Voter Fraud

[RobMoney$]

Oh this is rich.
I hate to say I told you so, but...

http://www.lvrj.com/news/30613864.html


ACORN’s canvassers filled out forms with fake names, addresses, officials say

By ADRIENNE PACKER and MOLLY BALL, (Las Vegas)REVIEW-JOURNAL, 10/08/08

Authorities on Tuesday morning raid the offices of ACORN, a voter registration organization, and seize registration forms and computer databases.

State authorities on Tuesday raided an organization that registers low-income people to vote, alleging that its canvassers falsified forms with bogus names, fake addresses or famous personalities.

The secretary of state’s office launched an investigation after noticing that names did not match addresses and that most members of the Dallas Cowboys appeared to be registering in Nevada to vote in November’s general election.

"Some of these (forms) were facially fraudulent; we basically had the starting lineup for the Dallas Cowboys," Secretary of State Ross Miller said. "Tony Romo is not registered to vote in Nevada. Anyone trying to pose as Terrell Owens won’t be able to cast a ballot."

Agents with the secretary of state and state attorney general offices served a search warrant on the headquarters of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, at 953 E. Sahara Ave. shortly after 9 a.m. They seized voter registration forms and computer databases to determine how many fake forms were submitted and identify employees who were responsible.

They also sought information regarding current and past employees and managers.

"We don’t know how many (falsified forms) are here; there may be two, or there may be thousands," said Bob Walsh, spokesman for the secretary of state’s office.

Registration fraud typically stems from workers striving to meet their daily quota of submitted voter forms, Miller said.

Most organizations require their workers to sign up 20 voters a day. Fraudulent forms start filtering in when workers struggle to meet their quota and either fill in bogus names or accept documents with names that are clearly falsified, Miller said.

In a statement released by ACORN on Tuesday, Interim Chief Organizer Bertha Lewis said the group based in Clark County routinely flagged suspect applications and notified the Clark County Election Department. The group provided state and county officials with the names of individuals who submitted the falsified registration forms.

"Election officials routinely ignored this information and failed to act," Lewis said. "ACORN pleaded with them to take our concerns about fraudulent applications seriously."

In late July, election officials requested copies of the same documents that previously had been handed over by ACORN, Lewis said. In September, ACORN received a subpoena requesting information on 15 employees, whose names already had been turned in to election officials by the organization.

"Today’s raid by the secretary of state’s office is a stunt that serves no useful purpose other than to discredit our work registering Nevadans and distracting us from the important work ahead of getting every eligible voter to the polls," Lewis said.

Miller said that is not the case. He said the state’s investigation began before ACORN submitted the forms referred to in Lewis’ statement. In early July, investigators began looking through ACORN’s registration forms. One canvasser turned in 17 applications; only four addresses existed, the investigators alleged.

According to an affidavit filed by the secretary of state, the canvasser was interviewed and told investigators that meeting the daily quota was difficult because it was hot outside and potential voters rejected her invitation to register.

Other canvassers hired by ACORN were residents at the Casa Grande Transitional Housing Facility, a Nevada Department of Corrections institution that offers convicted felons an opportunity to take part in work-release programs.

"It raises significant concerns that they hired prison inmates, some of whom have been convicted of identity theft," Miller said.

ACORN’s field director in Nevada and the head of its voter registration effort, known as Project Vote, said the agency is cooperating fully with the investigation.

"We’re proud of what we did here," Chris Edwards said. "We’ve got nothing to hide."

Tuesday morning’s raid came on a day when ACORN had been planning a news conference and potluck lunch to celebrate the culmination of its voter registration drive, which the group said resulted in 90,000 new registrants since February, and to launch a get-out-the-vote push for the election.

The event went ahead around noon, starting with a pep talk of the group’s staffers and volunteers, who stood to testify to the mission of the enterprise and who said they would remain undaunted.

"This is a great organization," Bonnie Smith-Greathouse, head organizer for Nevada ACORN, told a group of about 15 gathered in front of the organization’s office. "We’ve done great things in the community, and we’re going to do even greater things in the future."

Smith-Greathouse suggested that powerful interests were trying to squelch the voices of the poor that ACORN is trying to empower.

"Project Vote has been attacked all over the country because we registered at least 1.2 million voters," she said. "That could sway an election. You should be very proud. Something so significant in history has never happened in Nevada before."

Edwards stressed the mission of empowering those on society’s lower rungs. "We don’t go to Trader Joe’s to register voters," he said. "We don’t go to Macy’s or Whole Foods. We sign people up to vote at welfare offices. We sign people up at post offices in poor neighborhoods."

ACORN’s voter registration drive has consisted of recruiting people from off the street, many of them down-and-outers desperate for work, with the promise of $8 an hour for often grueling work. The canvassers were required to be on their feet, flagging down potential registrants, often in the 100-plus-degree heat of the Las Vegas summer.

Although they were not paid a set fee per registration form collected, which is illegal, they had to meet certain quotas of registrations each day, which is legal.

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax, who has been speaking out about the fraudulent submissions and passing them along to the secretary of state’s office for months, said under those circumstances, there was an obvious temptation for workers to duck into an air-conditioned library, for example, and start copying out of the phone book or off a sports roster.

"Anybody who decides they’re going to pay people to go out and register voters is basically opening themselves up to that," he said. Lomax said he did not think there was a systematic attempt to submit phony forms.

Once turned in, the voter registration forms are subject to a verification process by Lomax’s office.

People whose forms listed phony or business addresses would have been sent a letter advising them they would be voided if they didn’t respond within 15 days. People who didn’t list a driver’s license or Social Security number that matched their name and address would be flagged on the voter rolls and required to bring photo identification to the polls to be allowed to vote.

Because of the safeguards, Lomax said he was confident no one will vote who shouldn’t be allowed. "People don’t need to fear for the integrity of this election," he said.

ACORN said it had a quality-control operation of its own in place to check registration forms before they were turned in. Joe Camp, who was in charge of the effort, said he would call the phone number the registrant had listed and ask whether the information on the form was correct.

"To my standards, to ACORN’s standards, everything that was turned in to the Board of Elections was legitimate," said Camp, a 28-year-old Las Vegan who said he previously worked as a real-estate appraiser.

Lomax said he has seen some evidence of quality control on ACORN’s part this year. The registration forms legally cannot be discarded or destroyed, and some would be turned in with a note saying that they appeared to be fraudulent and that the canvasser had been fired, but that was "by no means the majority" of the suspect forms, Lomax said.

ACORN is a nonpartisan organization, but it is affiliated with a political action committee that has endorsed Democrat Barack Obama in the presidential election. The Nevada authorities spearheading the investigation, Miller and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, are both Democrats.

Obama’s work as a community organizer in Chicago in the early 1990s was with Project Vote, but his campaign said it was not affiliated with ACORN at the time. Obama also was part of a team of lawyers representing ACORN in 1995 in a lawsuit that accused the state of Illinois of putting up barriers to poor people trying to register.

A spokeswoman for Obama’s campaign would not comment on his past ties to the group but said the work ACORN is now engaged in is separate from the campaign.

"The Obama campaign is not affiliated with nor do we work with ACORN," Kirsten Searer said. "We have our own, separate voter registration campaign."

Republicans seized on the news of Tuesday’s raid. The Clark County Republican Party issued a statement condemning voter fraud and calling for full prosecution of anyone responsible.

ACORN’s other major activity is housing aid, for which it is eligible for federal grants from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under newly enacted affordable-housing provisions.

Nevada Sen. John Ensign, a Republican, on Tuesday called for the suspension of the affordable housing funds because they might be going to "controversial groups like ACORN."

Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons, also a Republican, said the ACORN problem was evidence Nevada needs a law requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls. Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert, R-Reno, has proposed such a bill to be considered by the 2009 Legislature.

In the interim, Miller urged residents who registered with third parties to check the Nevada secretary of state’s Web site to reaffirm their voting status. The deadline to register for the November election is Oct. 14. New registrations must be submitted in person at the Clark County Government Center or the Clark County Election Department.


WHAT WHAT, Convicted Felons falsely registering through Acorn?
Say it ain't so, Joe?


Feel free to post other instances of confirmed voter fraud here in this thread. I'm certain this won't be the only instance.:rolleyes:

[DroppinScience]

Voter fraud is voter fraud, no matter which side it is on.

Your article mentions that ACORN (the voter registration group that is affiliated with pro-Obama peeps) is fully cooperating with the state authorities of Nevada (who are led by Democrats) in the investigation. Sounds like individual canvassers fudged the names.

[RobMoney$]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081008/ap_on_el_ge/voter_fraud


Missouri officials suspect fake voter registration

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states.


Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. She said they were bogging down work Wednesday, the final day Missourians could register to vote.

"I don't even know the entire scope of it because registrations are coming in so heavy," Davis said. "We have identified about 100 duplicates, and probably 280 addresses that don't exist, people who have driver's license numbers that won't verify or Social Security numbers that won't verify. Some have no address at all."

The nonpartisan group works to recruit low-income voters, who tend to lean Democratic. Polls show Republican presidential candidate John McCain with an edge in bellwether Missouri, but Democrat Barack Obama continues to put up a strong fight.

Jess Ordower, Midwest director of ACORN, said his group hasn't done any registrations in Kansas City since late August. He said he was told three weeks ago by election officials that there were only about 135 questionable cards — 85 of them duplicates.

"They keep telling different people different things," he said. "They gave us a list of 130, then told someone else it was 1,000."

FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton said the agency has been in contact with elections officials about potential voter fraud and plans to investigate.

"It's a matter we take very seriously," Patton said. "It is against the law to register someone to vote who does not fall within the parameters to vote, or to put someone on there falsely."

On Tuesday, authorities in Nevada seized records from ACORN after finding fraudulent registration forms that included the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys.

In April, eight ACORN workers in St. Louis city and county pleaded guilty to federal election fraud for submitting false registration cards for the 2006 election. U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said they submitted cards with false addresses and names, and forged signatures.

Ordower said Wednesday that ACORN registered about 53,500 people in Missouri this year. He believes his group is being targeted because some politicians don't want that many low-income people having a voice.

"It's par for the course," he said. "When you're doing more registrations than anyone else in the country, some don't want low-income people being empowered to vote. There are pretty targeted attacks on us, but we're proud to be out there doing the patriotic thing getting people registered to vote."

Republicans are among ACORN's loudest critics. At a campaign stop in Bethlehem, Pa., supporters of John McCain interrupted his remarks Wednesday by shouting, "No more ACORN."

According to its national Web site, the group has registered 1.3 million people nationwide for the Nov. 4 election. It also has encountered complaints of fraud stemming from registration efforts in Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada and battleground states like Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina, where new voter registrations have favored Democrats nearly 4 to 1 since the beginning of this year.

Missouri offers 11 electoral votes; the presidential candidates need at least 270 to win the election.

[RobMoney$]

Voter fraud is voter fraud, no matter which side it is on.


The GOP aren't the one's signing up the homeless.
That you can be certain.

[travesty]

My friend has agreed to "sell" his vote to his wife for sexual favors. Is this voter fraud?

[DroppinScience]

The GOP aren't the one's signing up the homeless.
That you can be certain.

Of course they're not. They're too busy trying to come up with ways to disqualify homeowners affected by the foreclosure crisis from voting. :rolleyes:

[ToucanSpam]

If we really want to discuss the difficulties in getting accurate voting numbers, perhaps we should discuss all of the mistakes made in the United States such as Florida 2000 and the numerous (and well documented) times boxes of votes have disappeared or been thrown out?



I think the bigger question here would be 'is there a way to get a 100% accurate vote total, one that includes every single eligible American voter?' and not 'why are the Dems trying to stuff ballot boxes'? I think this is a question better asked and discussed in a bipartisan manner.


EDIT: On an interesting/sexy note, the Canadian election has sparked a vote-swap between ridings where either the Liberal or NDP or Green candidate has a shot at beating out the Conservatives:

www.anyonebutharper.ca

Some believe that this is a perversion of democracy but I take two issues with this point:

1. We do not live in a democracy
2. It is completely legal in every way according to the laws of Canada.

[Dorothy Wood]

it's 2008, I can't believe there's still such a messed up registration/voting system and that there isn't a nationwide set of regulations to make everything the same.

this situation is unfortunate, but it looks like officials are working hard to keep everything on the up and up before the actual vote happens.

there are more problems than this stuff all over. I once helped out during the 2000 election at a courthouse in indiana. I was in a basement with ballots and machines and doors were wide open, they didn't check to see what I was about or anything, my friend had been hired and just brought me with to carry and pack up voting equipment. I totally could've tampered with ballots. I didn't, but you know. someone else could've, very easily.

[King PSYZ]

Oh Rob you always brighten my day with some funny link or story.

Listen, everyone will see this article for what it is but skewed by their own misconceptions or philosophies of the world.

Like you seem to think "the left" or "the dems" as you put it is trying to stuff boxes for "Barry".

A person without bias (a favorite talking point of the Rob Money agenda) sees it as an independant orginization making some downright idiodic hiring decisions and sending it's crews out with little or no oversight to register voters.

These people are likely on a quota for registrations, or paid by the completed form.

Something tells me they had a hard time pulling the numbers needed to make enough cash to justify standing out in the Vegas heat to collect registrations, which being ex-cons I'd assume wasn't exactly easy to convince potential voters they were approachable or going to steal their info...

Someone likely tried to pass a bad form, when they realised there's no way someone could proofread every form they started flooding them in.

But here's the most important, and glarring omission from your quoted article... THIS DOESN'T MEAN THESE FAKE REGISTRATIONS CAN PLACE A VOTE FOR PRESIDENT, CONGRESS, OR EVEN STUDENT COUNCIL.

You see they usually ask for ID or something to prove you are who you say you are. The fact that they were busted and giving up their records means it never made it past the initial submission stage. So if anything we should be applauding the government for catching this before they became valid registrations. I'd also gather the reason for the data seizure is to catch the ones that might have appeared legit.

But hey, great attempt at furthering your right wing agenda here.

[King PSYZ]

As an aside, I think everyone should need a photo ID when voting. But the states need to make it easier and not charge $10-$20 for a State ID (non license).

Because let's face it, if you don't know if you'll even have food or power next week, paying what could buy quite a bit of simple yet filling groceries for an ID is frankly retarded.

If someone doesn't have access to birth certificate (also prohibitively expensive in many states) then they should have to provide a thumb print and have it registered to their name as proof of identity.

While I object to the "real ID" act and full fingerprinting for ID, a thumb print is acceptable if it will help delete voter fraud and help more people avoid ID theft.

[DroppinScience]

As an aside, I think everyone should need a photo ID when voting. But the states need to make it easier and not charge $10-$20 for a State ID (non license).

Because let's face it, if you don't know if you'll even have food or power next week, paying what could buy quite a bit of simple yet filling groceries for an ID is frankly retarded.

If someone doesn't have access to birth certificate (also prohibitively expensive in many states) then they should have to provide a thumb print and have it registered to their name as proof of identity.

While I object to the "real ID" act and full fingerprinting for ID, a thumb print is acceptable if it will help delete voter fraud and help more people avoid ID theft.

The thumbprint ideas sounds a bit too Orwellian for my liking, but is it really that hard for the poor to have valid ID? Voting in Canada means you need valid govt. photo ID (license, passport, birth certificate, etc.) though not 100% of the time I've been asked for it (but they're cracking down more these days) I mean, they do have Social Security numbers, right? That means they have an identity that is provable.

[King PSYZ]

poor people don't always bother with even getting a SS#, even though it's a requirement...

but because it's so easily copied it's not a valid form of ID here.

I know alot of liberals hate the idea of prints on file. But honestly, what could they do with just the thumbprint? I fully object to full sets of prints for anyone but felons. But, keep in mind, here you get arrested for a traffic ticket and they take full prints...

So honestly, it's not like their exactly top secret. Handing over a thumb print to ensure I never have to hassle with an ID or proof of who I am is very acceptable to me.

[Dorothy Wood]

poor people don't always bother with even getting a SS#, even though it's a requirement...

but because it's so easily copied it's not a valid form of ID here.

I know alot of liberals hate the idea of prints on file. But honestly, what could they do with just the thumbprint? I fully object to full sets of prints for anyone but felons. But, keep in mind, here you get arrested for a traffic ticket and they take full prints...

So honestly, it's not like their exactly top secret. Handing over a thumb print to ensure I never have to hassle with an ID or proof of who I am is very acceptable to me.

republicans (true republicans) don't like prints either, they want less government, not a government that keeps track of them.


I can't decided yet if I'm for or against thumb prints.

[King PSYZ]

they can't track you with a thumb print unless they toss in RFID chip as well.

[Dorothy Wood]

yeah, except when they install all those sensors on things you touch that send a magic digital signal to like a satellite and then they can track your body heat with special space cameras. and then bam! you get arrested or something. and before you know it's, it's frig fragging gattaca in here.

[jennyb]

Ron Kuby talked with Bertha Harris of ACORN on today's radio show... have a listen (http://airamerica.com/content/kuby-acorn-raid)

[DroppinScience]

Like King Psyz, the "Washington Independent" pretty much destroys Rob's argument.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/10/08-5

As I noted in my post yesterday, Republicans have been aggressively attacking ACORN for alleged voter fraud, and using any false or erroneous registrations submitted by the group to claim there's a problem of widespread voter fraud that's tainting the elections.

But not only are the numbers of illegitimate registrations found tiny in comparison to the 1.3 million valid new registrations the group has signed up, but neither the Nevada GOP, nor anyone else, has presented any evidence that these duplicate or false registrations have any impact whatsoever on the validity of the vote.

After all, unless poll workers are sleeping on the job, no one can show up and vote twice. And there's no evidence, and likewise no charges, that anyone is showing up at the polls and impersonating the nonexistent voters that have been signed up.

Still, ACORN has been making huge efforts to try to prevent this sort of fraud - cooperating with local authorities by flagging suspicious registrations and having workers individually call new registrants to make sure their registrations are legitimate.

Of course, the group has good reason to cooperate with local authorities to prevent fraud. After all, even assuming the Republicans' allegations against ACORN workers are true, the only fraud that's actually been perpetrated was on ACORN itself -- not on the government or the voters of Nevada, or anywhere else.

[Documad]

You might find the recent Fresh Air interview (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95489844)interesting. An interview with David Iglesias, one of the US Attorneys fired by Bush for political reasons, explains why he didn't want to prosecute politically motivated cases of alleged voter fraud that didn't meet his standards.

I will definitely read his book.

[Documad]

By the way Rob, have you heard about the allegations in your city regarding voter intimidation? Do you think there is anything in the allegations?


I think that voter fraud is serious. Don't get me wrong. I'm more worried about electronic voting machines and people who are wrongfully turned away from the polls because of the neighborhood they live in, but I don't have a problem with people having to show ID or whatever.


And has anyone heard what happened with Ann Coulter? Has she been prosecuted yet for voting where she didn't live? That dropped off the radar, though I'm super thankful that she basically disappeared.

[DroppinScience]

And has anyone heard what happened with Ann Coulter? Has she been prosecuted yet for voting where she didn't live? That dropped off the radar, though I'm super thankful that she basically disappeared.

Whoa, this happened? Tell me more... even though you're asking for more. ;)

[DroppinScience]

Here's what Wiki says:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Coulter#Irregularities_in_public_registration

Beginning in February 2006, Coulter was investigated for, but not charged, with voting fraud for registering with the address of her real estate agent and consequently voting in the wrong precinct, a third-degree felony in Florida.[72] In May 2007 Palm Beach County authorities declined to prosecute, citing 'insubstantial evidence' of deliberate wrongdoing. Jim Fitzgerald, an FBI profiler, had told the investigating detective that Coulter had reason to fear a stalker.[73][74] Three months later it was revealed that the Florida Elections Commission had assigned an investigator to further pursue the question.[75] In December 2007, Florida Elections Commission investigators found no probable cause to believe that Coulter willfully violated the law in this matter.[76]

[jennyb]

It surprises me that they cannot set up an online voting system. Is someone working on this? You'd think they could pull it off with social security numbers etc...

[DroppinScience]

It surprises me that they cannot set up an online voting system. Is someone working on this? You'd think they could pull it off with social security numbers etc...

Online voting? NO WAY! That's easily the most vulnerable method you could imagine and hackers would be on that like flies to manure. Bad idea written all over it.

[RobMoney$]

Like you seem to think "the left" or "the dems" as you put it is trying to stuff boxes for "Barry".

Why are you putting the name "Barry" sarcastically in quotations? That is his name, or I should say was his name, isn't it? Barry Soetoro, right? Step son of the Oil exec.

A person without bias (a favorite talking point of the Rob Money agenda) sees it as an independant orginization making some downright idiodic hiring decisions and sending it's crews out with little or no oversight to register voters.

These people are likely on a quota for registrations, or paid by the completed form.

1. If that is how this organization operates, maybe they should be shut down altogether. The article itself says it's illegal for ACORN to pay per registration form.
2. Let's not act as if this is the first and only time ACORN has done something like this. This isn't even the first time they've been caught doing it.
Here's a prediction: In the city of St. Louis, everyone won't be able to get their vote in this year. Again. But of course it'll be blamed on racism. Again.
3. I love how people twist shit that I say. I NEVER SAID I WAS WITHOUT BIAS. No one is.

Something tells me they had a hard time pulling the numbers needed to make enough cash to justify standing out in the Vegas heat to collect registrations, which being ex-cons I'd assume wasn't exactly easy to convince potential voters they were approachable or going to steal their info...

Someone likely tried to pass a bad form, when they realised there's no way someone could proofread every form they started flooding them in.

Something tells me...?
Someone likely...?

Speculation

But here's the most important, and glarring omission from your quoted article... THIS DOESN'T MEAN THESE FAKE REGISTRATIONS CAN PLACE A VOTE FOR PRESIDENT, CONGRESS, OR EVEN STUDENT COUNCIL.

ACORN is famous for these type of voter registration shenanigans. They do it every election. St. Louis & New Orleans seem to be their strongest bases. They overflow the registrars office with so many applications, many not valid, to where it was almost impossible to verify everything in time.
Yet, they yell racism from the rooftops if voter picture id is required.

You see they usually ask for ID or something to prove you are who you say you are. The fact that they were busted and giving up their records means it never made it past the initial submission stage. So if anything we should be applauding the government for catching this before they became valid registrations. I'd also gather the reason for the data seizure is to catch the ones that might have appeared legit.

And yet the Democrats continue to vote down picture ID's for voting.
You need a photo ID to buy alcohol, to have a bank account, to buy cigarettes, but not to vote.

Every single election they try to pass a law saying you need a photo ID to vote. If you don't have one, one will be given for free.
I've heard every excuse why somebody can't get an ID.
Of course there is NEVER a problem getting out to vote.


But hey, great attempt at furthering your right wing agenda here.

ACORN had a big push to get college kids registered on the same day that they were allowed to fill out and submit an absentee ballot.
What's stopping a student who registered and filled out a same day ballot on campus from driving back to their home town to vote in person?QueenAdrock said she herself recieved absentee ballots from two different states. If she were within driving distance to home like the majority of kids in college are, she could have potentially voted three times.

If preventing voter fraud is a right wing agenda then fuck it, count me in as a right winger I guess.

[King PSYZ]

what's preventing these evil college kids(damn elitists!) from voting multiple times is that they can cross refrence a database to find out if someone has already voted.

granted 20-30 years ago this might have been an issue, but in the computer age not so much.

as I already stated, I belive an ID should be required and that a basic ID should be free. If the thumbprint thing is too scary, then they need to make access to birth certificates free or much lower in cost.

But even still, how is a birth certificate proof of ID? I'm pretty sure your foot has gotten bigger since birth and it seems a much easier document to forge.

[ms.peachy]

How would ID work with absentee ballots? Just aksin'.

[King PSYZ]

well they way I would think it works is if you sign up for an absentee ballot it takes you off the rolls for inperson voting so if someone attempted to vote under your name and ID they'd be denied.

as far as how to get your absentee ballot, either you request to be added to the absentee list when you register or you have to send a certified copy of your ID.

Keep in mind, I'm just a 34 year old guy that brings people into a car dealership to buy something. I'm sure there's experts that could hammer out the details far better than I. But if I can get this far, why haven't we as a nation?

[QueenAdrock]

what's preventing these evil college kids(damn elitists!) from voting multiple times is that they can cross refrence a database to find out if someone has already voted.

Correct. I got two absentee ballots, but each ballot has a specific barcode that's scanned into the system. My name appears on each one, with my address in Canada. If the barcode is scanned and my information comes up more than once, then my ballot is considered void. Though it was a mistake that I got two absentee ballots, if I were to try to vote twice I'd be caught and thrown in jail.

Plus, it tells you all over the ballots that even attempting to vote twice is a federal crime -- $5,000 fine and up to 5 years in jail. Now, I would have loved to fill out that second ballot, but not enough to risk that kind of shit. Two measly votes out of the millions that are counted just isn't worth it, and I'm pretty sure college kids can figure that shit out, too (especially the ones intelligent enough to be voting).

As for ID, they require two signatures from people who are in the room when you're filling it out (plus, their addresses). It's not perfect, but it's something, at least.

[NoFenders]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10092008/news/politics/nuts__132771.htm

A third subpoenaed voter, Freddie Johnson, 19, filled out registration cards 72 times over 18 months, officials said.

The major risk of fraud growing out of mass canvassing involves the possibility of ineligible voters filing absentee ballots, and thus avoiding checks at polling places

:cool:

[QueenAdrock]

Yeah, and Freddie Johnson was caught. I'd be willing to bet most of them do because of the barcoding and cross-referencing system. It's hard to get away with voter fraud, and when they're caught, they have the book thrown at them.

[RobMoney$]

Do you really think you're going to read a story about someone who didn't get caught committing voter fraud and who voted 72 times?

Odds are that if some people are getting caught, there are even more that aren't.

[RobMoney$]

By the way Rob, have you heard about the allegations in your city regarding voter intimidation? Do you think there is anything in the allegations?


Can you be more specific?
Voter intimidation stories happen in almost every election in this city.

[kaiser soze]

oh no.....voter resitrktionmining in othr states but yr own!!!

kull god pleeez!!!

peace!

[NoFenders]

http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/oct/10/something-smelly-in-the-shadows/






:cool:

[AceFace]

this movie is incredibly enlightening about the elections and how they're fixed all the way down to local levels. give it a chance, it'll blow your mind.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5965670944815984616

edit... it's called American Blackout.

[jennyb]

this movie is incredibly enlightening about the elections and how they're fixed all the way down to local levels. give it a chance, it'll blow your mind.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5965670944815984616

edit... it's called American Blackout.


Wow, thanks for sharing.... (y)

There's a new film out called "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story" (http://www.boogiemanfilm.com/) - I highly recommend it. It airs out the smelly campaigning tactics designed to fool and deceive the American public by this man Lee Atwater who trained Carl Rove and has gotten us to where we are today. Leaving the theater, my face literally looked like this --->:eek:

[ericg]

what chance does the next election have after what's already been done do you think? like the media, none of the candidates have addressed mass election fraud. again, check out 'american blackout', 'uncounted', 'recount' etc.

www.alternet.org/story/50941/
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.votefraud.org/how_a_priva..._our_votes.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3hUPP_bdOo

[Documad]

I think this Huffington Post article on the republicans' efforts to stir up fear over voter fraud are interesting. The author is very slanted in favor of democrats (he's apparently a former Move On guy) but I think the article is a good one. I have been confused by the scare tactics re voter fraud, in part because substantiated cases are incredibly rare in my state. And given the lack of evidence of anyone voting who shouldn't have voted, it seems like a disproportionate amount of lip service is paid to the issue. So I knew it was a tactic our former republican secretary of state in my state used to suppress the votes of low income voters. And I would suspect it's also true at the national level. So this story summed up some of what I was already thinking, and those are my favorite opinion pieces. :p


LINK to Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-matzzie/how-mccain-will-steal-the_b_133989.html)

Let me know what you think. If you live in another state, have you heard substantiated reports of any people being prosecuted for voting when they shouldn't have? In any prior elections? Do you have a link to a real story? Or is it all GOP bullshit?

[ericg]

http://www. gregpalast. com/rolling-stone-its-already-stolen/

ROLLING STONE: It's Already Stolen
Investigation by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
and Greg Palast released today

Don’t worry about Mickey Mouse or ACORN stealing the election. According to an investigative report out today in Rolling Stone magazine, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, after a year-long investigation, reveal a systematic program of "GOP vote tampering" on a massive scale.


- Republican Secretaries of State of swing-state Colorado have quietly purged one in six names from their voter rolls.


Over several months, the GOP politicos in Colorado stonewalled every attempt by Rolling Stone to get an answer to the massive purge - ten times the average state's rate of removal.


- While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million have had their registrations REJECTED under new procedures signed into law by George Bush.

Kennedy, a voting rights lawyer, charges this is a resurgence of 'Jim Crow' tactics to wrongly block Black and Hispanic voters.


- A fired US prosecutor levels new charges - accusing leaders of his own party, Republicans, with criminal acts in an attempt to block legal voters as "fraudulent.
"

- Digging through government records, the Kennedy-Palast team discovered that, in 2004, a GOP scheme called "caging” ultimately took away the rights of 1.1 million voters. The Rolling Stone duo predict that, this November 4, it will be far worse.


There's more:

- Since the last presidential race, "States used dubious 'list management' rules to scrub at least 10 million voters from their rolls.
"

Among those was Paul Maez of Las Vegas, New Mexico - a victim of an unreported but devastating purge of voters in that state that left as many as one in nine Democrats without a vote. For Maez, the state's purging his registration was particularly shocking - he's the county elections supervisor.


The Kennedy-Palast revelations go far beyond the sum of questionably purged voters recently reported by the New York Times.


"Republican operatives - the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics," report Kennedy and Palast, under the cover of fighting fraudulent voting, are "systematically disenfranchis[ing] Democrats.
"

The investigators level a deadly serious charge:

"If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat McCain at the polls - they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering.
"


Block the Vote by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & Greg Palast in the current issue (#1064) of Rolling Stone.


http://www. gregpalast. com/rolling-stone-its-already-stolen/

[kaiser soze]

mccain addresses ACORN in 2006

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ9wy2MI1NI

How quick he forgets...maybe his head should be checked

[kaiser soze]

White House orders DOJ to probe voter registrations in Ohio

What gives bush this authority?

http://www.pubrecord.org/nationworld/426-bush-orders-to-doj-to-probe-ohio-voter-registrations.html

President George W. Bush late Friday asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate whether hundreds of thousands of newly registered voters in the battleground state of Ohio would have to verify the information on their voter registration forms or be given provisional ballots, an issue the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on last week.

The unprecedented intervention by the White House less than two weeks before the presidential election may result in at least 200,000 voters in Ohio not being able to vote on Election Day if they are forced to provide additional identification when they head to the polls.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, sent a letter to Bush Friday asking that he order the Department of Justice to probe the matter.

[kaiser soze]

False letter telling Republicans and Democrats to vote the 4th and 5th. The desperation is spreading

http://hamptonroads.com/2008/10/phony-flier-says-virginians-vote-different-days

A phony State Board of Elections flier advising Republicans to vote on Nov. 4 and Democrats on Nov. 5 is being circulated in several Hampton Roads localities, according to state election officials.

In fact, Election Day for voters of all political stripes remains Nov. 4.

The somewhat official-looking flier – it features the State Board logo and the state seal – is dated Oct. 24 and indicates that “an emergency session of the General Assembly adopted the . . . emergency (voting) regulations to ease the load on local electorial (sic) precincts and ensure a fair electorial (sic) process.”

[kaiser soze]

So fucking obvious these machines are illegitimate and people aren't even hiding it. Isn't this considered vote tampering and criminal? This is a massive constitutional violation.

The guy pressed Straight Democrat and it went to John Mccain, surprise it's stolen!

You know how many people won't be paying attention and who is to know the screen will show which candidates were chosen under a straight vote.

HOW THE FUCK IS THIS BEING ALLOWED? These machines are buggier than an Apple II E dropped from a third story window.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q9NSVUu8nk&eurl

http://www.youtube.com/user/videothevote

[King PSYZ]

well the one I used had a thing that printed a hard copy reciept behind glass and you could visibly inspect it to make sure the hard copy represents your vote and if not you have the option to start over.

[kaiser soze]

Machine quarantined for frequent vote flipping in Colorado. How is it that these machines are being used after being proven time and time again they are inconsistent, corrupt, and possibly programmed to cheat.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6592

A county clerk in Colorado has finally done the right thing for the voters by removing a touch-screen voting machine from service, and quarantining it, after it was discovered to be flipping votes from one candidate to another. The failed machine in this case was a Diebold Accu-Vote, a frequent flipper.

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/votefraud.htm

[kaiser soze]

Premier Election Solutions....solving the way to steal your vote

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Election_Solutions

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a8d_1194275446

[kaiser soze]

EAC suspends Labs ability to test voting machines

http://www.eac.gov/News/eac-announces-intention-to-suspend-systest-labs/base_view

An independent lab that tests and certifies voting machines is being suspended by the federal Election Assistance Commission from testing voting systems for failing to conform to procedures and requirements set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The Colorado-based SysTest Labs is an independent lab that has been accredited for testing voting systems for federal certification. But according to the EAC, which assumed oversight responsibility for the testing and certification process only in 2006, SysTest failed to create and validate test methods, maintain proper documentation of its testing and employ properly trained or qualified personnel.

[Dorothy Wood]

http://www.youtube.com/user/videothevote


hot diggity dang, the animation and editing on that main video is top notch.


it also made me scared about election day. I should've voted early. meh.

[Echewta]

Wont this country be something when we figure out this whole voting thing.

[DroppinScience]

it also made me scared about election day. I should've voted early. meh.

Uhhh... you can STILL do early voting. If you're in the 31 states that are allowing you to early vote for any reason at all (the other 19 you have to qualify for early voting).

[Dorothy Wood]

Uhhh... you can STILL do early voting. If you're in the 31 states that are allowing you to early vote for any reason at all (the other 19 you have to qualify for early voting).


nope, today was the last day for early voting and there was no way I'd be able to do it and get to work on time. it would've probably been alright to be late, but the girl I worked with today didn't have a key to get in, so. oops.

[kaiser soze]

Montana GOP voter caging....thwarted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSADRgv6mUU

[kaiser soze]

Expecting unrest from voting shenanigans?

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Ohio_police_in_riot_gear_on_1104.html

It sounds like the kind of thing that precedes "elections" under dictatorships: Riot police being readied for "civil unrest" during a presidential vote.

But the location is in the United States. According to an internal memo acquired by the local NBC News affiliate, Toledo, Ohio police officers have been ordered to "have their riot equipment with them Tuesday and Wednesday."