The integrity of this year’s election is under attack — but not in the way Donald Trump claims it is. Ahead of last week’s final debate, the Republican nominee called the election “rigged” dozens of times — in at least 20 tweets sent in the course of a single weekend as well as at rallies across the country in which he called on supporters to show up in “certain areas” and watch the polls.
“And when I say ‘watch,’ you know what I’m talking about, right?” he told supporters in Ohio. “Go to your place and vote. And go pick some other place and go sit there with your friends and make sure it’s on the up and up,” he encouraged supporters in Michigan. “The only way we can lose, in my opinion — and I really mean this, Pennsylvania — is if cheating goes on.”
Trump’s comments, as well as those made by some of his supporters who more explicitly voiced the racism behind his call to watch the polls, sent chills down the spines of many Americans, conjuring up visions of civil rights-era violence and voter harassment that’s not unheard of even in more recent elections.
But the real problems with this year’s vote will be largely invisible on Election Day. Three years ago, the Supreme Court struck down a major section of the Voting Rights Act, opening the doors to new efforts to restrict voting. The impact of that decision will be felt at the polls for the first time this year. Measures passed in the aftermath of that decision — restrictive voter ID laws, new requirements for voter registration, cuts to early voting options and polling sites, and other schemes — are the real threat to the November 8 vote, civil rights advocates say. And these procedural obstacles to the polls pose more insidious, large-scale challenges to suffrage than the more egregious and illegal harassment of the sort Trump has repeatedly advocated.
“This is an unfortunate part of our history,” Leah Aden, a senior counsel with the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, told The Intercept. “People are acutely aware of the changing demographics in this country and while we should all be working towards more people participating, there’s always been this segment of our country that has wanted to limit who is part of the political process.”
Voter intimidation, Aden noted, has traditionally gone hand in hand with the growing political participation of minorities. This election is slated to be the most racially diverse in U.S. history, a reality that’s already beginning to tip the scales in some swing states. One in three eligible voters is a member of a minority group, and minorities also make up 43 percent of new voters.
The growing diversity of the electorate, coupled with the uniquely racist and incendiary rhetoric of the Trump campaign, has fueled fears of widespread intimidation. Responding to Trump’s call to watch the polls, a supporter at a recent Ohio rally told the Boston Globe that he planned to look for “Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American.”
“I’m going to go right up behind them. I’ll do everything legally,” he said, describing a practice that’s unequivocally illegal under federal law. “I want to see if they are accountable. I’m not going to do anything illegal. I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”
The specter of voter intimidation and growing fears of violence at the polls have led some local officials to add “active shooter training” to Election Day preparation, and the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented growing threats of “civil war” from white supremacists should Hillary Clinton win.
An early voting sign points voters to the polling station at the Pinellas County Election Services office on Oct. 24, 2016, in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
“It’ll be bloody but I think if enough heads are busted the will become loud and clear” a commenter wrote on the alt-right website the Daily Stormer. “They want violence? Just let the try declaring Hillary winner,” another user wrote. “Enough of being tough in the blogs, be tough in real life,” wrote a commenter in one of 240 militia group Facebook pages that are open to the public.
The Trump campaign has called on volunteers to sign up as election observers. To lead the effort, the campaign reportedly recruited Mike Roman, a Republican who in 2008 helped promote a video showing two members of the New Black Panthers, one with a billy club, outside a Philadelphia polling site. That isolated incident fueled months of media frenzy over voter intimidation and prompted two DOJ investigations. Trump adviser Roger Stone told The Guardian that 1,300 volunteers from the grassroots Citizens for Trump group planned to conduct exit polls in nine swing-state cities with large minority populations — a plan resembling voter intimidation more than traditional exit polling. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on these reports.
But despite the incessant rhetoric of election fraud coming from Trump’s camp, some remain skeptical that significant Election Day intimidation will actually take place. A Republican election official in Philadelphia — one of the cities that Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Newt Gingrich all singled out as being rife with fraud — told the New York Times that his office hadn’t received “a single call from somebody outside Philadelphia looking to be a poll watcher.”
Trump himself seems to be hazy on the details. In Pennsylvania, for instance, poll monitors have to be registered to vote in the county they are monitoring. “So when Trump goes to rural Pennsylvania and says I want you to go to certain parts of Philadelphia and watch the polls, he is telling them to do something illegal,” said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s voting rights project. “Everyone agrees that the parties are entitled to and should have people watch the polls. We want certified poll monitors. We don’t want these broad, blanket calls for random people to show up at the polls in places they’re not familiar with and look for anything that they think is suspicious.”
But even alarmism is a form of voter intimidation — and it cuts both ways. Researchers have suggested that Trump’s insistence that the election is rigged might be discouraging his own supporters more than his opponents. And civil rights advocates are taking the threats of intimidation seriously while warning against the inhibiting impact of hyped-up speculation about Election Day disturbances.
“It’s tough, because I don’t want voters to be afraid, I don’t want them to think that this is something that’s very common,” said Ho. “But at the same time, people need to know that this is something that happens from time to time, and when it does, they need to know their rights and they need to report what they see.”
In fact, while voter intimidation and harassment have become far more rare than subtler and more insidious assaults on voting rights, there are plenty of precedents, and one does not need to travel too far back in history to find them.
In 1964, Republican Party lawyers, including future Supreme Court justice William Rehnquist, demanded that black and Latino voters in Arizona read out sections of the U.S. Constitution to prove their citizenship. In 1966, a year after the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, white teenagers in Georgia harassed black voters in line at the polls as police watched; white election officials inspected black voters’ ballots in Alabama; and Mississippi plantation workers were forced to cast their ballots in plantation stores as their bosses watched. The list goes on and on.
Fast forward to 2004, when University of Pittsburgh students were held up for hours at the polls as Republican Party lawyers challenged the credentials of “pretty much every young voter who showed up.” That same year, in Harris County, Texas, local police officers showed up at an early voting site and demanded to see IDs, saying anyone with an outstanding warrant would go to jail. In 2012, an organizer with the right-wing poll-watching group “True the Vote” told volunteer monitors that the voters they targeted should be made to feel “like driving and seeing the police following you.”
Civil rights advocates fear that Trump’s call for his supporters to watch the polls might lead to more incidents of that nature this year. Fliers circulating on social media have been reminding voters of their rights, calling on anyone experiencing intimidation or obstruction to take photos and report the incident to authorities. And in addition to the parties’ and campaigns’ official poll monitors — which must be pre-registered with local election officials — independent observers will also be watching the polls and fielding calls from voters about any irregularities.
One such initiative is the National Lawyers’ Committee’s “election protection” program, a nonpartisan effort that will dispatch trained monitors to 27 states. The group has also worked to remove barriers to the polls ahead of the vote: It recently filed suit in Virginia after the state’s online registration tool crashed, causing eligible voters to miss the deadline, and it successfully fought to extend the registration deadline in North Carolina areas affected by Hurricane Matthew.
Kristen Clarke, president of the committee, told The Intercept she fears the impact of both those procedural obstacles and the prospect of more blatant harassment. “We want a democracy where people feel they are free and able to participate,” she said. “My hope is that people will not be discouraged and stay at home, that’s just not a healthy outcome for our democracy.”
Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
“Legal” Obstacles to Voting
But even with the potential for intimidation at the polls, by far the greatest challenge to this year’s election will come from state and local governments themselves. The widespread, unfounded talk of election fraud pushed by Trump has been “a distraction from the real problems that voters face in communities around the country,” Clarke said. “There are voters in certain communities that are particularly vulnerable this election cycle in the wake of the gutting of the Voting Rights Act.”
This election marks the first presidential race since the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down a provision of the Voting Rights Act that required nine states and several jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to secure federal approval before changing election laws and procedures.
That decision was followed by a rash of measures across the country — some proposed within hours of the court’s ruling — restricting voting access for the minority voters the Voting Rights Act was originally intended to protect. Many of those measures have been challenged in court, some successfully, but uncertainty over the new election rules has left voters confused and voting rights advocates scrambling to litigate every new attempt at restrictions.
At least 14 states have new restrictions in place this year, including voter ID laws, changes in registration requirements, and cuts to early voting options. In Maricopa County, the largest county in Arizona, officials closed 70 percent of the polling sites, causing long delays during the primaries and prompting a DOJ investigation. In Florida and Ohio, officials tried to purge thousands of mostly black voters from their rolls. As The Intercept has reported, Missouri legislators even proposed changing the state’s constitution — which unlike the federal one includes an affirmative right to vote — in an effort to pass stricter voter ID laws. The proposed amendment will be on the ballot on November 8. The NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund maintains a regularly updated tally of voter suppression efforts that is more than 100 pages long.
Not incidentally, the states that in recent years have been most adamant about restricting access to the polls are those that were previously covered by the Voting Rights Act’s federal oversight, as well as those seeing the growing political participation of minorities. According to research compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice, of the 11 states with the highest African-American turnout in 2008, six have new restrictions in place, and of the 12 states with the largest Hispanic population growth between 2000 and 2010, seven passed laws making it harder to vote.
In light of the Shelby County decision, the DOJ has significantly scaled back its election monitoring. In 2012, the agency’s observers monitored elections in 13 states. This year, they will be inside polls in only four states, only one of which, Louisiana, is in the South, where historically the federal government exercised broad oversight over voting rights.
The Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe, one of the world’s largest human rights and security groups and a monitor of elections across the world, plans to dispatch nearly 500 observers to the U.S. The organization has been sending observers to monitor U.S. elections since 2004, but this year is different.
“I have often heard claims of fraud by electoral contestants,” wrote Christine Muttonen, the mission’s coordinator, in an op-ed for CNN. “But these tend to be in countries emerging from authoritarianism and in post-conflict scenarios; they are somewhat surprising to hear in the world’s oldest constitutional republic.”
Election fraud, the ostensible motivation between both Trump’s “rigged vote” rhetoric and voter restriction measures across the country, has repeatedly been debunked as a myth. What can’t be debunked is this country’s history of discrimination and repression of communities of color, and that shameful legacy remains the most enduring threat to the integrity of the November 8 vote.
Top photo: San Francisco attorney Paul More, one of more than 400 lawyers monitoring voter intimidation and fraud with the nonpartisan election observation group “Election Protection,” answers voters’ questions at the Stupak Community Center polling place on Nov. 2, 2004, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Total BS article
You cannot write HONESTLY about the possibility of vote rigging in the 2016 general election without reviewing, disclosing, and discussing the widespread reports of vote rigging in the 2016 Democratic Primaries, most of which reports came from progressive journalists and independent researchers, not from rightwing Republicans. There are reports of vote rigging to favor Clinton in New York, Chicago, California, Arizona, and in all states where there was no paper trail to doublecheck digitally reported results. These include:
1. Video of numerous Chicago poll workers reporting tampering with voting machine totals to add votes for Clinton and subtract them from Sanders in a state whose primary Clinton barely won. See see 1:10 ff.. to 1:59 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_mJ5KutY8s
and see also http://www.inquisitr.com/3028779/election-board-scandal-bernie-sanders-loses-votes-hillary-clinton-granted-votes-voters-erased/ (machine rigging in Chicago, voter suppression in New York).
2. The erasure of over 125 000 democrats from the rolls in Brooklyn, a district heavily favoring hometown boy Sanders, before the New York democratic primary, which HRC only won by 250 000 votes. In addition, tens of thousands of newly registered democratic voters (the vast majority new Sanders supporters) found themselves unable to vote because they had been classified as “unaffiliated” rather than democrats. See Mother Jones, a longtime progressive magazine: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/new-york-primary-voter-purge See also Democracy Now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYq2GprEAug And see The Young Turks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPi_-mTPZHw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtgPFVo5VFY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORoXanoqXwQ
N.B. The NY board of elections official who erased the Brooklyn voter registrations sold a famously worthless, rat infested, rundown brownstone with more than 20 building code violations filed against it to a Hilary Clinton super delegate in the year preceding the primary. See these stories in Breitbart and the New York Daily News, among others: http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/04/25/brooklyn-election-official-scored-big-profit-from-real-estate-deal-with-hillary-clinton-supporters/
http://www.bqbrew.com/2016/04/23/suspended-election-official-sold-eyesore-millions-2014/ And finally, see also Redacted Tonight’s acerbic overall review of the rigging of the NY primary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4LvFkelz0I
3. The well known closure of the usual polling places in Phoenix, Arizona suppress same day voting with lines in desert heart for 4 to 5 hours occurring. Note that a majority of those voting on the day of that primary voted for Sanders, and HRC only won because of her lead in early voting. So, suppressing same day voting inevitably helped Clinton’s relative results, in another close race.
4. In California, massive chaos throughout the state suppressed untold thousands of votes by newly registered young voters and independents (who favored Sanders by 70 to 80% margins as well) and millions of votes not even being counted for weeks after the primary. There is video testimony from poll workers that they were instructed not to provide independent voters with “crossover” ballots which would be counted with the other regular ballots, but instead gave them “provisional” ballots which are not always even counted. See The Young Turks’ mini-documentary on this at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5ugmNoanx8
Finally, an independent research study at Stanford University research study discovered that in ALL the democratic primaries where there was no paper trail for auditing the digital results, Clinton’s vote totals were up to 10% higher than the exit polls indicated. In ALL the states where there was a paper trail, this discrepancy disappeared. Comparisons with results in 2008’s contested primaries between Clinton and Obama revealed no such discrepancy. The statistical possibility of such a result happening without vote rigging…is virtually non-existent. See: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6mLpCEIGEYGYl9RZWFRcmpsZk0/view?pref=2&pli=1
I’m sorry, this article is woefully one-sided, a half truth which practically amounts to a lie. Why? Because it completely ignores the widespread evidence of rigging in the democratic primaries by the Clinton machine and its allies in the democratic party. These include: 1. the suppression of hundreds of thousands of registered voters in Brooklyn and elsewhere in NY before the NY primary, 2. video testimony, easily located online on YouTube, of Chicago poll workers reporting how they saw polling place “auditors” mechanically changing voting machine totals to add votes for Clinton and subtract them from Sanders, 3. the systematic training of California poll workers to deny crossover ballots to independent voters and instead give them “provisional” ballots, resulting in roughly two MILLION votes not being counted weeks after the primary was over, 4. the closing of two thirds of Arizona’s polling places in and around Phoenix causing 4 to 5 hour discouraging delays in the desert heat, 5. the research study which came out of Stanford University showing that in ALL the primaries where there was no paper trail to audit the electronic results, Clinton polled up to 10% above the exit poll data, whereas in all the primaries where there was a paper trail, she didn’t, a result which the researchers deemed impossible without vote fixing, and a result which was markedly absent in the 2008 primaries between Clinton and Obama. Anyone writing an OBJECTIVE and thoroughly HONEST discussion of the dangers of vote rigging in the upcoming general election would have to do the homework on these issues, which could be completed in three or four hours of online searches. Otherwise, no,, it’s half truths amounting to a lie. Why is it that those who oppose Trump find it so EASY to engage in mendacious half truths? Look, who you oppose does not give you a licence to do crappy journalism. You know what, I dare the Intercept to get someone to do a piece on how and why Trump might be RIGHT about the dangers of vote rigging happening in the general election the way it did in the democratic primaries. THAT would impress me.
I consider it fortunate that The Intercept has the objectivity to examine what tactics are used to unfairly affect the outcome of elections, to evaluate how effective each tactic is, and to scrutinize how frequently or rarely each tactic is engaged in, in order to inform the public what the real threat to democracy is.
Not voter fraud, but voter suppression.
People, who pay attention, have known that for some time, but clearly there are those who need it explained to them.
Rapey the KKKlown is using a false assertion of “widespread voter fraud” to incite racist thugs to intimidate voters in non-white neighbourhoods, “because of you know what I’m talking about.”
Rather than “threat to democracy,” I should say, “threat to the integrity of the vote.”
Obviously the democratic process is manipulated in far more ways than just the attacks against the integrity of the vote.
The “rigged” political process has reached a level of uncomfortableness. First the elite media took issue with Donald Trump’s use of the word “inner-city.” Now they want to magnify and gussy up his use of the term ghetto. Their embellishment is nothing more than “gilt-edged” semantics and immaculate “bubbles of gas” emanating from their ass.
But, this is precisely the reason there is no longer a blind partisanship link between the black community and the Democratic Party. The black community owes the Democratic Party NOTHING. It’s the Democratic Party’s continued facetiously, disturbing and arrogant attitude. We turned out and backed the Democratic Party for more than 50 years. In exchange for our blind loyalty we got nothing.
Donald Trump has called for a “NEW DEAL” and has pledged to listen to African-Americans. He said “I fully understand the African-American community has suffered from discrimination,” Mr. Trump has specifically referenced disparities in education, employment and public safety, and promised to bring “prosperity” to the black communities that Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party and black political leaders now refused to admit is troubled.
Those who control the black community “block of votes” are upset. They realize Mr. Trump is a threat to the monopoly they have operated for decades at the expense of the lives of black boys and girls dying each day in our INNER-CITY STREETS. They need to “miss us already” with that bullsh*t that we no longer live in the hood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dieNd5h_qpw?
Rapey the KKKlown is polling at 0% with black people.
It could be because he said, “I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists,” rather than disavow the KKK.
It could be because he is hostile to Black Lives Matter.
It could be because he emboldens racist pigs, and even killer-pigs.
His list of outrages and offenses is very literally endless.
The reason that walking puke-stain “fully understand(s) the African-American community has suffered from discrimination,” is because he has personally perpetrated so much of it.
Oh yeah….didn’t Trump call young black kids ‘super-predators’ and create the federal ‘3 strikes’ law in the 90s to put them in prison for life??
my bad…that was the Klintons.
And/Or:
It could be because he supports mass imprisonment of black people.
It could be because he advocates disproportionate policing of black people.
It could be because he advocates brutal policing of black people.
It could be because he vilifies black people so indiscriminately, that EVEN NOW – after they’ve been PROVED INNOCENT – he persists in vilifying the Central Park Five.
Then again:
It could be because when a black person is ridiculous enough to support him, and shows up at a rally, Rapey the KKKlown calls that black supporter a “protester,” asks, “Were you paid $1,500 to be a thug,” and orders, “Get him out.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/11/1/professor_carol_anderson_on_police_killings
Voter suppression……“Go to your place and vote. And go pick some other place and go sit there with your friends and make sure it’s on the up and up” – my question would be how? What do you see and when do you see it? and what it is??
At least 14 states have new restrictions in place this year, including voter ID laws, changes in registration requirements, and cuts to early voting options. In Maricopa County, the largest county in Arizona, officials closed 70 percent of the polling sites…. and other new restrictions
VOTER SUPPRESSION IS THE REAL ELECTION SCANDAL
No it isn’t….not even close.
The problem here is that most people overlook the multiple ways elections can be rigged. Blaming the few voters that may vote twice is easy to understand and what Trump claims. It takes the spotlight off ‘the system’ being corrupted and puts it on the ‘criminals’. As Greg Palace and others who investigate election fraud notes, there are around a dozen different mechanisms used to change the recorded votes.
This ‘voter fraud’ of Donald’s is the most rare method. The most common is removing [mainly democrat] people from the rolls, using crosscheck, followed by not counting a vote for various reasons (e.g. provisionals), followed by actual manipulation of the votes at the scanning station and/or when tabulated centrally.
Usually it’s a combination of methods in any election and this has been done by both parties for many years, especially in state elections. Republicans are the masters, but the democrats proved in their primaries, they are also now up with the play.
” Election fraud, the ostensible motivation between both Trump’s “rigged vote” rhetoric and voter restriction measures across the country, has repeatedly been debunked as a myth. ”
C’mon , The Intercept , you have proofreaders and editors , don’t you ? Surely this was an honest mistake , using the term “election fraud” when “voter fraud” is really the topic of discussion. Right ?
Yes , voter fraud of the sort where someone votes more than once or dead people vote is an over-hyped threat. Election fraud , via various means , is a different story – it’s real , serious , and has occurred as recently as the past Democratic primary. Election fraud via manipulation of machine-based vote counts is “easy” , according to the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAIod_6-wO4
http://icitech.org/category/latest-posts/
I’m sure The Intercept will correct this error immediately , as they wouldn’t stoop so low as has the MSM in trivializing the ongoing damage done to our democracy by election fraud.
We have a political establishment that is governing according to the priorities of the 1%, yet needs the votes of the 99% to achieve office. Such a situation necessarily requires a host of lies, evasions, and back room operations to function.
To any American, residing in any state or U.S. Territory, registered to vote or not,
Call your state’s Secretary of State’s Office and ask one simple question:
– “How do I know my ballot was received and counted by my county registrar of voters”?
Election’s are not rigged by stuffing the ballot boxes, to the contrary, they are rigged by removing ballots from ever being counted in the first place.
Yes, that’s the real scandal if you have already forgotten about the democratic primaries.
You want suppression of vote this is just a little part of it.
Here is the wider scope of it.
First, do we trust the results of elections? Are they credible in itself, are they expression of the will of the majority of the people. The answer is no. there is not independent auditing of the results unless court orders it and not always. Second about 25% of all eligible voters cast a vote and about 43% of registered voters (active and inactive) participates in elections and hence in vast majority counties the results such that would have been rendered invalid, when “winning” candidate gathers about 13% of all eligible voters or 22% of registered voters (mostly non existent category in majority of countries).
The US citizen are allowed, even invited to monitor elections in over thirty countries all over the world with full support and even funding from US Dept of State that defines fair elections on its website. Application of DOS criteria would immediately render US elections unfair and illegitimate.
Why US citizen are not allowed in the US to monitor their own elections making sure that they are free and fair and instead are threatened with lawsuits, as international monitors even from Western Europe/Australia are threatened as well.
What is the election establishment hiding?
If they have nothing to hide and their hands are clean they should not object to independent monitoring of the elections. If they are honest, they have nothing to hide, however, if they are dishonest and they are covering up election fraud they would understandingly oppose to any form of verification of their claims by independent means. There are no two ways about it.
In fact, for those who still do not know it may be shocking but everything is rigged from beginning to the end of this farcical spectacle called election. The crime of fraud is so enormous that most cannot believe it.
In fact US ranks about fifty in elections freedom, access, fairness and transparency. Such a appallingly low ranking makes the outcome of any US elections problematic and lacking of sufficient credibility to rely on, especially in face of over the years/decades reporting of vote rigging in the US.
Elections are regularity defrauded for decades in thousands of well-documented ways confirmed by both parties , third parties and independent researchers at least in following ways:
By limiting selection of possible candidates and their access to statewide or national ballot box via rigged undemocratic caucuses and primaries and other unreasonable requirements, by eliminating and/or confusing voters from voting at proper physical location, forcing into never counted provisional vote by purposely hiding registered lists, purging made up “felons” from voter lists, requiring expensive or unavailable or costly to obtain due to extensive travel, documents, threatening citizen (of color) with deportation, accusing them of voter fraud, offering meaningless provisional ballots, eliminating students and military when needed on phony registration issues, signature, pictures, purposefully misspelled names etc., reducing number of polling places where majority votes for “rogue” candidate, forcing people to stand in line for hours or preventing people from voting all together.
Selecting poling remote locations with obstructed public access by car or transit, paid parking, exposed to weather elements in November.
Hacking databases before and after vote, switching votes adding votes for absent voters, and party affiliations at polling places as well up in the data collating chain, filing in court in frivolous law suits aimed to block unwanted candidates, outrageous voting ON WORKING DAY (everywhere else voting is on Sunday or a day free of work) skewing that way vote toward older retired people.
Lying of whom we vote for, a fraudulent ballot supposedly voting for “candidates” but in fact voting on unnamed electors, outrageous electorate college rules design to directly suppress democracy.
Requirement of approval of the electoral vote by congress is an outrageous thing illegal in quasi-democratic western countries due to division of powers.
Voting day propaganda to discourage voting by phony predictions everywhere else there is campaigning ban, silence for two to three days before Election Day. No independent verification of the vote or serious reporting by international observers about violations, or independent exit polls, and many, many more ways every election is stolen as anybody who opens eyes can see.
All the above fraud prepared by close group of election criminals on political party payroll, months/years before election date often without any contribution from ordinary polling workers who believe that nothing is rigged.
If somebody think that they would restrain themselves, think again. The regime, in a form of mostly unsuspecting county registrars are tools of establishment and did and will do everything, everything they can and they can a lot, to defraud those elections and push an establishment candidate down to our throats.
And nobody will be watching their hands. The credibility hence of these elections is near zero.
And what media is talking about most ? One harmonious chorus Ivanka’s sex life on the left or that Hillary is dying on the right as they are told and paid for by Deep state.
The presstitudes are run by Deep State, all oligarchic foundations and imperial corporations within socioeconomic system of corporatism I.e. fascism of Mussolini who after taking over all chambers of parliament by murder and intimidation, created additional parliament chamber with CEOs or representatives of big corporations operated in Italy including American corporations.
This chamber had right to veto any law that would hurt their profit or other interests, as well as legislative initiative. NYT presstitudes praised such as arrangement in 1928/29, later even praised Mussolini for it as a measure to alleviate impact of 1929 crash.
Mussolini at least was honest while American elite cowardly loaded existing three chambers of power with corporatists and oligarchs so there is no even one chamber that represents any segment of people but 1% anymore as Princeton report indicated.
Media presstitudes are working hard to erase this reality from people’s minds and sheepdog desperate people into slaughter booths on Nov. 8.
Americans, due to media conditioning, suffer from mass psychotic episode called a cargo cult of begging, praying, mental self-mutilation, infant like temper tantrum, crying to hidden powers for mercy, what J.S. Mill was writing about over a century ago, to be chosen by God like creatures of oligarchy and allowed to survive and thrive no matter what calamity is to be bestowed on the rest of us.
Let’s return to humanity, BOYCOTT THIS REGIME AND ITS ANOINTED STOOGES.
We must denounce this abhorrent despotic regime and their anointed puppets whoever it will be, reject this illegitimate election farce as of Nov. 9 as Declaration of Independence requires.
Well said,stigira man. I am thinking the writer of this article must be a paid Hillary shill. Election fraud is a myth? Wow. Astoundingly irresponsible statement. Especially as it defy’s all of the factual evidence proving rigging and fraud.
Not rigged? Really? So…..the DNC emails conspiring against Sanders weren’t real?
BTW, one reason the Sanders vote was lower than it would have been was due to closing of polling places, which happened in a number of states. That’s also one of the many reasons why George W. Bush “won” South Carolina over John McCain back in 2000- along with harsh, negative attacks, party establishment rallying behind him, illegal endorsement, coordination with outside groups, and, of course, lots of money.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/15/us/2000-campaign-south-carolina-primaries-justice-dept-investigating-poll-closings.html
I just finished reading The Dred Scott Case by Don E. Fehrenbacher, 1978. In 1857 Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote the majority opinion which stated: No Negro has any rights that a white man has to respect. Today no colored person has any rights that a Evangelical Republican has to respect. The more times change the more they remain the same.
BTW, did you know who Roger Taney was the son-in-law of? Francis Scott Key. In fact, Taney is the source for some of the story surrounding Key’s most famous work.
Carefull not to handle so much bullshit with white gloves.
Democracy American style …vote if you can find a way and we will find a way to discard it if it does not suit the
neo-establishment. For the purpose of this comment: Neo-liberal has no party.
A lot of people look from the outside into the upcoming US election , what do they see ?
It ain’t Democracy , that is the fact . The American Elite dropped there Mask and shown their
Faschist Face . Many old friends turn there back onto that country , right now the MSM Propaganda gives a sign “yeah we are alright” but it ain’t right at all . It’s going down the drain !
The Master of destruction has won only enemies on the back of the Americans . The Americans will pay the price not there leaders and that is sad .
What is up must come down at one point , realize it to minimize the price for your own future .
There is always an alternative ….
Vote suppression is a hold over from the bad old days when the Republican establishment didn’t support the Democratic nominee. Now that everyone can agree to unite behind a single candidate, suppression is superfluous. This represents a new benchmark for democracy in America – the point at which votes became so meaningless, it was no longer necessary to suppress them.
Wikileaks Podesta e-mails disclose Clinton administration’s plans for aliens.
https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/15052
Writer is Harvard, Columbia, NYU graduate that doesn’t see fraud as she is part of the sysytem that allows it and denies it , because they are the ones controlling it. That’s right Bernie Sanders obviously lost in certain important states, there was no fraudulent manipulations by the Clinton team and Schulz. DNC manipulator Kaine, has been appointed VP for his hand in the fraud and fix. To not see this you must be ivy league trained, as there graduates rule and control not only what is fraud, but will be noticed and not noticed as voter fraud.
You’ve managed to conflate all forms of elections-fixing, with ‘voter fraud’.
Furthermore, the Democratic Party primaries were rigged by having highly exclusionary limitations on who was allowed to vote to start with, and then adding to that, the intensely Republican tactic of mass-purging their party’s voter registers of the people who were most likely to be left-leaning.
Mass disenfranchisement, restrictive voter ID laws, and district gerrymandering, are how our overlords affect enough votes to influence the outcome of an election; NOT by INDIVIDUAL voters engaging in ‘voter fraud’, in a futile attempt to steal an election ONE VOTE AT A TIME (which is what “voter fraud” means).
Further still, the United States federal elections are not invigilated by the same network of scrutineers as the Democratic Party’s internal party primaries. Obviously.
In a general election, each STATE oversees its elections process.
And it is the Republican states that have enacted restrictive voter ID laws, gerrymandered districts, and repeatedly mass-purged left leaning voters from the voting registers.
election rigging and voter fraud are 2 different operations indeed.
But voter restriction is neither of the others – it’s a different animal entirely as i am sure you will agree.
The realmost problem is RIGGING. Rigging is cheaper, more efficient, and garners way more results. This is why the Soros connection – The chairman of Smartmatic is Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, who sits in the British House of Lords…
rigging is also termed as fixing.
Election rigging is so easy to do and so easy to get away with, you know they do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcxGGnmRQAs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfN2-uV-ZuI
“intensely Republican tactic of mass-purging their party’s voter registers”
Can you provide a link showing this happens? Frankly, it doesn’t make sense for Republicans to change a voter’s party from Republican to unaffiliated so they can’t vote in the primary against a more conservative candidate they wouldn’t support in the general election. It might be advantageous to some very conservative candidate, but it’s of no benefit to Republicans.
And really, what’s the problem with voter ID laws? Your identity is checked every time you buy something at the store unless you’re paying cash, and you can’t even travel on a plan without one. And if one can’t get an ID, then what makes them qualified to vote? What’s to stop anyone from showing up and demanding to vote, in every precinct, if not an ID? Anything else, such as a utility bill, is easily forged.
Regarding your ‘quote':
The REST of my sentence was, “of the people who were most likely to be left-leaning.”
Regarding your first paragraph:
Nothing you wrote relates to ANYTHING I wrote.
My comment is a reply is to a comment that compares the general elections to the Democratic Party primaries.
My reply scrutinizes THAT comparison.
Cheating – by mass-purging voter registers of the people who are most likely to be left-leaning – is a tactic that has become an epidemic in Republican states.
That intensely Republican tactic was used by Clinton/Schultz, on their party’s voter registers, during the primaries.
My having said, “the United States federal elections are not invigilated by the same network of scrutineers as the Democratic Party’s internal party primaries,” SHOULD have given you a SECOND hint at what was being compared.
Beyond that, I unequivocally stated, “Republican states (have)… repeatedly mass-purged left leaning voters from the voting registers.”
If you can go THAT wrong while reading a comment, then you can’t possibly understand the news articles you should be reading. You’ve certainly failed to understand THIS article (if you even bothered trying to read it).
Regarding your second Paragraph:
“What makes them qualified to vote” is the fact that they are Americans, monster.
VOTING IS A RIGHT.
“What’s to stop them” is the fact that they would be risking prison in order to do something that couldn’t possibly change the outcome of the election (the same thing that has always stopped people WHO CAN COUNT from voter fraud).
Someone, who can’t wrap his brain around the fact that it is IMPOSSIBLE to affect the outcome of an election, by INDIVIDUAL voters attempting to cast votes that they aren’t entitled to, ONE VOTE AT A TIME, is in no position to dismiss anyone else as not being “qualified to vote.”
LEAST of all, for being POOR.
Then IDs should be considered an equal infringement upon the 2nd Amendment as well.
Also, you excluded the most used and powerful tool of election rigging – social manipulation via inculcation by the Press.
Almost as much as price, Slappy.
You should lobby the government to force arms dealers to provide a comprehensive arsenal of guns to every American for FREE.
If you truly consider that a right.
“Almost as much as price”???
Are you’re picking and choosing which constitutional rights to uphold and which to ignore??
How can you possibly argue that voter IDs fulfill the criteria to infringe upon the right to vote; yet based on (and fulfilling) the exact same criteria (which disenfranchises the exact same people), you don’t believe IDs infringe on the 2nd?? To truly believe that, you’d have to be an intellectual reprobate.
Ask someone to HELP you read.
I see you’re going with ‘intellectual reprobate’…
Wipe your chin.
You’re drooling.
Another rousing zinger…which totally addresses your logical inconsistency
Get over it all of you. I’m 85 years old and the son of Fall River mill workers who worked like dogs and died still without hope,and barely surviving .You and your children and children’s children will all face the same fate. Unless you have wealth and political connections in this county you tragically face the same dyspeptic finality. .
You can come as close as Canada to see things done differently. Firstly, you do not have to go and do a two step; you are registered so virtually everyone is registered for them and you can check the voter registration info to be sure you are on it. It used to be mounted on poles around the neighborhood. Voting is done by paper ballot with an X, no chads….duuuh; why would you not. The party’s have official scrutineers at polling places who observe the voting and the count. Your employer has to give you enough time off to vote by law. For the last few years; more ID has been required (Conservative Government) but it’s not onerous. Lots of convenient advance polls. Now, we too have essentially a corporate duopoly but a democratic socialist party is available and gets a substantial percentage of the vote although through the magic of the first past the post system 40% gets you a majority government. Our current “Liberal” regime has promised a change but that was before they won sooooo…we will see. We do do gerrymandering and the rich always have an undue influence and neoliberalism is the MSM party line but if you can think you do have a choice. We do not “register” by party; you actually have to pay money and join a party if you want to be a member. Voting machines; what crook ever thought that up; Oh yeah, the people that make them.
The fact that there are people who can’t understand arithmetic well enough to realize that it would take MILLIONS of “fraudulent voters” in order to affect the outcome of a federal election, is further evidence that “the dumbing down of America” has been a drooling success.
What is worse than these voter suppression issues is that this Presidential race places the U.S. in the nadir of our democratic existence. It established a façade of an electoral process in that the winner was selected in advance by the corporate magicians, which through the highest levels of sleight of hand distracted us, lied to us, and set us up for four more years of bigger lies.
Hillary is the corporate puppet that will enable the masses to be fleeced in a way no republican could ever succeed in doing. Yes, Hilary will be our new President and the “corporate media will laud her as a patriot and a true savior of our citizenry” as her feeling is undoubtedly along the lines of our corporate masters:
Predatory trade deals, strengthening of globalization, piracy of privatization including that of worldwide food and water resources, global economic inequality, continued expansion of cruel social inequality, endless slaughter for wars of profit, militarization of police to crush Constitutionally guaranteed peaceful descent, indentured servitude of the masses, validating the personal cruelty and economic insanity of student loan debt, craftily ignoring a single payer option by validating a healthcare system that functions like a vampire off the blood of our sick and elderly, and only giving lip service to avoiding catastrophic environmental destruction are a price worth paying to save capitalism, and reward campaign finance contributors.
spot on!
The US has a population with beat wife syndrome who have adopted the perspective of permanent victimhood of war and wallstreet and see solutions to problems only thru the eyes of their captors. The ultimate danger of this scenario is that change wouldnt happen until they actually hit the brick wall, unless Hellary loses.
Sad but all too true and the greed is literally killing mother earth and you’re rotten system is making inroads or outright taking over the world. It will be a Pyrrhic victory for the elites as they have to live in the dying world too as do their children who are not all sociopaths like their parents.
inheritors of such wealth not sociopaths? worse.
State by state, we have witnessed serious issues with caucus rigging (video evidence emerging showing Clinton staff miscounting votes/allowing Clinton voters to go into caucuses unregistered, misinforming caucus participants of rules resulting in invalidating Sanders votes). The violations were so severe in Iowa that the editorial board of the newspaper that endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Presidency, the Des Moines Register called for an independent audit and full investigation to determine what went wrong. In Nevada, we have video of Clinton supporters being allowed to vote in the caucus unregistered and miscounting vote. The concerns about manipulations by the Clinton campaign in Nevada resulted in Nurses United (the Nurses’ union that endorsed Sen Sanders) to request independent polling monitors be brought in to oversee elections in remaining primary states.
In addition, we have seen a consistent trend of exit polling not matching election outcomes in Arizona, Massachusetts, Missouri, Iowa and Illinois indicating wins for Senator Sanders in these states. Additionally, exit polls in other states indicate much closer outcomes than reported results. In Massachusetts, we witnessed unadjusted exit polls indicating a double digit win for Bernie Sanders and hand counted precincts in Massachusetts going to Senator Sanders by 17% over Hillary Clinton. In Arizona, exit polls conducted by the Daily Courier indicated Sanders winning by 62% over Clinton’s 37% yet current results are indicating an inexplicable double digit win for Clinton. Exit polling has been consistently correct in predicting Republican primary outcomes from the same outlets conducting the Democratic polling. This is a major red flag.
We also have video evidence that Bill Clinton broke the law by campaigning INSIDE Massachusetts polling places and shutting down polling stations for several hours as he canvased these precincts. Despite this being against state law, the severe disruption in voting that occurred, and a petition of over 100,000 people demanding that the state take legal action against Clinton for these violations, nothing was done. This emboldened Bill Clinton to repeat the same behavior in precincts in Illinois, and Hillary Clinton was seen campaigning at a precinct in North Carolina during voting on that state’s primary day. Voters felt enormously disrespected that the Clinton’s interfered with our voting process and upset the Sanders campaign did not hold them to account for illegally disrupting our voting process.
Additionally, there is a serious concern about purged voter rolls with voters in every primary state thus far reporting incidents where individuals were either removed from the rolls or did not have their registration update changes in status that would have allowed them to participate in the 2016 Democratic primary. Florida and Arizona was the most egregious in voters reporting removal from the rolls with many citizens being denied the vote entirely or only allowed to vote on provisional ballots. Additionally, in Arizona we witnessed mass suppression of the vote as the state provided only sixty polling places for participation in contrast to the 200 that were available for the 2012 uncontested Democratic primary election. Voters reported waiting in lines for up to six hours. The mainstream news media predicted a victory for Clinton with available exit polling data indicating a Sanders win and thousands of voters still waiting in line to cast a vote. This reeks of wag the dog politics, and we have zero faith that the outcome in Arizona is any way indicative of the actual results of that election.
Additionally, we are finding that vote by mail and absentee ballot registration is consistently favoring Hillary Clinton THREE to ONE and this is occurring EVEN in states where Sen Sanders is winning in double digit blow out margins over Clinton.
This is a short list of the issues and problems that have been reported in the Democratic primary thus far. Please refer to this blog for sources, videos, documentation, and video evidence compiled by state. The claims made in this petition are documented on this site.
https://electionfraud2016.wordpress.com/
As supporters of this movement, we are troubled by the failure of the campaign to address these issues as they have arisen. We are puzzled why hand recounts of sample precincts were not requested in states where exit polls and election outcomes did not match. The machines we vote on are subject to tampering and remote hacking and election results have been shown to change by simple calibration of these machines. We are disturbed that the campaign failed to follow up with recounts in Missouri when exit polls showed a clear Sanders win in this state, and election precinct totals showed statistically improbable changes to favor Clinton in larger voting areas such as St Louis. If the campaign did not want the voters to incur the cost for a full recount in this state, it would have been prudent to request hand recounts of ballots in precincts that presented red flags. Our concern in Missouri, and indeed all the primary states, is not to pick up one or two extra delegates, but reveal what we believe could be mass election fraud.
Given the amount of evidence, it has come to the point of irresponsibility by the campaign to continue to ignore this issue. Volunteers and supporters have given literally hundreds of thousands of man hours and millions of dollars in donations to drive this campaign to success. We have a right to expect the campaign will employ every possibly means of safeguarding our vote. Therefore, we request the campaign:
Fully contest the election results in the state of Arizona. The amount of voter suppression and problems in this state demand a full revote.
File for hand counts in states where exit poll results did not match election outcomes where it is legally allowed. If the campaign does not want to pay or recount entire states, we implore the campaign to request counts in states that presented red flags in reporting statistically improbable changes that favored Hillary Clinton. (St Louis in Missouri, Chicago in Illinois, etc). Immediately pursue any redress available in Massachusetts to the full extent of the law
Conduct exit polling in future primary states and immediately request sample hand counts of precincts if election outcomes do not match polling results to document for any possible fraud and challenge results wherein such fraud is documented.
Immediately respond to any future illegal behavior from the Clinton campaign (Bill Clinton illegally canvassing polls, video evidence of caucus rigging from Clinton campaign) and reports of mass voter purging or vote suppression by pursuing any/all legal avenues to provide redress.
It is the campaign’s duty to ensure that they utilize every avenue available to protect our vote and ensure that our movement to elect a People’s representative to the Presidency isn’t thwarted by illicit or illegal tactics from any entity.
URGENT UPDATE: After the Arizona debacle with reports of thousands of Sanders supporters being purged from the voter rolls, voters in upcoming primary states started double checking their registration status. We are getting reports from voters in Wisconsin, New York, California, Washington, and other upcoming states and some have had their party affiliation changed from Democratic to another status or found they are no longer on the rolls. If you are voting in an upcoming primary or caucus state, DOUBLE CHECK your voter registration status and bring documentation to the polls of your eligibility. If you are purged, also contact the Sanders campaign. The Sanders campaign should make available an immediate hotline for reporters to report this issue AND issue a statement to warn voters to check their registration status.
UPDATE 2: As the campaign now continues to ignore the signatures of over 13,000 people, we have reports of ballot stuffing and irregularities in Wyoming. In Laramie County alone, Sanders had 689 votes to Clinton’s 111 votes at the caucus however Clinton ended up winning 620 votes were added in absentee surrogate ballots. We implore the campaign to get representatives on the ground to examine the ballots to determine if these were legitimately cast votes. It is IMPERATIVE that the campaign address this issue as officials in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania have ordered 300,000 absentee ballots for the upcoming Democratic primary election. Absentee ballots in primary elections for this county in PA typically run about 3,000! Just printing this grotesquely excessive amount should be a HUGE red flag. ADDRESS immediately:
http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/officials-lancaster-county-voters-will-get-absentee-ballots-this-week/article_910ff458-fc33-11e5-b804-671601f80af5.html
“More than 2,900 ballot requests have been received so far, including a few hundred already sent overseas to comply with a federal law.
That far outpaces the 1,922 and 1,176 requests seen in the 2012 and 2014 primaries.”
Update 3:
The New York State Democratic Primary election was a blatant exercise in voter suppression and fraud. A very SMALL sampling of issues that occurred in New York:
In Brooklyn, 126,000 voters were purged from the registration rolls (dropped or party affiliation changed from Democrat to different party), a fourteen percent drop in that one city alone. Registration purging was reported across the state.
Polling locations in Brooklyn reported broken machines, lack of full compliment of machines, and one polling location opened hours late after it was failed to be staffed.
CNN exit polling showed a four percent difference between Clinton and Sanders for the final results. Clinton is now currently holding a sixteen point lead with the majority of precincts now reporting. CBS exit polls showed a five point difference between the two candidates. CNN exit poll had a margin of error of 2.6 percent. Exit polls are a reliable mean of ascertaining election outcomes and are used as a means globally to detect for suspicious results. New York is just the latest in a long series of states where reported results do not match the reported results (MA, IL, AZ, MI). A hand count is necessary to ensure the machine tally provided accurate results. Sanders must step up and demand that a hand count sample audit of precincts be conducted in New York state.
Issues were so severe that the New York City comptroller called for a full audit of the Election Board due to ‘hundreds of thousands of reported problems’. Unfortunately, there is a serious conflict of interest with Scott Stringer (NYC comptroller) leading an audit; he is the top delegate for Hillary Clinton on the New York State primary ballot.
See our Election Fraud Blog for all the New York updates at:
https://electionfraud2016.wordpress.com/ for MUCH more complete information.
Update 4: MAJOR evidence of fraud and vote manipulation in the state of California. Please view the evidence as compiled here for specifics and details of individual examples AND pending legal actions for redress. California was Ground Zero for the Fraud – the silence, Senator Sanders (from the campaign) in the wake of the level of evidence and issues occurring in California is DEAFENING. One does NOT remain silent when constituents of the Democratic party are blatantly having their will subverted. Fear of having allegations of sore loser or sour grapes thrown by a corporate media apparently colluding to propagate the fraud is not a valid excuse not to act. In fact, it sends the message that all that is required to perpetuate a successful crime against the citizenry is to intimidate, bully, shame and cower the victims into silence. We can NOT be complicit in theft of the People’s will out of fear that those who seek to subvert it may call us a name.
https://electionfraud2016.wordpress.com/category/california/
In solidarity
The People.
Intercept should be ASHAMED of publishing an article that denies the reality of election fraud. Election Fraud a myth. We vote on private machines with proprietary software many which are banned in other countries and you feel so smug as to dismiss the potential of fraud as mythical. We had exit polls not matching the official results outside of the margin of error in eleven of the 26 Democratic primary states voting – if this happened in other countries the United States State Department would not recognize those results as valid. When concerns about the discrepancy in exit polls reached the main stream media reporting, they CANCELED the exit polls in California. Mass evidence of fraud in the primary – everything from voter roll purging in New York/Florida/California/New York (among other states), evidence of absentee ballot stuffing, and caucus rigging by the Hillary Clinton campaign caught on video . This is shameful coming from the Intercept. Here is the petition I created to Sen Sanders that I updated throughout the primary as new evidence of fraud presented itself. Over 30,000 signatures. I spoke with poll workers, attorneys, campaign workers, and voters all over the country, and I am sure they will thrilled to have their experience invalidated by a reporter who doesn’t seem to have a basic grasp of recent history.
https://www.change.org/p/bernie-sanders-bernie-sanders-must-contest-arizona-election-results-and-address-systemic-election-rigging
voter fraud is the real election ISSUE
If you want to talks scandals, Hellary’s lying to the public with her 2 faces is a scandal – not a legitimate work of arts and crafts.
Election FRAUD is real.
http://www.inquisitr.com/3207171/election-fraud-study-points-to-rigged-democratic-primary-against-bernie-sanders-video/
Hellary is fraudster in chief and dws is her capo.
ah yes, another scandal breaks today.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3879434/Hillary-s-staff-rushed-help-Chelsea-Clinton-begged-mom-State-Department-help-friend-visa-rejected-emails-reveal.html
One set of rules and power for the elite, another for the rest of us.
Almost like egypt, not quite but getting there.
Yeah, yeah …
America needs a strong leader to be great again.
Consider what Putin has done for Russia.
Nobody complains about Putin like they complain about Clinton.
Not for long, anyway.
The fact that we in all likely have an illegitimately elected candidate as the democratic candidate is no matter. There will be an ironic symmetry if Hillary wins. Two war mongers who cheated their way to the White House. Oh I forgot, beat Trump regardless of what ideals and principles you violate.
The cheating of Sanders will die away except in leftist circles. What is rather unseemly is that Sanders has capitulated to those who cheated and slandered him. The marginalization of the left in the Democratic party is complete and absolute.
I am not a supporter of John McCain. I was in 2000. After what the Bush campaign and their allies did to him, I considered the election stolen from him. I still do.
And I don’t like seeing it repeated again.
The actual fraud is the medias total one sided demonization of Donald Trump opposed to the total blackout of the Hillaryous ones multiple criminal acts,from documented election manipulation,to destroying evidence about her felony accusations,the collusion of the SD and FBI in letting her walk, ,to the fact she is the most corrupt individual to ever run for the POTUS,with a 123? million dollar nest egg from public service.
Policy?Reality?WW3?
But the usual propagandists will justify the anti democratic coup attempt.3 dollar bills.
Trump for POTUS.
Oh, please. How come you are not taking GWBush to task for burning some 3.5 million emails, on a private server? Emails detailing how the US was lied into a war killing some 4500 Americans?
Get serious about both or be quiet.
If Dubya were applying for any position of responsibility people would indeed be bringing up his appalling track record.
But nobody really cares as long as Dubya spends his days cutting brush.
It’s Killary that rigged the primary and wants to start World War III.
GWBush isn’t in this election and Hillary Clinton’s conduct still is punishable by the law. Conceivably.
I felt that the email scandal of Clinton is enough to sink her ideally, just as the email scandal of Bush was enough to sink him, ideally. That said, I do think there are FAR more serious things, such as Clinton’s backing of the war in Libya (and funneling arms from there to Syrian Islamists) and Bush starting Iraq.
Oh, BTW, didn’t Bush not only endorse Hillary but also HUG HER? Didn’t Clinton’s surrogates PRAISE the Iraq War at the Convention?
The lack of media coverage of this and various other actions and threats to voting in the US demonstrates a bias. (You can always count on Republicans to hide their own intent by accusing others of having exactly that intent.)
That bias involves not covering stories (see Nixon campaign negotiation with NV during Vietnam or Reagan campaign negotiations with Iran during hostage crisis.). It involves overcoverage of irrelevancies (birtherism, WJC Whitewater, Kerry’s Swiftboating). Media bias also neglects a self-consciousness (end of Fairness Doctrine, Florida 2000 voter purge, benefits of Citizens United.)
In fact the corporate media has an agenda.
It’s not a secret and hasn’t been a secret since William Randolph Hearst instructed an employee prior to the Spanish American War: “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”
That agenda is revenue. Revenue from advertisers, revenue from less spending on news gathering, revenue from “filler” news, and especially revenue from “conglomerate” holdings. (There’s a better word for this — maybe synergy — but I can’t think of it right now. The current Time-Warner purchase by ATT is an example.)
Media has an agenda. Truth, greater good, civil rights, justice, accuracy, and fairness play absolutely no part in that agenda. Indeed such liberal ideals interfere.
Truth in America amounts exactly to that which those with sufficient resources purchase.
As the Supreme Court strips away the foundations of the American State, is it any wonder that now the plutocracy becomes impatient and wants to amputate the Supreme Court itself?
For instance: https://mises.org/blog/abolish-supreme-court
Here’s another attack on voters.
http://www.gregpalast.com/greg-palasts-best-democracy-money-can-buy-coming-to-theaters-starting-sept-23-in-nyc-sept-30-in-la/
And here’s the link to a free download of a ‘comic book’ version of the film he just put out;
http://www.gregpalast.com/comicbook/ (it’s a safe download and you simply choose to donate or not).
Hire a Lawyer . See a Doctor . Its all over but the crying .
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/27/world-on-track-to-lose-two-thirds-of-wild-animals-by-2020-major-report-warns
Hire a Lawyer . See a Doctor !!
Its all over but the crying !!!
Just as long as it is actual American citizens voting, once.
You forgot to qualify further with “living”. :)
And no mention of software voting. Since there are no paper ballots or receipts, there’s no way to know if the count is accurate in most places. The software is ‘proprietary’ and neither the public, federal, state nor local officials have a right to examine the code.
At least worth a mention in an article claiming to be addressing the ‘real election scandal.”
It’s not surprising this diversion doesn’t even mention the Clintonite election fraud, manipulation and voter suppression witnessed during their primary. It’s certainly necessary for the Clintonites to suppress or discredit Trump’s clear and accurate description of our system as being rigged which most people already know. We can’t have too many of the rubes thinking that the representative of the rigged status quo is not their loving leader with the almost royal authority to rule over them.
It probably won’t be necessary for the local Clintonites to practice their petty manipulations for I just learned that Warren Buffett owns the majority of our magic voting boxes and with the rigged system being completely opaque the results are assured.
The commentaries here function only as an echo chamber. People only want to hear their own opinions restated in someone elses words. If your opinions don’t, be prepared for the insults and moral browbeating that will follow.
This may be pushing the point, but this article is an extension of the vicious scorched earth identify politics that the Clinton campaign used against Sander and his supporters. Indeed there is voter suppression of African American voters which since 2000 the democratic party has done next to nothing about. The party rather than following up on the shenanigans that happened in Florida, and then again in Ohio 2004. The democratic response? Essentially blame Nader for 2000, for Ohio ignore the problem.
But back to original point. The African American vote will be critical in any coalition to defeat Trump. So we get this well researched piece trying to immunize voters at a certain extend against gop voter suppression. But this after blatant and not so blatant efforts to cheat Bernie Sanders we are being warned about voter suppression. Or if you want, the concerted effort to keep Jill Stein off the ballots in several states–isn’t that voter suppression by removing candidates which people want to vote for.
It is an old story now. Voter suppression only matters if the candidate is Hillary Clinton. The day after the election, screw it, it doesn’t matter. Start collecting the donations for the Clinton Foundation.
1) The United States federal elections are not invigilated by the same network of scrutineers as the Democratic Party’s primaries. Obviously.
2) The tactic the Clinton campaign used to rig the Democratic Party primary vote was to engage in the intensely Republican tactic of MASS-DISENFRANCHISING the people who are most likely to be left-leaning.
Mass disenfranchisement, restrictive voter ID laws, and district gerrymandering, are how people affect enough votes to influence the outcome of an election; not voter fraud.
More importantly, all of those highly effective attacks against democracy are perpetrated by Republican states, in service to the Republican Party.
The democrat primary system is rigged and the republican system appears to be quite democratic. The Clintonites probably didn’t need to do these dirty republican tricks to eliminate Sanders but being led by Crooked Hillary they just couldn’t resist the opportunity to please their mistress.
You must not be aware of the democrat’s long history of voter fraud, ballot box stuffing and the walking dead voters. These are outdated methods now but this election should be watched very closely because more sophisticated methods are available to them today.
The republicans in Florida were accused of purging voter rolls but I’ve never seen any data that showed this and any other of their attacks against democracy have actually measurably reduced minority voter turnout or denied the right to vote to any statistically significant number of people. There are a lot of frightening projections, such as this post, but never any real facts to back them up. This seems to me to be a mild form of harassment by the republicans and a way to reassure their base they are vigilant in their surveillance of the crooked democrats.
FYI, gerrymandering is still illegal even in republican states and the courts regularly reject any redistricting plans they see as even appearing to resemble that motive.
You do NOT make a better case than this guy:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/06/a-comprehensive-investigation-of-voter-impersonation-finds-31-credible-incidents-out-of-one-billion-ballots-cast/
When you refuse to look, so that you can claim, “I’ve never seen any data that showed this,” it’s less clever than you might imagine.
Your assertions of “voter fraud,” on the other hand, simply ARE NOT SUPPORTED by any evidence.
There is no evidence of “voter fraud” on a scale that could affect the outcome of a single ballot box, let alone an election.
Let an entertaining man HELP you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHFOwlMCdto
VERY VERY surprised this article doesn’t mention the very real attempts made relating to these cases:
Here is what happened in 1981 at NJ polling places, which led to a Consent Decree, a sort of restraining order on the GOP nationwide from engaging in policing polls (cops and people in armbands):
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/16/09/01/armed-men-once-patrolled-the-polls-will-they-reappear-in-november
The consent decree is almost to be lifted, until Trump’s campaign did what they did here:
https://stopthesteal.org/ and https://voteprotectors.org
At these websites (taken offline before Thursday PM) People could upload a picture and name to put on a printable “official looking” badge to wear when going to the polls to harass people as an “official Vote Protector”
These were presumably taken down due to pressure from the GOP about it.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/rnc-asks-members-to-avoid-poll-watching-other-ballot-security-activities-1476925215
The DNC has already filed court motions that the GOP has violated the Consent Decree.
DNC court motion another media stunt
You will recall the poll watchers organisation, Truth the Vote, who actually did watch polls and the dems filed nothing and dont mention it today.
Hellary is a wallstreet stunt.
If you are referring to “True the Vote”, they do not interfere or harass voters. They don’t tell people to sit around the polling places in other neighborhoods and intimidate people. They have to do more with reporting if, in places like Louisiana or Mississippi, there are whites-only voter registration places or similar practices. They encourage people to get legal defense if they are trying to register to vote in places like parts of Georgia where they have brought every document they are supposed to and told they can’t get a voter registration card because the person at the desk decided to add something new to the list off the top of their head. If you bothered to read about what happened in NJ, it was basically the equivalent of deputizing people to go nuts on voters at the polls. “You know what I mean by “watch”, right?” is how Trump put it. Getting people to sign up for badges to look official, appear to have the right not bully people is much much different than giving people a way to report something through the legal system. It’s brownshirting.
I beg to differ, Alice. The real scandal is that the election process, overall, is a fraud perpetrated on the citizenry to provide the appearance of a democracy that doesn’t come close to existing in reality.
Sleazy as it may be, creating barriers for voters likely to support a disfavored selectee pales in comparison to the fact that only selectees of powerful elites (along with an occasional rogue billionaire) ever have real chances for victory — and that it seldom matters to the “little guys” which of them are victorious.
This is the most honest response, I have seen regarding the election. What I don’t understand with all the commotion and ‘show’ production of this particular election, the American public has been played for a fool and they are ALLOWING it. Slowly our democratic rights and liberties are being taken away and we haven’t bat an eye to the madness.
Nice honest response Doug…neither side has the moral highground in this one.
How do you propose that “Joe Plumber” campaigns nationally without the money required to run a national campaign?
He can’t. The system is set up to prevent such a thing from being even slightly effective.
Emphasis added.
Exactly. Thanks for saying it better than I was going to.
Meanwhile, US Senate candidate Dr. Margaret Flowers gets dragged off the debate stage in Maryland yesterday:
http://www.gp.org/flowers_takes_center_stage
That’s a photo that should make anyone who believes in democratic choice cringe.
But the system has been so thoroughly rigged, for so long, that most Americans will be entirely unconcerned that a candidate of Margaret Flowers’ stature and seriousness is barred from the discussion and physically hauled away.
I’m embarrassed to say it but I’m actually looking forward to finding some Trump fuckheads at the polling place trolling the parking lot looking for a throw down. Got a new T-shirt just for the occasion; says “FUCK YOU TRUMP, THROW ME OUT!
uh oh, this Hillary bot’s head wasnt screwed on tight enough…
You might not be allowed to vote or get within however-many-feet of the booths wearing clothing mentioning a candidate.
You should be too embarrassed to say it.
Reason number 316,158,692 why American “democracy” is itself an embarrassment.
His impulse is ENTIRELY understandable.
Furthermore, someone who shamelessly defends an admitted serial sex assailant, from the CORROBORATION of his victims, is in no position to tell ANYONE what should embarrass them.
Still haven’t risen above the “pathetic moron” level, I see, Lisa.
Maybe, in your tiny, nasty, narrow, bigoted and mostly-empty mind, electioneering for another candidate at the polls would be somehow different.
You impossibly stupid fucking asshole.
Your comprehension is substandard, your ad hominems are poorly chosen, your straw man is irrelevant, and you’ve mistaken me for your mother.
Ha. I can’t top that.
Nobody doubts THAT.
You come too Doug. Bring your mouth with you.