VOTING FRAUD IS MOSTLY A MYTH

[ProSense]

VOTING FRAUD IS MOSTLY A MYTH

at Oct 14, 8:03 PM ET

Perhaps most of us have forgotten our high school civics classes, but there is one lesson so fundamental to the ideals of this democratic republic that it deserves to be encoded in our civic DNA: Voting is a right.

It is not reserved for the rich or the powerful, those who are tall or those who are pretty, the intellectually gifted or the musically inclined. It is a fundamental right of every American citizen 18 and older. The U.S. Constitution says so. Several times.

Snip...

Republican leaders have strained mightily to convince the courts that they are just protecting the franchise from voter fraud. Consider the widespread threat of illegal immigrants sneaking into the polls to vote, just as they sneaked into our country to work. Or those Dumpster-diving impostors who steal someone's light bill out of the trash and then use it as ID to cast a fraudulent ballot. Come on. I've heard 7-year-olds spin more convincing yarns.

Snip...

Here's what the Republicans are really up to: They want to shave off a small group of voters who tend to cast their ballots for Democrats, including the poor and people of color. With the nation cleaved by fierce partisanship, statewide contests are increasingly decided by very small margins. If the GOP can block just a small percentage of likely Democratic supporters, they figure they'll increase their chances for victory.

That's not exactly what you learned back in ninth-grade civics, is it?

[benddem]

1. just like welfare queens

and all the other crap the repugs dream up.

[zonmoy]

2. I do think there is voting fraud though. It is done through diebold

machines and other tricks the republicans pull.

[Kurovski]

10. That's "election" fraud, not voter fraud.

The folks running the elections and counting the votes have that particular power.

It's a crime of the powerful, just as suppressing the vote through legislation is a "crime" of the powerful.

Voter fraud can't be committed on the enormous scale that election fraud can be.

[Jackpine Radical]

11. Precisely.

"Voter fraud" is a minuscule problem that the Puggies propose to stop by means of draconian measures that will have the primary effect of suppressing the vote in certain highly Democaratic populations.

"Election fraud" is a huge, systematic problem that the Puggies have promulgated through means such as enacting HAVA to finance the widespread installation of corruptible voting machines.

[sam sarrha]

3. here are some links..............

http://www.coastalpost.com/06/10/01.html

http://www.truthout.com/docs_04/121604Z.shtml

http://www.truthout.com/docs_05/010605Y.shtml

http://www.rolingstone.com/politics/story/11717105/robert_f_kennedy_ir_wil

i dont know if you are trying to fecicious...spl if you are not.. you have some real problems seeing the reality of what is going on.. i have a lot more where these came from

[tkmorris]

5. I think you misunderstood the OP Sam

He is not saying that the kind of fraud you linked to doesn't exist, but rather the "voter fraud" that Republicans claim is rampant, the kind they say obviates the need for Voter ID laws. He is simply stating that their real reason for such laws is to make it marginally more difficult for people like the poor and elderly to vote, people who typically vote Dem.

[deutsey]

4. Check out this article on the 2004

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2844/

In June, Seven Stories Press published the book I co-authored with Steven F. Freeman, Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count.

We had spent the previous year and a half examining the exit polls and learning about the problems posed by electronic voting.

I took up this task, devoting evenings and weekends to it, because I thought the subject was vitally important. Yet the months since the book’s publication have been frustrating. No newspaper or magazine, from either the corporate or independent media sectors, has taken the subject seriously enough to review our book.

I had thought that with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s article “Was the Presidential Election Stolen?,” published last June in Rolling Stone, the topic would become part of a national debate. Yet the only media outlet that has given the subject serious consideration is Salon.com, where Farhad Manjoo slammed Kennedy’s article and its thesis, and then refused to respond when Salon.com published a devastating critique of his argument by my co-author.

Why the silence? After talking to colleagues in the independent press, I have come to the conclusion that the possibility of a stolen election is not given credence for three reasons.

MORE...

[blm]

12. Bill Clinton told ALTERNATIVE PRESS that RFK convinced him about Ohio

in July, yet never repeated that remark afterwards to ANY mainstream media.

WHY?

Brcause they don't WANT the American people to know that not only did John Kerry win, he won with the most votes ever cast for a president.

[MADem]

6. I'd say those rigged machines are voting fraud, so it does exist

Cemetery voting and lining up bodies to cast ballots is OUT....gaming the machines is IN.

Cross their hearts and hope to Diebold....

[ProSense]

7. The rigged machines are election fraud, then

there is vote suppression. Voting is what voters do! Republicans love to say voter fraud, when it's election fraud!

[MADem]

8. Voting is what voters do, and changing votes is what those bums do

And apparently they know how to manage it without leaving a trail.....

[ProSense]

9. You're right! n/t

[Cameron27]

13. I think that's what the columnist was saying...

She was pointing out that the republicans are trying to suppress the vote by establishing things such as voter ID cards by using voter fraud as an issue.

[MADem]

15. Well, the GOP perspective is that the awful Democrats send

waves of Mexicans to vote, along with people who are impersonating deceased individuals. And that's just bullshit.

The actual fact of the matter is that the real voter fraud is happening inside those machines, and it's the GOP doing the dirty deeds. The GOP also works hard to disenfranchise people who are on the voting rolls (remember the purge in Florida, where if one guy named John Jones was a felon, every John Jones who was a registered Democrat got pulled off the list?).

They're bastards. They'll stop at nothing, IMO.

[bleever]

14. "Voter fraud" 2006: Illegal immigrants swaying elections.

At least one Republican congressional candidate has run ads to warn people that illegal immigrants will show up to vote and "cancel" the votes of lawful voters. It's why we need strict ID laws, don't you see.

It's a transparently ridiculous canard designed to scare people into supporting restrictive measures that will disenfranchise voters who traditionally lean Democratic.

[Patiod]

16. My brother made that claim to me yesterday

He claimed that 15% of NC's electorate was Hispanic, and that 1% were illegal and 14% were illegal.

He also claimed that North Carolina's only voter requirement was 60 day's residence, not citizenship, so the illegals were voting like crazy. Because they got pamphlets in Mexico showing which states had the best welfare and EASIEST VOTING.

I asked if he thought that requiring a birth certificate might not disenfranchise a lot of citizens, given all the difficult rigamarole I had to go through for him to obtain his birth certificate for him when he needed it for unemployment benefits.

No, no -- everyone in NC drives, and it would be NO problem for other people to get their birth certificates.

He used to be a Rushbot who now claims to be "more of a Libertarian" (God I'm sick of that BS)