Oliver is convinced the election is being stolen, and links to this dyspeptic update of right-wing shenanigans. Like this right-wing hijink:
A friend in the Dallas suburbs voted yesterday. They had him fill out his ballot WITH A PENCIL! He let them get away with it, but I told him this morning he needs to call both the local paper and the Dallas Morning News news desks to let them know this. Another Kerry vote stolen, I’d bet on it.
This is a breaking story – I’ve requested more information from Butch on it. If he and his friend come forward with details, I’m going to forward it on to the election protection legal team in Texas!
NO- not the old lead pencil #2 trick!! Why on earth would they force them to fill out their ballot with a #2 lead pencil? Anyone attend elementary or high school in the United states reading who might have a smidgeon of an idea why someone may be required to fill out a ballot in #2 lead pencil? Wait a minute, I think our intrepid scandalmongerer has an update:
*Update* False alarm. Butch dug into this and discovered that the precinct in question was using scanning technology that required a #2 pencil – so no fraud there!
No screaming eagle shit. Let’s check in on the next right wing attempt to suppres the vote:
Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, and member of the Bush-Cheney national campaign steering committee, decided that Ohio voters who show up at the wrong voting precinct will be turned away rather than be allowed to cast provisional ballots (as in most other states). The Democrats immediately sued the state over this issue, which will mostly effect the turnout of Kerry-leaning newly registered voters, and won a U.S. district court ruling allowing registered people to vote in the wrong precinct with a provisional ballot. Blackwell appealed; suppressing the liberal voter turnout is so critical to a reactionary win in Ohio that the misAdministration has submitted a friend-of-the-court brief attacking the lawsuit! Ken Blackwell earlier invoked an obscure law requiring that registrations be turned in only on 80-lb. paper stock, resulting in the destruction of thousands of presumably progressive voters!
My god! You mean voters are going to have to actually vote in the precinct in which they reside? The horror of it all. I hear in some states, you even have to prove you are who you say you are- the nefarious hijinks just don’t stop!
Idiots. This election can’t end soon enough.
Ralph Gizzip
After this election I’d like to see all 50 states wipe their voter rolls clean and start over. And THIS time you’ve got to show a photo ID, SSN, and proof of citizenship in person to register.
Roo
I just voted yesterday in Tx. Thankfully we’re still using paper ballots in my county. Described the experience in my posts of yesterday and today (was a busy weekend). It was a fill-in-the circle, and in my old precinct was complete-the-arrow.
I am glad there’s a paper ballot for the invetable recounts. And that some hacker didn’t hijack my vote(with NO trace)
Sandi
Not a chance of voter fraud being fixed soon. The Democrats took care of that with ‘The Motor-Voter Power Grab’ aka ‘The National Voter Registration Act of 1993’.
That link is from 11/01 but still worth a read because it is why voter fraud works so well. Each election since the Democrats have apparently honed their skills at convincing more likely cheats that it is easy and undetectable.
Only fourteen states require voters to provide official identification of any kind before they vote. In the other 36 states, anyone can waltz into any precinct voting station, claim to be any registered voter who lives in that precinct, then proceed to vote. And once an anonymous vote is inserted into the ballot box, it cannot be retrieved, of course.
The ‘Motor-Voter’ law — requires that people be allowed to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license. Earlier this year, the NY State MVD notified nearly half a million drivers that their social security numbers were unverifiable. Some corrected the problem. But state officials expect as many as 300,000 will fail to comply. This is because they are illegal aliens.
All are potential voters. A driver’s license is all that is required to register. Illegal aliens have been able to get a driver’s license in many other states as well. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 isn’t broken, it is doing exactly what the Democrats designed it to do. It needs to be repealed or fixed.
S.W. Anderson
From the other side of the political chasm, I share your chagrin over making an issue out of requiring people to go to their own precinct’s polling place. It’s a reasonable requirement. All that should be necessary is to tell the person where they’re supposed to go to vote and maybe how to get there.
I have a strong hunch that for 99 percent of precincts across the country, there are Democrats who’ll gladly pack someone who really wants to vote on their back to the proper polling place, then cart them home, if that’s what it takes. I know I would.
Unfortunately, if you check around you’ll find too many examples of gotchas that can only be sensibly explained as deliberate, underhanded tricks intended to keep people from being able to vote or to keep their votes from being counted. Like the 80-pound paper rule, or the itty bitty checkbox indicating citizenship.
People responsible for those tricks ought to have to spend years making gravel out of boulders, in a harsh climate.
Floyd McWilliams
Yeah, it’s important to suppress the Kerry vote in Texas, as Bush may be ahead by only 5 million votes there.
Green Boy
So what if a voter goes to the wrong precinct? If he/she has never voted before, or if the unimaginable happens – the election board screws up and sends the wrong precinct info – don’t you still want the vote counted?
Most states provide for a provisional ballot. This allows the vote to be cast, and the voter checked for proper registration?
What is idiotic about that?
You reactionaries are so fixated on winning that you’re willing to throw democracy into the trash-bin of history.
John Cole
What is so difficult about going to the right precinct?
I am not fixzted on just winning, but winning fairly.
You should have to present id, and you should have to vote where you are supposed to vote. Why is that so problematic?
Mark L.
I have been an election judge in Texas, so I know something about different voting methods.
The most secure ballot (against fraud) is the scan-tron form where you fill out bubbles next to the candidate’s name. They are easily read by both machines and human. Altering ballots takes a lot of time (unlike punchcard ballots that can be spiked or voting machines/computerized voting that can be hacked).
Erasing marks creates an obvious smear on the card — so much so that when someone told me that they had voted for the wrong person, and wanted an eraser, I would spoil the ballot with the error, and give them a fresh one. If they erased a mark it would cause an overvote.
Of course you need graphite for the machines to read these ballots. (Another reason erasure does not work — even an erased mark leaves enough graphite to “score” a bubble.) Which means that you need a pencil.
Not just any pencil, however. As part of the voting kit they issue about a dozen pencils, each as thick as the ones you used in first grade, with a special, super-soft lead. It is closer to No 1 or 1-1/2 than to No. 2. (Although a No. 2 will work.)
Does it leave a permanent mark? I often took home spares, and them when I needed a permanent and indelible mark somewhere.
Of cou
Slartibartfast
Well, the obvious answer to this is to show a wee bit of interest in this prior to election day. Here in sunny Florida, our voter registration cards have the precinct number printed on them. And here in sunny Florida, we’re informed repeatedly up to the election that you have to vote in your own precinct. And here in sunny Florida, the newspapers print the precinct locations.
Not that that makes a difference, because people screw up anyway. I think of it as evolution in action: Those who are too stupid to vote occasionally can’t. Unfortunately, all too many who are just smart enough to make it to the correct voting place are still too dumb to complete their ballot properly.
Dave
Simplistic argument from the left. Do you not realize that there are other things on the damn ballot besides the presidential election?
No, I do NOT want someone voting in whatever precinct they show up in, since they may not be qualified to vote on local issues. You know, like school board and city council.