motivation to cheat or allege cheating.
I know a lot would depend on who was running and what it meant to what parties and what states at the time and political enviornment. But it could be wilder then the US given the same extream events your witnessing in the US today, how would they play out under exact condtions in the EU. That is the whole of my point that maybe I did not make clear before.
17 - pablo
Franco,
You sir are correct about Stephen Spoonamore, and I apologize for not seeing that reference. I have watched a two hour video of Mr. Spoonamore a lifetime republican describing in detail on why he believes that Diebold machines were actually created to steal votes. Below is a link to this amazing video.
Stephen Spoonamore discusses why Diebold made paperless voting machines
But of course Nalle will always counter, if nobody has been caught then a crime hasn't occured. Where Nalle learned that kind of logic is beyond me, but he has said it on numerous occasions.
I have said before that the ACORN voting registration problems are NOTHING in comparison with what can be done with these bogus machines, where literally millions of votes can be changed at the push of a button. I wish Nalle would watch this video, but I suspect that he is far too closed minded and partisan to admit the obvious.
That being said Franco you would be hard pressed to come up with even ONE more example of any republicans of any note calling into question this horrible monstrosity of voting machines. However if it were let us say for the purposes of discussion that Diebold was owned by the Kennedy family for instance and Gore had won in the way that Bush did, Nalle would be all over it.
This is the fundamental reason I give Nalle no credence whatsoever on the voting issue, because he has none.