Voter Fraud

MSNBC’s Keith Olberman announced tonight that some people have noticed the sudden absence of Acorn discussions by Palin and McCain on the campaign trail. Could it be that the newest arrest by the Ontario Police Department is causing some muting he exclaimed?

He had my attention. I guess it is one thing to snap someone making up fictitious names to increase their voter registration in the same pen at the same address, but for someone to take the campaign information from actual voters and slam them into the Republican party, so they can’t vote as an independent or a Democrat is another story.

Bob Walsh, spokesman for the Nevada secretary of state says that there is a difference between voter registration fraud and Voter Fraud. “Voter registration fraud” involves imaginary voters; “Voter fraud” involves “real people”. Any fraud is wrong.

Like at our location, apparently many voters found themselves listed as Republicans. Apparently they had signed bogus petitions for requiring “parental permission” for underage children seeking abortions. From the information provided, these individuals were then re-registered as Republicans. When the voter arrived at the primary election polls, they were told that they couldn’t vote for the Democrat or for any other candidate but the Republican. It is amazing to me how one would assume that a person who signs a petition requiring underage children to get permission before they can have an abortion would not necessarily be a Democrat. Democrats to my knowledge don’t advocate having abortions, they advocate for the women to have the right to choose One of the provisions of the underage abortion petition was that if a child did become pregnant by her parent or other family member, that child doesn’t have any recourse or opportunity to redress the activities of the family member who impregnated her. Yes, if I had a daughter, I would want to know whether or not she was pregnant before she decided to have an abortion, but wouldn’t one pretty much know that something is wrong in the communication if the mother is not told by the daughter if such an event occurred? More than likely there would be other problems in the household and I don’t believe Republicans want us to start legislating conversations between parents and children. Do they? Augh, I know I can’t get a fully appreciated discussion here on the subject but it is interesting how the premise of this vote switching occurred, which is why I bring this up.

Anyway, in the primary election, Republicans restricted their voters so that they couldn’t vote for any other party. Is this not being restrictive? When voters noticed that they were unable to cast their vote for a Democratic candidate they’d approach and complain to us, the poll workers. Poll workers having little authority but to call their leads and suggest to the voter to either cast a “ballot” or write a complaint to the Voter Registration Office.

Apparently the scurrilous voter register operation has been ramped up in Southern California and by the time the claims are sorted out, the 2008 election will be over. Are the Republican knuckleheads banking on the voter not being too zealous and following through or asking questions during the voting process? I would assume so. I witnessed this at my poll location all day in the primary election and I did report this to our LA County Democratic Party. Our immediate supervisor knew and suggested to us to give each voter the preliminary voter form. We heard these complaints all day. The voters usually said “augh forget it” walking out and not casting any vote. Hence you chased after them to fill out the form. They responded, “I knew it, my vote doesn’t count anyway” again walking out very disgusted. You could suggest they call the 1 800 number, email LAVOTE.NET, or write a letter, which would be received after the voting; you could suggest they call their Congressman, Debra Bowen or the California Secretary of State. In some cases the voter would reluctantly just cast a Republican vote.

What they also don’t say is that McCain was involved in the Acorn voter registration drives too, before this information came out from the Republican party screamers. From what I understand that ACORN originated in “1970, as the Louisiana-based Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now” and is said to advocate for the poor. This election, some 13,000 ACORN workers have registered an unprecedented 1.3 million people”. All ACORN registrars aren’t as deviant as the few caught, the Republicans can also lift their accusations on perpetrators who registered non existent people, but I guess this is also to close to being decent to commend an organization for 1.3 million new registrants.

And it is election time, right? There are some rules against being decent to one another when you are from opposite parties! Is it me, or have you noticed that you hear almost nothing about the Libertarians, Greens or Peace and Freedom Parties?