Wednesday, October 22, 2008

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?

Responsibility in Reporting

There is a video that is being passed out (in the millions) and mailed out which maligns Obama with the Arabic and Muslim community.

The promoters chide that they paid a regular advertising fee and mailing fees to get them inserted. This is obviously part of the Republican October surprise. But it’s no surprise that there are so many innuendos and out-and-out lies being perpetrated to support their candidate of choice, John McCain. The papers should be more mindful of how they are being used to distribute this erroneous information. We understand the freedom of speech and the fact that elections are often very nasty, but who takes responsibility to that speech when one calls out “FIRE” in a crowd at a critical PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT!

We are hoping this doesn’t mean an organized swipe at OBAMA is to come. Even though we are pleased to hear the endorsement of General Colin Powell on Meet the Press this morning, along with General Wesley Clark and General James P. Hoar. We wonder whether or not this may also amplify the division between the two parties. The 2008 election cycle will end on November the 4th.

The division of the country can go into more conflict being that our financial situation has ignited foreign markets, communities falling apart due to job losses and foreclosed homes, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan and Iraq making us all more vulnerable. We hope the media takes on more extended responsibility and recognizes that we are out of balance.

Biden’s Message

I received a short notice by email from the Biden campaign; he calls it a “Reality Check” Biden reminds us that Gore was 20 points ahead of Bush in 2004 and it didn’t stop Bush from marching all over Gore’s “people win” in the end. Well these aren’t exactly the words he chose, but it does conjure up Greg Palast’s claim that Florida was planned and there is reason to believe that Ohio was preselected as one of the swing states last time. Lord knows what the outcome for the next state or states will be. McCain seems so desperate to me.

I mean, did you take the time to watch the final debate last night. I swear someone was orchestrating McCain in the ear. He came on the set like he was on fire and determined to break Obama’s spirit. He would have been so much better off just saying to the American people, this is what I am going to do for you with the economy being in the shape that it is in. He could have come up with some concrete scenarios, and not sound like a character out of the grumpy old men movie series. I heard one commentator saying he reminded him of “Mr. Wilson” in Dennis the Menace. Boy did I get a hardy laugh out of that one.

The Republicans are making this sound like it is the first time they have ever heard of individuals filling out federal or state forms in mass and in error. Didn’t the Democrats learn this from them? Didn’t sound to me that the culprits were that bright or they were even crafty in their endeavor. Where were their managers, Oh yeah, this is coming on the wings of mortgage brokers, and real estate lenders, and banks approving bogus loans where it is now affecting the entire global market? Yes, the voter registration office has to work a lot harder to assess the pattern, sounds like they can earn some over time to me, but shouldn’t they have determined this months ago? I remember in 2000 when the same thing was done in Nevada but it was the republicans caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and of course they feign they didn’t know the rules either. Doing this doesn’t make it right, but if I recall correctly the world is going into a massive recession and we are talking about 2,000 phantom voters who haven’t even voted!!

If all employers were required to treat voting days as paid holidays, maybe everyone would take the time to go to their local poll.

Many European countries do this, why can’t we? We get President’s day off, we celebrate Valentine’s Day, Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day and other commercial madness, why not “President and Vice President of the United States Day”??

Now can Obama take this on when he gets to the White House? Let’s revise the manner that we vote as a nation. President Jimmy Carter has been raising Cain for years now on the ridiculousness and partiality of it all. They said that international body of legal voting rights wouldn’t even approve of what we are doing in the United States, so we should change this procedure immediately so we are practicing the democracy we crave and rave about. I’m sure we have a few geniuses at Harvard and Stanford that can figure this out.

We can’t be complacent and assume because of what the polls are saying that this race is the “slam dunk of the month”. I remember the Bradley factor too. I don’t want to sound pessimistic either but let’s not forget history or it will surface again. Precautionary steps should be made to go back to every Obama supporter that told us that they were going to Vote for Barack and make sure those that had early ballots turned them in. Remind them that leaving them in the out box of their desks will NOT get it to the Registar’s office. We also need to check in the local community for those that may need rides to the polls. I’ll be working ours so I’ll know by noon who didn’t show up at our location. At lunch time, I’ll be making phone calls and nagging the heck out of folks that “promised”. Our local Democratic chapter is even asking ladies to make calls at various locations. Sometimes a little nag motivates folks and makes them feel loved! I don’t know about you but I don’t want to see another newspaper come out in three hours announcing to me that there is a discrepancy as to who has won the Presidency. I don’t think my heart can stand the excitement again three times in a row.

I believe that ACORN is a distraction; if the person’s handwriting is that evident, pull all of the applications. But isn’t it a matter of who pulls the lever that is the real determinant here, not who registered? Admonish the people who lied to get paid, and let’s move on. By the way, I don’t believe the guy filling out 73 forms to help the person get paid; could he really make up that many names? Someone had to have paid him under the table and besides, the number 73 doesn’t even ring true to me. And he said he didn’t know this was wrong, OK he got his 15 minutes of national radio and television. Give the rest of us a break!