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You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / The Election Is Not Rigged & It Is Not Going To Be Rigged

The Election Is Not Rigged & It Is Not Going To Be Rigged

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A quick note from Speaker Ryan (R-Profile in Courage!):

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Saturday dismissed Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the November elections will be rigged.

“Our democracy relies on confidence in election results, and the speaker is fully confident the states will carry out this election with integrity,” Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong toldBuzzFeed.

It is important to note and remember that 23 states are led by Republican governors that also have Republican legislatures – both chambers, referred to as the trifecta. Another 11 states have Republican governors and just 7 states are under Democratic control -the trifecta of a Democratic governor and legislature. There are 20 states total that share control – either GOP governor, Democratic legislature, or vice versa. Apparently the Trump campaign is suggesting that the Republican Party is rigging elections against the Republican nominee at the state level… Wait, what were we talking about again?

A somewhat more definitive explanation of the process of just how hard it would be to actually rig US elections has been provided by the Ashby Law firm, which focuses on electoral law and primarily works for Republican clients:


Reader Interactions

140Comments

  3. 3.

    adorable trnc

    Appreciate the thoughtful insight, but criminy – post a web page, then tweet a summary and a link.

  4. 4.

    Jeffro

    Thanks Paul Ryan – you just saved me an op-ed! Still about 1000 points short of redemption but we will take it for now Mr. Speaker

  6. 6.

    Soylent Green

    Will authorities take appropriate steps to prevent voter intimidation by Trump’s goon squads? How will that go down?

  7. 7.

    Mike J

    Trumps surrogates went on all the shows this morning and tried to argue he was just talking about media bias. Trump then tweeted that he was explicitly talking about rigging at the polling places.

    Meanwhile, Trumpsters are upset that Clinton has a media team that writes her tweets.

  11. 11.

    RoonieRoo

    What’s frightening is that every Trump supporter we know has zero doubt the election is rigged. There is absolutely nothing anyone can say to change their minds. These are educated men who work in tech.

  12. 12.

    BruceFromOhio

    Republican leaders and lawyers should speak out against this fantastical nonsense.

    Why? This fantastical nonsense is what the party is peddling, and the result of what its been peddling for years. Why pee in your own Wheaties?

  14. 14.

    RaflW

    May have been noted in earlier threads, but there is a set of TrumpenTweets from 2012 in which he freaks out that the election was rigged/stolen from Mitt.

    He’s apparently a consistently dickish paranoid. This time his megaphone is louder (but even uglier).

  15. 15.

    dmsilev

    @Mike J:

    Meanwhile, Trumpsters are upset that Clinton has a media team that writes her tweets

    So does Trump of course. The only real difference is that every day or so, Donald figures out where his kids hid the phone this time and resumes Tweeting himself.

  18. 18.

    Mike in NC

    Ryan remains a mealy-mouthed weasel unless he denounces Trump as a clown and would-be dictator who’s an embarrassment to his party.

  20. 20.

    dr. luba

    @RaflW: He tweeted, too, that he had lost the Emmys becasue the fix was in. Trump cannot lose; he can only be cheated of what is rightfully his.

  22. 22.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    So with this new trend, all Twitter really did in the end was create a format using more containers, not one using fewer characters.

    That’s quite an … accomplishment.

  23. 23.

    dimmsdale

    OK, here’s a question. Let’s say a posse of Trumpers in an open-carry state decide to “citizen poll-watch” to keep local votes from being ‘stolen’. So they show up, strapped, and lurk menacingly, where people are voting. Aside from going “Mega WTF”, what are the local officials going to do about it? (in NY State, there’s a rule about no election paraphernalia within 100ft. of a polling place. In an open-carry state, would the rule apply to firearms?)

    It’s beyond absurd to have to contemplate this kind of scenario, but …. here we are.

  27. 27.

    Waldo

    @Mike in NC:

    Ryan remains a mealy-mouthed weasel unless he denounces Trump as a clown and would-be dictator who’s an embarrassment to his party.

    I’d be happy if he very politely and publicly asked Trump to stop delegitimizing an election that Ryan’s own authority hinges on.

  28. 28.

    scav

    “Nobody loves me, Everybody hates me, Clearly must be rigged.” must be their communal plainsong, with the descant of “Jail her! Deport the!, Grab them!” soaring above.

  30. 30.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dimmsdale: Actually this is my concern and one I’ve shared with some law enforcement friends. Its Florida. Some knucklehead decides to go to a polling place, decides he sees something he believes is hinky, and gets in the face of the person who he thinks is doing something hinky. That person tells him to go away or brushes/pushes past him. The knucklehead gets more upset and starts yelling. Several people try to intervene and the knucklehead decides he’s being threatened and he needs to stand his ground. Shots are fired. And regardless of whether anyone is hurt or killed, the news immediately starts reporting that there is violence at the polls, which then creates a downward spiral. More knuckleheads convinced something is going on, so they head to polling places, make asses of themselves, things escalate, etc. And others decide to stay away because its not safe to go and vote.

  31. 31.

    RepubAnon

    @dr. luba: Sounds like conservatism’s rule that conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. Trumpski is incapable of admitting that he lost because the other folks were simply better- which makes him unfit for any job, either in industry or politics.

  32. 32.

    Smiling Mortician

    @RoonieRoo: Press them on what they mean by “rigged.” It’ll devolve into how they simply can’t believe that a majority of voters want Trump to lose.

  33. 33.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    So I see that Trump finally reacted to the SNL debate satires and he was a really good sport, they’re just poking fun at both candidates after all, so no harm done, and he praised Baldwin’s portrayal of him.

    Nah just kidding, he said they were all losers and Baldwin’s Trump was terrible and the show sucks and the making fun of him is part of a conspiracy.

    So no character flaws to make fun of there, nope, can’t imagine why they even bother.

  35. 35.

    Srv

    Sitting in the tub with my loofah, trying to think of some good trolling material. I hope my parents leave me alone for a little “me time.”

  37. 37.

    MazeDancer

    Yesterday and today, there has been something of a shift to make “rigged” mean not voting as much as “the media did it”. Guiliani said explicitly it was the media that was rigged. Yesterday, Trump was saying that, but today, he also added in some racist slurring admonition, so his fans will still consider patrolling polling places.

    “Rigged media” would flow into Trump’s upcoming subscription drive for Trump News. And he’s going to get some pushback from GOP on the “it’s the system” theory. The entire GOP does not want to destroy democracy. And there are over 113,000 polling places. Rigging would take a lot of highly visibly effort.

    Though the horrible fire bomb incident at the GOP HQ in NC, might encourage more poll patrolling.

  38. 38.

    SFAW

    I eagerly await the Rethug complaints about the ACTUAL vote rigging that’s been taking place since at least 2000. That is, purging of the voter rolls, primarily of constituencies that historically leaned Dem.

    Maybe someone could ask Corrupt and Sexually Predatory Moocher Deadbeat Donnie about that, and ask why he’s not too concerned, and would he be concerned if it happened to white folk. Actually, someone should frame the question AS IF it were happening to those poor, put-upon white folk, and then point out that it’s really the darkies and does his answer still apply?

  39. 39.

    hovercraft

    Let’s dispense with this notion that the election is rigged, shall we? -1

    — Ashby Law (@ashbylaw) October 15, 2016

    CORRECTION: Let’s dispense with this notion that the electorate is not stupid, shall we?

  40. 40.

    JJ

    @Adam L Silverman: I was going comment on this too. I think the whole “it’s rigged” angle is just a call to open-carry arms near polling stations as his final play. It would give me pause.

  43. 43.

    mikefromArlington

    “Ordinary citizens, not gov’t b’crats, serve as election officials & conduct the elex. They check in voters, confirm IDs, keep records. -3”

    Implying that gov’t b’crats not to be trusted.

  45. 45.

    Gravenstone

    Also, as this is clearly a Trump-centric thread, one of the more politically disgusting and depressing things I’ve ever seen just crawled across my Facebook page though a couple of friends who are very active in LGBTQ outreach. It’s a pro-Trump sticker featuring a cartoon figure bedecked as the Confederate battle flag kicking a similar figure bedecked as the rainbow flag. As we’ve long known, for some Trumpites it is quite clearly about suppressing (destroying?) the Other, whatever their flavor of Otherness.

  46. 46.

    Kay (not the front-pager)

    @Stillwater: I just copied and pasted it into a Word doc, removed most of the tweet signifiers, and sent it to my sister. She is much more nervous than I am about the election. Also (maybe because) she is more likely to run into Trump supporters. If one of the front-pagers would like me to, I can send my doc to them for posting. Others might find it useful for sharing.

    It really is crucial for Republicans to start making this kind of argument now. It was bad enough in 2004 when the election was so close in Ohio (and there really was some funny business in Cleveland that kept some voters from voting). But this year, with the Republican candidate calling the process into question even before it starts, it behooves Republicans to call him out loudly, in no uncertain terms.

  51. 51.

    JPL

    @MazeDancer: That was awful, and hopefully the democrats denounced it. The cynic in me questions who did it though. Who does it help?

    Hopefully they catch the person soon.

  52. 52.

    debbie

    @Josie:

    My reaction was the opposite. I was going to vote early, but I want to see if anyone’s stupid enough to harass people going in and out of my polling place, an Orthodox temple.

  54. 54.

    Matt McIrvin

    @RaflW:

    May have been noted in earlier threads, but there is a set of TrumpenTweets from 2012 in which he freaks out that the election was rigged/stolen from Mitt.

    And explicitly calls for a revolution. He (falsely) claimed that Obama lost the popular vote.

  56. 56.

    dimmsdale

    @Adam L Silverman: Yeah, I pretty much regard some kind of armed juice box jihadist kabuki at the polling place to be a dead cert. at this point. One that I’m hoping (?) our LEO friends–or local election officials–are preparing for?

  58. 58.

    SFAW

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Its Florida. Some knucklehead decides to go to a polling place, decides he sees something he believes is hinky, and gets in the face of the person who he thinks is doing something hinky.

    Two things:
    1) When “shomi” shows up with his usual bullshit (in response), can you please just (inadvertently) delete his comment? The world will thank you.
    3) If only there were some sort of National Gun Association, idolized by all sorts of rootin’ tootin’ tough hombres, and if only that Association had some kind CEO or Executive VP who could take a moment away from his busy schedule — of advocating for the right to commit mass murder — to get on the air and say “Don’t be assholes! Respecting the Second Amendment is the most important thing in the America, but it doesn’t give you the right to intimidate voters by threatening them with firearms. If any of you morons/psychos think carrying firearms to a polling place is a reasonable thing, I’m here to tell you you’re fucking wrong, and fucking crazy if you think it’s a good idea.” But since no such organization exists, and no one exists who could/would make such a statement, well …

  59. 59.

    The Sheriff's A Ni-

    That’s a lot of words lecturing deplorables who stopped listening at ‘let’s dispense’.

  60. 60.

    Matt McIrvin

    @JPL:

    The cynic in me questions who did it though. Who does it help?

    It’s not necessarily a false flag; sometimes people are just idiots. We have whole political movements seemingly devoted to sabotaging their own ideological side.

  62. 62.

    Robert Paehlke

    That was a thoughtful and intelligent tweetstorm and I appreciate it. Meanwhile, how many Trumpbots are cleaning their weapons and finishing up their bombs? A hundred? I voted by mail. I hope the FBI and local law enforcement is on top of this.

  63. 63.

    JJ

    @debbie: I get your point and generally would be up for that. But I would be a harassie in this scenario. That’s why I live in the NE.

  64. 64.

    hovercraft

    @Matt McIrvin:
    That’s just great. Way to give up the high ground asshole(s). At least no one was hurt, but to give them a bloody towel to wave around in a battleground state is stupid.
    And to let Dallas Woodhouse of all people appear to be the bigger person, ugghhh.

  67. 67.

    SFAW

    @Matt McIrvin:

    It’s not necessarily a false flag; sometimes people are just idiots.

    Besides, it’s only a “false flag” when the Dems are the ones who are actually behind it, as opposed to the patsy who is apparently the one who did it.

  68. 68.

    dm

    Reading that tweet storm, I’m thinking: rigging the election would be a piece of cake for the group that set up the Great Climate Change Hoax — they only have to coordinate thousands of conspirators in only one country. Simple, in comparison to setting up the GCCH.

  69. 69.

    kindness

    During Clinton1 the militia movement came of age. During bush41 & bush43 you heard not a word from them. When Obama was elected, those same fantasists came back as III%ers & Teahaddists & what not. I figured the racism added because Obama was black made the combination of right wingnut rageasms the worst I’d ever see.

    Once again I can see I was wrong. They are already setting the table announcing how some on the right will fight Hillary. By launching over the lines of despicable they had drawn out for Obama to go to the next level. Most I think will accept the election of Hillary as valid. There’ll be some who don’t though. Those are the one’s I’m worried Trump is reaching now. There isn’t any question, some people will go out and shoot people. The question is how limited we can pray that stays. That’s a sad commentary of contemporary life. Hey at least in our era, Hitler is losing. I’ll take that.

  70. 70.

    Frank Wilhoit

    The point (sorry if someone has already mentioned this) is that none of the people putting this stuff forward have ever voted in person, even once, else they would know what the process is.

  71. 71.

    The Pale Scot

    Our elections are conducted on equipment that has been tested, in a public proceeding, that is observed by party and candidate reps….

    …..To rig an election, you would need (1) technological capabilities that might exist only in Mission Impossible movies

    This I absolutely don’t believe. The commonalities of The USA voting machine industry means

    A) its from the lowest bidder or major contributors &/or cronies of the (R) state government or a GOP
    B) and the codes to run the voting machines are proprietary,
    C) The “tests” consists of testing the customer end, the vote registering. After that the votes are nothing but 1s and 0s.

    And the story that Anonymous put out in 2012 about SmartTECH trying doing an electronic switcharoo with vote totals seems plausible to me

    http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/12845-anonymous-karl-rove-and-2012-election-fix
    “Phillips found zero irregularities in vote totals from all the counties that reported results before the servers crashed at 11:14pm. But of the fourteen counties that came in after the crash connected Ohio’s election computers to SmartTECH’s computers in Chattanooga, every single one of them showed voter irregularities – that all favored George W. Bush.
    For example, consider Cleveland’s Fourth Ward. In 2000, Al Gore won 95% of that ward’s vote. But in 2004, the county reported its results after the 11:14 pm crash, and it showed that Kerry had only won 59% of the vote – a 35% drop without any explanation. There were several other abnormalities across Ohio’s post-server crash that delivered the state to Bush. And as The Free Press reports, a number of odd similarities with 2004 began occurring in Ohio this year just after the 11pm hour once again:
    “Curiously, the Ohio Secretary of State’s vote tabulation website went down at 11:13pm, as reported by Free Press election protection website monitors, and mentioned by Rove on the news. This was one minute earlier than the time on election night 2004 — when Ohio votes were outsourced to Chattanooga, Tennessee — and then the vote flipped for Bush…This time, the Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) vote tabulation site went down as on election night as well. In his rant on Fox, Rove argued that Fox News should not confirm Ohio for Obama until votes came in from the southwest Ohio GOP strongholds of Delaware, Butler and Warren counties and suburban Cincinnati. It was after the crash of the secretary of state’s site in 2004 that improbable vote totals came in from Republican counties in southwest Ohio – particularly Butler, Clermont, and Warren counties. These three counties provided more than Bush’s entire Ohio victory margin of 119,000.”

    Only this time, when the servers came back up, the votes never flipped. President Obama’s lead held and he went on to win, while Karl Rove – and Mitt Romney – watched in slack-jawed amazement.

    Then this in 2013

    http://freepress.org/columns/display/3/2013/1997
    Michael Connell, the Bush family and Karl Rove’s IT guru, was heading home from Washington D.C. to attend his company’s Christmas party on Friday, December 19th in 2008. An accomplished pilot, he was flying from the College Park, Maryland airport to the Akron-Canton airport in Ohio under unremarkable weather conditions. Yet his Piper Saratoga plane suddenly dove to the ground between two houses in an upscale neighborhood, when he was just 2.5 miles from the airport. The site was roped off, cleaned up within two hours at night against protocol, and the next day his wife found his omniscient Blackberry missing from his still intact knapsack. ….

    The document reveals that then-Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell had signed a legal Statement of Work (SOW) contract with Connell for IT work on the infamous Election Night 2004, when Kerry unexpectedly lost when exit polls showed him winning. Connell and Blackwell agreed fourteen months prior to the 2004 election that that Connell would have “remote monitoring capabilities” to the computer counting Ohio’s presidential vote. That means Blackwell planned more than a year in advance for Connell’s private partisan external third party company and a subcontractor to have unfettered secret access to Ohio’s 2004 vote tally.

    Tinfoil Hats of the finest quality can be purchased at ‘

  72. 72.

    Peale

    @efgoldman: or the vision of one shared by all in the hive mind. You just know everyone will be convinced that they have seen busloads of Somalis just like they have all seen the welfare recipient with too many of all the wrong groceries.

  73. 73.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @JustBeingPedantic:

    Thanks for this. I posted the link on my FB page, just in case I have any remaining friends who may believe the process is rigged. I’ve mentioned before that I trained yesterday to be a poll watcher, and what the author has to say in this article/tweetstorm/blog post tracks seamlessly with what they told us in the training session (and with my experience in a previous election cycle).

  75. 75.

    Botsplainer

    Christ, in two Facebook arguments right now. One with a semiretired news guy, a movement conservative asshole who is bragging about his relationship with Lee Atwater, who is casting doubts on Trumpiots who called threats i. to the Arizona Republic (this is over someone else’s feed). He’s a loud Christer who is praying for me.

    The other is an old friend who thinks the election is rigged.

  76. 76.

    burnspbesq

    @Matt McIrvin:

    It’s not necessarily a false flag

    True, but that’s an understandable thing to think. Or you could look at the location (minutes away from a large public university with a large and active Greek sysyem) and the timing (a few hours after a home football game), and think “drunken Tarhole frat-boys.”

  77. 77.

    Citizen_X

    @srv:

    This election will only determine one thing: the focus and the composition of the insurgency to follow.

    Oh, for fuck’s sake. The nature of the “insurgency” is already baked in: its “focus” will be nothing and everything, its composition will be stupid white men, and its effectiveness will be nil.

    The only question is its lethality.

  78. 78.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @RoonieRoo:

    What’s frightening is that every Trump supporter we know has zero doubt the election is rigged. There is absolutely nothing anyone can say to change their minds. These are educated men who work in tech.

    Sadly, I don’t doubt you for a nanosecond, but I’d be very interested to know from those Trump supporters at what point, specifically, the rigging is supposed to occur. I want them to go through the process step by step and say “Stop! There!! There’s where those crooked liberals are cheating and rigging and corrupting the system!”

    They can’t.

  79. 79.

    Roger Moore

    @SFAW:

    I eagerly await the Rethug complaints about the ACTUAL vote rigging that’s been taking place since at least 2000. That is, purging of the voter rolls, primarily of constituencies that historically leaned Dem.

    The Republicans are too worried about the real vote rigging that’s happened since about 1965, where Those People were suddenly allowed to vote. How are white men going to remain in control of the country if their votes are counted the same as women, blacks, etc.?

  84. 84.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @dimmsdale:

    Can’t speak for other states, but in Georgia (an open-carry state), Prohibited Voter Conduct includes “carrying firearms within 150 feet of the polling place, unless person is law enforcement or certified security guard.”

  85. 85.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @mikefromArlington: Government bureaucrats can serve as election officials, just not in their official capacity as Government bureaucrats. As long as they’re acting as private citizens it’s kosher. I’m a Government bureaucrat in the DC area and some of my co-workers work polling stations.

    The media and Clinton are exposing things about Trump that people find disgusting. The nerve of them! That’s rigging an election! She’s trying to win when she should be trying to lose! Seriously, what did this guy think? Hillary would just roll over and give up? I almost think that’s what he thought would happen. Idiot.

  87. 87.

    stibbert

    I’m a PA poll-worker, been doing it for 5 years. Our polling-place group has had some turnover, but we work well together.
    Ashbylaw’s tweet-storm seemed accurate to me, but didn’t mention that before the polls open, we swear a required oath to conduct the election freely & fairly, avowing our disinterest in the final result. I like & trust my team, I’ll see most of them tomorrow at a tune-up training session.
    So it’s been bothering me that Mr. Trump’s been calling for volunteers to poll-watch against what he calls a “rigged election.” We’ve worked well in the past with registered poll-watchers, but aren’t prepared or trained to cope with disruptive soccer-hooligans. We have phone numbers to call the county election workers if there’s a mechanical or procedural problem, and there’s a hot-line number to the county courthouse.
    I’m expecting a really long, busy day on 8 Nov, but we’ll be doing our best to be friendly to all! However, at the 1st sign of trouble, I’m gonna dial 911. It’s a serious crime to interfere with the election process.

  89. 89.

    Central Planning

    I’m disappointed that NY requires election workers to be either registered D or R. However, I changed from no party to D this year, so next election I’ll volunteer to be a poll worker. I think it would be awesome.

  90. 90.

    JPL

    Hillary Clinton
    The attack on the Orange County HQ @NCGOP office is horrific and unacceptable. Very grateful that everyone is safe.

  91. 91.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @srv:

    particularly since cops aren’t allowed there.

    Whatever gave you that idea?

    @everyone else: sorry FFTT.

  92. 92.

    Matt McIrvin

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: Some of what they were doing was adopting old Berniac complaints about Hillary rigging the primary. The early complaints about superdelegates being undemocratic were at least somewhat logical, though the Sanders campaign then started trying to win by flipping them.

  93. 93.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @shomi:

    and just like that Ball Juice takes the bait.

    How is it “taking the bait” to refute the charge with evidence and facts?

    @everyone else: sorry FFTT.

  95. 95.

    stibbert

    @Central Planning: It’s a long day for little pay, but there’s satisfaction to be had. Our best thing is applauding a 1st-time voter, say, an 18-year-old or a new, naturalized citizen.

  96. 96.

    TriassicSands

    Donald J. Trump Poll Watcher’s Kit:

    1. Prominently displayed AR-15 assault rifle and/or prominently displayed semi- automatic pistol, ideally both will have high capacity clips. Rifles are best. In states that don’t allow open carry, it is OK to substitute tasers, clubs, and/or pepper spray.

    2. Highly visible white supremacist tattoos OR Highly visible tattoos saying “Lock Her Up” or “Crooked Hillary.”

    3. Flask containing strong alcoholic beverage (no less than 100 proof).

    4. Cell phone (to call for reinforcements, legal assistance, etc.).

    5. Telephone number of the official Trump Voter Suppression HQ.

    6. Official Trump Voter Challenge Checklist.

    7. Official Trump Pocket Photo Guide: Who Should I Challenge?

    8. List of local election officials complete with home addresses and phone numbers. Ideally, this list will include information on school age children of officials.

    9. Bull horn with new batteries.

    10. Phone number of Trump Legal Assistance.

  98. 98.

    TriassicSands

    @Josie:

    This is an excellent reason to participate in early voting.

    Even better, work to get your state to switch to all mail-in voting like we have in Washington State (and Oregon). The only disadvantage is that I miss actually going to the polls and casting a ballot. However, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages and it completely eliminates the kind of intimidation that Trump wants his supporters to use this year.

  99. 99.

    Tim C.

    @Citizen_X: There will also be far far far fewer of them showing up than anyone expects. I think most of even the “rigged” talk is really just rationalizing the loss before it happens. Most of them don’t really believe it. Yes, I know what the polls are saying about it, but at this point if you are still on the Trump bandwagon, you are basically the equivalent of a spoiled middle school athlete who could only ever be on the losing side of a game because the Refs cheated.

  100. 100.

    Taylor

    @TriassicSands:

    Even better, work to get your state to switch to all mail-in voting like we have in Washington State (and Oregon). The only disadvantage is that I miss actually going to the polls and casting a ballot.

    I can think of other disadvantages. For example, Trumpist husbands bullying their wives to vote for Trump.

    Mail-in balloting is highly problematic.

  102. 102.

    The Pale Scot

    @burnspbesq: “Plausible” and “proven” are not synonyms

    Fer sure. What strikes me is if true, how crude and inelegant it was. Ignore any possibility that there would be someone onsite that was keeping a tally, change the servers and keep whistling.

  103. 103.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Adam L Silverman: (Obviously) among the examples of things to report immediately in our poll observers’ instruction book is perceived threats/intimidation efforts made toward any official or voter. Online and by phone. As Kay undoubtedly mentioned, most (D) credentialed observers here are attorneys and the regional protection team leaders are attorneys; the party has additional – and more specifically – trained attorneys on call in the area for just these situations. We have to attend training prior to receiving credentials. I’m taking some early voting shifts in addition to my election day assignment. I can report on how things proceed. I admit I have some concerns, as tensions are higher than usual right now because the criminal trial of an officer shooting (unarmed deceased) begins 10/24, and the courthouse is 2 blocks from the board of elections – the only early vote location in this county.

  104. 104.

    burnspbesq

    @efgoldman:

    Duke frat boys were less likely to get shit-faced last night. The only sporting events on campus were volleyball and women’s soccer.

  105. 105.

    Nom de Plume

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    I can’t dismiss it as false flag.

    The words are all spelled correctly, which argues against a false flag by a Trumpster. Then again, they are experts at drawing Swastikas. I put it at 50/50 at this point.

  107. 107.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Soylent Green: That’s all that matters. I really don’t care whether Trump supporters believe the election will be rigged. I do care that they may try to harass voters of color. I hope the Federal authorities are planning to protect voters in minority communities from voter intimidation which Trump and his ilk are encouraging.

  108. 108.

    SFAW

    @Nom de Plume:

    The words are all spelled correctly, which argues against a false flag by a Trumpster. Then again, they are experts at drawing Swastikas. I put it at 50/50 at this point.

    I think the information we’re all lacking is: What does Alex Jones have to say about this? If it’s crickets, then it was probably not a Dem (sympathizer) who did it. [Because if it were, he’d be screaming to Deadbeat Donnie already.]

  109. 109.

    Jay S

    All true, but does anyone have a breakdown by party of Secretary of State officers? They are nominally in charge of elections state wide.

  111. 111.

    chelsea530

    Speakers of the House include most recently Gingrich, DeLay, and Hastert.

    Boehner looks like a well-respected statesman compared to them.

    Find your spine, Paulie, and do the people’s work for once. You just might gain some well-deserved respect.

    We dems love Nancy Pelosi for a reason.

  112. 112.

    Central Planning

    @stibbert: in sure. This is the first time voting for my 18 and 19 year old kids. They say all their college friends are for Hilary

  114. 114.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Taylor:

    I can think of other disadvantages. For example, Trumpist husbands bullying their wives to vote for Trump.

    Or employers bullying their employees to vote their preferred way in their presence. Though, these days, that kind of behavior is probably easier to catch.

  115. 115.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Adam L Silverman:
    @dimmsdale:
    I’ve been a poll worker, and we were specifically trained to handle “free-lance” poll watchers, what Trump is proposing. In contrast, the political parties have poll watchers who are also trained and who introduce themselves to the poll workers and stay out of the way unless they have a good reason to observe what is happening. For the free-lancers, the procedure is to ask them who they are and what they are doing and tell them to leave if they don’t have a good reason for being there. That can be escalated to poll supervisors and police if necessary. The police rotate around the polls to make sure that the campaigners keep the proper distance and are available for worse. That’s New Mexico. Other states may handle things differently. If people start waving guns around, I suppose it could get ugly, but I suspect that these folks are bullies like Trump and will wilt when faced down.

    @The Pale Scot:
    Because elections are supervised by the states and lower governmental bodies, the voting machines and methods are marvelously diverse. Again, in New Mexico, where I am most acquainted with, we have optical scanner machines. Each machine at each precinct would have to be hacked individually. The paper ballots are retained in the machine so that they can be counted later, and random precincts are hand-counted to make sure that the totals agree. Results are transmitted electronically, but they are later matched up with the machines. Fully electronic machines seem to be more vulnerable. I don’t know how many states are still using them.

  116. 116.

    Brachiator

    @redshirt:

    Trump is literally doing Russia’s work to weaken America.

    Putin will be ousted in coup long before America is weakened by anything the Russians do.

    Our biggest threat is the kind of domestic enemy represented by Trump, and by the GOP at their worst, stoking bigotry and resentment.

  118. 118.

    Gretchen

    The Kansas Secretary of State is voter-fraud guru Kris Kobach. A Wichita State statistician has found evidence of irregularities in the voting machine tabulations. She sued to see the tapes in her county to see if the tapes corresponded with the vote count. The first time she was refused for not being soon enough after the election. The second time she got a lawyer. The judge refused her again, saying that there were privacy concerns, that someone who knew when someone voted could say how they voted. So there are tapes that would prove that the count was correct, but nobody can look at them. The software is proprietary, so nobody can check it and make sure it is working as advertised. I need some convincing to believe that none of these machines, made by a company with a partisan Repulican at its head, has a program to flip some votes to the Republican.

  119. 119.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    Me too, all of this. Took my Poll Watcher/Voter Protection training yesterday and expect to receive my advance voting location assignments as well as Election Day assignment(s) in the next day or two. Have my badge and letter of authorisation from the Secy of State’s office, so now it is just a matter of knowing where I need to be when.

    Among the messages they really hammered into us yesterday: “Do NOT engage directly with voters,” and “Don’t even THINK about trying to be a hero!” No confrontations!

  120. 120.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    Goddammit to hell and back, fuck you Word Press with the biggest rustiest farm implement to be found in a pile of maggot-infested manure.

  122. 122.

    Brachiator

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Some of what they were doing was adopting old Berniac complaints about Hillary rigging the primary. The early complaints about superdelegates being undemocratic were at least somewhat logical, though the Sanders campaign then started trying to win by flipping them.

    Bottom line is that this is bullshit in so many ways. Again, Trump is a snake oil salesmen who comes up with a snappy easy idea that resonates with some people even though it is totally false, because he can link it to any earlier case (which also may have been false).

    I almost admire how he is saying that he is such a winner that the only way he could lose is if he is cheated out of what is rightfully and naturally his.

  123. 123.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cheryl Rofer: Nope went straight into the trash. I dug it out, ran it under the sanitizing shower, and its not free to play with the other comments.

  125. 125.

    Brachiator

    @efgoldman:

    The other 1/10 of one percent are wacko enough to take action regardless of whether Rapey McRaperson Littlescroitum or anyone else incites them.

    Still too high a number.

  129. 129.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cheryl Rofer: I don’t know. Given that both your and SD’s were about poll watching, perhaps that combo got picked up by WP. To be perfectly honest, when comments wind up going directly to either trash (more often) or spam (less often) there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. There are certain things on a control list that will dump you into moderation, but the comments that wind up in the trash seems to be a willy nilly process that no one understands.

  132. 132.

    Brachiator

    @Philbert:

    Wait for it: the Russians are going to save us from Communism.

    Communism is already dead. You should have received the memo, fax and email.

  134. 134.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Cheryl Rofer: I agree with what you said. I worked for the WI governmental org. that oversaw elections during the various recall elections and the 2012 election. It is virtually impossible to mess with enough municipality’s individual polling places that it would turn an election.

  137. 137.

    DavidTC

    Voting machines are equipped with multiple interconnected counters that make it impossible to add or remove votes secretly. -11

    Not if you live in fucking Georgia, they aren’t. In Georgia, they are computers that output whatever number they are programmed to output at the end up the day, with no way to verify that, and we just have to trust they counted them correctly.

    Of course, you can thank the *Republicans* for that.

  138. 138.

    dimmsdale

    @Cheryl Rofer: thanks for the response, Cheryl. My polling place always has a police presence, and I imagine cops anywhere wouldn’t take particularly kindly to being challenged by blustery armed ‘constitutionalist’ yahoos. It’s a relief to know you and the other poll-watchers on the thread will be there on Election Day.

  139. 139.

    SWMBO

    @Adam L Silverman: I early voted in the Presidential primary in March and the Democratic primary in August. At the early voting place (the community center), there were people passing out literature outside a clearly marked perimeter. No one was allowed to campaign inside the perimeter. There were poll watchers sitting outside to make sure there wasn’t anyone bothered inside the perimeter. Inside the building, there is a lobby where there were at least 2 uniformed officers greeting people and asking them if they were here to vote. They directed voters to the auditorium where more poll watchers and voting machines were set up. No one was allowed to talk to you inside the building while voting except the cops and poll workers. They asked for id, printed a ballot and made sure you knew what you needed to know. When you finished voting (and they made sure you pressed the VOTE button) they escorted you back to the lobby where the cops once again greeted you and told you to have a nice day. They moved people through without being nasty, shrill or intimidating. No one was allowed to approach the actual voting area without cause. I feel good about the vote in November because these people went through the 2000 clusterfuck and by God they aren’t going to screw up the vote again. We went through a couple of Supervisor of Elections to get the one we have now and she’s good. If the rest of Florida is like this (and it seems to be from what I have heard), the only ones we have to worry about are people like George Zimmerman (and I really expect them to move him and others like him through quickly.) I’m not as worried about Florida as much as places like Ohio where there were long lines to vote last time. If they don’t provide enough machines and poll watchers, that could get sticky.

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