ROLLING STONE: The Missing Votes
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Investigation by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast released today
Don’t worry about Mickey Mouse or ACORN stealing the election. According to an investigative report out today in Rolling Stone magazine, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, after a year-long investigation, reveal a systematic program of "GOP vote tampering" on a massive scale.
- Republican Secretaries of State of swing-state Colorado have quietly purged one in six names from their voter rolls.
Over several months, the GOP politicos in Colorado stonewalled every attempt by Rolling Stone to get an answer to the massive purge - ten times the average state's rate of removal.
- While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million have had their registrations REJECTED under new procedures signed into law by George Bush.
Kennedy, a voting rights lawyer, charges this is a resurgence of 'Jim Crow' tactics to wrongly block Black and Hispanic voters.
- A fired US prosecutor levels new charges - accusing leaders of his own party, Republicans, with criminal acts in an attempt to block legal voters as "fraudulent."
- Digging through government records, the Kennedy-Palast team discovered that, in 2004, a GOP scheme called "caging” ultimately took away the rights of 1.1 million voters. The Rolling Stone duo predict that, this November 4, it will be far worse.
There's more:
- Since the last presidential race, "States used dubious 'list management' rules to scrub at least 10 million voters from their rolls."
Among those was Paul Maez of Las Vegas, New Mexico - a victim of an unreported but devastating purge of voters in that state that left as many as one in nine Democrats without a vote. For Maez, the state's purging his registration was particularly shocking - he's the county elections supervisor.
The Kennedy-Palast revelations go far beyond the sum of questionably purged voters recently reported by the New York Times.
"Republican operatives - the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics," report Kennedy and Palast, under the cover of fighting fraudulent voting, are "systematically disenfranchis[ing] Democrats."
The investigators level a deadly serious charge:
"If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat McCain at the polls - they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering."
Block the Vote by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & Greg Palast in the current issue (#1064) of Rolling Stone.
[Media enquiries - Dave Falkenstein, Sunshine Sachs & Assoc, via interviews@gregpalast.com.]
Note - Kennedy and Palast are releasing, simultaneously with the Rolling Stone investigative report what they call, the vote-theft 'antidote': a 24-page full-color comic book, Steal Back Your Vote, which can be downloaded or obtained in print from their non-partisan website, StealBackYourVote.org
For updates and video reports, go to RollingStone.com, www.GregPalast.com and StealBackYourVote.org.
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there's a problem. a lot of illegal aliens are regestering to vote and voting too. that is also just as fraudulant.
Assholes! Keep 'em honest and keep fighting.
link to the text of the rolling stone article? also citations and sources for the comic book?
Not at all to diminish the crimes your rightly point out, there is truly only one party in Amerika. The Corporate Party. GOP and DEM are merely factions of the Corporate Party. Good luck.
Everyone of voting age needs to hear this BEFORE the rigged election takes place. If you are so blind as to still have faith in the US elections process, please google and read your history about the vote tampering in 2000, 2004, and the reports of the hacked voting machines that flip votes right in front of you.
Please understand the system is rigged, and even if you vote with a paper ballot, it's scanned electronically by the same machines PROVEN to be rigged for the republicans.
I am awfully excited about Obama being elected! I have recently moved from a Democratically controlled ultra liberal state to the bad bad conservatively dominated state of Texas. In Texas, the economy is doing fine, which is of course bad. People have jobs, housing is affordable, and even construction is rolling along. This is all bad, of course, because it shields people from just how bad our country is. I miss the poverty, corruption and anger of my previous state. Fortunately, Obama is going to fix all that. The whole U.S. will soon be just like Chicago! I can't wait. I know it's only wishful thinking, but I think Obama might even bring those arrogant Texans down to the level of Equality that we all want. Won't it be great when we are all equally poor!
So what are we supposed to do?
I say get your phone video cam in working order to video any vote fraud. Just like Rodney King, you can change history.
Revolution is the Solution!!!
Is it time for another civil war?
The "Steal Back Your Vote" website linked to here is awful. In order to read the comic you have to scroll up and down and back and forth. Also the bottom scrollbar is set up like a diebold machine, you use it to scroll and it flips you to a different page, then it triggered my browser's anti-click-jacking warning. I think your webdesigner is working for McBush-Failin.
You should get Blanca to look into this in Colorado. Very disturbing!
Online voter registrants in 37 states may be rejected at polls
Young people registering to vote are likely to turn to one of the convenient online registration forms offered on both presidential candidate’s Web sites, or on Rock the Vote.
The forms are automatically filled out and addressed to the proper secretary of state, or the equivalent. Just stamp them and mail them. What could be easier?
Problem is, in 37 states, the forms have the wrong address. In those states, potential voters are supposed to send the forms to the county registrar or a similar local entity. These are listed on the states’ Web sites and on their printed forms.
But the United States Election Commission Web site , http://www.eac.gov, says that forms are to be sent to the state offices, and lists each one’s address. Those are the addresses the candidates’ Web sites and Rock the Vote are using.
Will the secretaries of the various states forward the registrations to the county registrars? Depends. It’s a lot of extra effort to look at each form and figure out where it is supposed to go.
In Louisiana, where the state form distinctly warns, in an underlined sentence, NOT to send forms to the secretary of state, a worker at that office said that yes, the forms would be sent on. But there’s no guarantee that they would arrive in time for the presidential election, she added.
States affected include Alabama Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and, West Virginia.
Registration has already ended in 18 states: Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Washington.
Mail-in registation in Nevada, Utah and Washington has ended, but people who walk in to register have a few more days.
In Illinois and New Mexico , registration ends today, Oct. 7, and in Missouri it ends Wednesday, Oct. 8.
Online registrants are widely assumed to be primarily young, first-time voters, a group that heavily favors Obama.
Update: the Obam Website updted its registration proces this week. Rock the Vote is still sending voters to secretaries of state,
Liz Scott Monaghan
After sending my central Florida readers Greg's commentary on the article and a link to read it all, I also wrote this to them:
CHEER UP
The story in Rolling Stone by RFK JR is bleak , but there are remedies, and reasons to expect and work for a good outcome... Things are looking better.
In spite of all that the GOP and it's friends in the security sector try to do, there is mounting evidence that they are losing some of their control of news, the courts, and most importantly, the public's knowledge of what is really happening with our national voting system. With these blocks dislodged, how can they hope to pull off another election theft and get away with it?
Take a look at the front page of the State/Meto section (B) of the St. Petersburg Times today. A banner headline across the top of the page says, "New voter registration law snares mostly minorities." There's something almost every day about vote fraud on national level TV and press. Nobody important believes a well established group like ACORN pulled off nation-wide voter fraud, but everybody understands that BushCo would do anything to hang on
For another thing, as journalist Mike Collins points out , it is clear that the millions of extra new voters who participated in the Primary Elections in August will vote again, and that they can't be stopped from voting. No one will believe those voters changed their minds or that they just accidentally voted for the wrong candidate. Their votes are locked in.
And does anyone really believe the public will accept vote machine or tabulation machine glitches and let bad totals stand this time?
The prospect of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people being denied their vote all over the country is now in the news every day.
Enough public figures and voting administrators all over the country will have to weigh ensuring it doesn't happen against the prospects of living and working every day where people know the truth.
We have to keep the pressure on them, the media and the public in every way possible, but I don't think most of the voting supervisors are stupid enough to try it this time. Gov. Charlie Crist and Kurt Browning (FL Sec'y of State) are already backing off the GOP party line on ACORN .
This "It's already stolen" is a red herring. Why would you not address the highest order bits of the matter as laid out in the letter reproduced below?
Perhaps you can explain why anyone with a brain should even participate in this puppetshow designed for the entertainment of the sheeples mainstream masses.
Instead of educating them on how both parties, and both candidates, represent the same ruling interests, and how America itself has been stolen such that all overarching policies for destroying the nation-state of the United States and ushering in world-government will continue unabated regardless of who occupies the White House, you seem to be contributing to the emotional brouhaha of the puppetshow to drum up interest as the drum-beaters for 'noora-kushti'. That word, in my native language, means both teams work for the same promoters, and are putting on a show for the benefit of the public in a fixed-match.
The match is predominantly fixed not by election rigging, but by the pre-selection of willing participants – just like in WWF wrestling. In electrical engineering, we call this pre-setting the 'Most Significant Bits' which largely determine the outcome of any subsequent computation.
Why are you so energetically focussing on red herrings?
Here is the letter sent you earlier. I am not sure if you have actually seen it since I know you must be very busy, so I reproduce it again below.
---
To: Mr. Greg Palast and Newsnight,
Subject: 'The Theft of 2008' http://www.gregpalast.com/bbc-newsnight-the-theft-of-2008/
Date: October 15, 2008.
Thank you for this report. It indeed provides new methods and ideas to the so called emerging democracies in the third world for running their own elections by learning from the beacon of democratic dispensation.
And I am slightly confused by your emphasis on these elections.
If both candidates are supported by the same oligarchs, backed by the same brains and ideologues, both keep the main mantras of "war on terror" against an "indomitable" and illusive foe sitting on his rump in the Hindu-Kush intact, and both parties, Democrats as well as the Republicans, in a truly bipartisan way, standup and salute the President of the United States on his every suggestion to pass oppressive legislation, bailout bills, and more monies to wage more "imperial mobilization", what is the purpose of paying so much attention to these elections?
In a sense, you are perpetuating the mythology among the common mainstream Americans that these elections matter – when they really don't, even if fairly contested.
You seem to be intent on pushing the puppetshow of election on center stage, keep the attention of the people embroiled on the contest, get them excited by showing off the voter fraud issues, while the entire time, you keep the attention from the puppetmasters away.
I expected better than that – Greg!
I don't know about BBC and Newsnight and whom they are beholden to for their purse-strings and their permissible 'operational-envelope', but having read your books, I know you are a conscientious American who is trying to do his best deeds for his peoples.
Then why this lapse of reference to puppetmasters in this video? Why is there no mention of how both parties have become merely the two sides of the same imperial coin beholden to the same oligarchic interests? Why not identify those oligarchic interests? Why not name the common names behind both the leaders contesting for the White House? They aren't particularly secret.
Surely none of this is a surprise?
If it is, then you and the producers of Newsnight might visit my website for some data and forensic analysis that is apparently missing in your documentary. It might assist you in a followup documentary on the elections that is a bit more realistic in its unveiling of the grotesque bipartisan reality of the construction of world-government unfolding before our very eyes, as the good gullible peoples are kept busy in various 'katputli tamashas' (puppet shows), and embroiled in various manufactured "revolutionary times" using the 'technique of infamy'.
The voter fraud shenanigans would be significant and pertinent if there was a real choice in policy making.
Since there really isn't, as the same think-tanks and the same policy-makers back both parties for the agendas on the 'Grand Chessboard', and both are funded by the same oligarchs behind the scenes – those who so trivially prevailed upon Congress to pass this trillion dollar bailout package for the banksters – you are actually directly complicit in their designs by your banal emphasis on what doesn't matter. “I didn't know” is hardly a defense for a stellar investigative journalist like yourself.
But since I do not wish to impute such motivation and such guilt to such a stellar and resourceful journalist, I am therefore slightly confused as to why such a grotesquely dancing, trumpeting, defecating elephant in the newlywed's bed is being ignored.
Thank you.
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
http://humanbeingsfirst.org
Can I get the Rolling Stone article and/or the comic book in Spanich?
Thanks, Sharon Call
Can I get the Rolling Stone article and/or the comic book in Spanish? (mispelled Spanish in my e-mail I just sent) Thanks, Sharon Call
Is there nothing we can do to stop this outrage? Is it too Late? Willthe uproar as a result of this crime be used as an excuse for them todeclare Martial Law?
Hey, check this out:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/Obama-Mukasey/?resultpage=1&
It's about time. Maybe Mukasey will do his job, but one way or another, this bullshit is being vigorously challenged for once. And three cheers for the Supreme Court for putting their feet down on it.
It's like screaming into cotton a mile thick: my efforts to inform other Democrats and Barbara Boxer (Incompetent--California), even to inform the Obama campaign--all falling on utterly deaf ears.
It's almost like they *want* to lose this election.
One hopes this is not the case.
Because if Obama loses, this nation is done, kaput, finished.
So much for democracy eh. What a disgrace. Can this investigation go as far as fingering individuals and organizations involved? How awful. We really are a country run by criminals and guided by fake news. Makes me sad.
Thank you Kennedy and Palast.
It's great that this is being exposed, I just wish it could have been done sooner, I also hope congress will investigate and start having the ones who are committing this will go to jail.
Some states already shut off registration and these people have no recourse against who did this to them and the official reason why. But for those with still some time they should find out if they are registered and if not go to city hall do it again.
I've always say if the gop doesn't cheat, they can't win.
Thank you so much Greg
You have to wonder why Democrats haven't raised this issue, no matter how well documented it is, even though they are the potential victims. Have we all gone to sleep here in America?
Peace
Karl
Of course the purging of the lists is deadly serious. We also have no idea how serious the voting machine problems are. Here is GOP programmer admitting under oath he was hired to write vote hacking software
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3hUPP_bdOo
Peace
Karl
WELL MY VOTE SURE WAS STOLEN, AS WELL AS MY SON. I AM A MEMBER OF DEMOCRTATS ABROAD LIVING IN FRANCE. I HAD NOT VOTED SINCE CARTER AND I DOWNLOADED ALL THE NECESSARY PAPERS FROM DEMS ABROAD AND HAND DELIVERD MY PAPERS TO THE BOARD OF ETHICS AND ELECTIONS WHILE I WAS IN D.C. VISITING MY DAD. I ALSO REGISTERD MY SON, WHO WAS VOTING FOR THE FIST TIME. WE FILLED OUT EVERYTHING AND SENT IT IN EARLY SEPTEMBER. MY SON AT THE TIME WAS A FEW WEEKS FROM TURNING 18 AND WE WERE TOLD IT WOULD BE OK BECAUSE HE WOULD BE 18 BY THE TIME THE BALLOTS ARRIVED. HE WAS 18 ON THE 15TH OF OCT. WE NEVER RECEIVED OUR BALLOTS. I CALLED D.C. EVERY WEEK AND THEY HAD NOTHING THAT MADE SENSE TO SAY TO ME. THEY WERE NOT CONCERNED AT ALL AND THEIR PHONE DELIVERY WAS THE WORST. I REALLY WANTED TO STRANGLE THEM. I STATED THAT THIS WAS A SERIOUS MATTER BUT THEY DID NOT CARE.....SO OBBAMA WILL NOT HAVE OUR TWO VOTES AND I AM JUST ILL. I KNOW THERE IS NOTHING TO DO, BUT IT IS JUST PAINFUL.
THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME VENT
J.J.ELESSIE
Palast and Kennedy need to get on talk radio big time (progressive). It seems a bit late if you ask me. We need to educate people in a massive way and how is that supposed to happen in just a few days? People are voting so soon....
How can we punch this through to the mainstream media? Some brilliant creative idea out there?
Your dedication to protect our democracy is rare! Thank you for your gallant endeavor--loved the "truhtout" video, too. Keep truck'in!
I saw Robert Kennedy on Larry King last night. This is not a surprise, is it? I mean, the Republicans big money backers, they aren't about to let Obama win this. They have got to be shaking in their shoes bad by now.
It is very scary - they have stolen two elections and are already putting another one in the bag. People just have no idea, its like they were all asleep since 1999.
I think, even though the election is only a few weeks away, a huge ad campaign to include every TV station, newspaper, magazine needs to put this out there in huge headlines no one can not see and understand. People in this country could be imprinted by such an alarming thing, lets face it, if they are alarmed about a charge of Obama being a terrorist, the idea of not eating in the future should get some kind of play. That is what will happen if the Republicans win.
Don't understand why self-described "liberals - progressives" over and over -- every 4 years -- dutifully paraticipate in the U.S. media's phony & predictible fluff-filled obsession with the celebrity & race aspects into which they turn rhe presidential campaign? You would think they would get it after year upon year of having their teeth kicked in. No chance. Every four years thsy drag their beaten minds and bodies back for more punishment.Give them an 'A' for effort.
They're in such denial! They talk about the number of new seats their wing of the nation's, single republicrat party will surely win this time around, how many of their priviledged 25+year career politicans will retain their seats. Just like the blood-sucking mainstream media that pays no fees to taxpayers for its misuse of the airwaves, the "progressives" get themselves all hot and bothered over a one-party oligarchy to which they return like an addicted lover to get screwed every four years.
Oh, they do pontificate about the injustice of it all. They rant about the need for proportional representation, for an alternative party, or god forbid, maybe even two etc etc. But when that four year period comes around,again,-- like drunken play soldiers -- they drink the coolaid sloshed out by their masters -- the oligarchs and their well-paid pimps and propagandists. Another era in Amerika, the land of the sleepwalkers and the starryeyed.
Hi, i met you before at the Bowery poetry club in manhattan. I said i wanted to be an investigative reporter or something like that when im older. I got an idea about hoiw we could possibly sue the republican leaders of these claims such as the morgage blocking thing and other tactics. Im a college student at SVA and i wouldn't mind video taping the voting areas during the election, and possibly through calaberation we could do this all over the united states with other college students. Or something like that. we could stand by the booths where people go to vote and see how many people get rejected. It would be especially use ful in michigan and other places like that. Anyway i hope this idea helps. Im planning on donating 75 dollars later today, and hopefully ill be able to get the word out to some people who live around me and tell them to spread the word. Ill see what happens, anyway thank you for all your hard work. I think you, greg palast, and Robert are doing an amazing job. Hopefully i can help you guys
You can go to the Can I Vote website and check your status instantly. Find it here at: http://canivote.org.
This cannot be allowed!!! It MUST be publicized! Disenfranchized votrers must be urged to protest loudly to any and all media. You have the clout to get the word out thru TV and radio talk shows & the TV and print media!!
Democracy on the march... FASCIST WINGNUT STYLE
((
Where is the LIBERAL MEDIA when we need them? Maybe they aren't actually LIBERAL AT ALL! Has it all been an incredible GOP smoke and mirrors scam??
This sounds like Democracy on the March... GOP FASCIST STYLE! Give me some fries to go with that GOP Koolaid
((
Who's vote was stolen? I am sick and tired of people yelling the votes where stolen or people were disenfranchised (as if they even know what the word means) when they can not prove it. Even the voter ID law opponents from Indiana lost at the Supreme Court partly because they could not produce anyuone who was "disenfrnachised." All I want it people who are allowed ot vote in MY precint to be residents of MY precint. I personally know of Mexican Nationals who voted in the 2000 election by gaming the system. I personally know of people who voted in New York AND Florida in the 2000 election. All I have to sahy is it's time to put up or shut up. Prove that someone was denied the right to vote and I will stand right next to you to fight for their right, but don't blow smoke up my ass by telling me that purging voter roles of people who have moved, are dead, or cannot prove thier existance or residence is somehow "stealing" an election. After all we know the prisons are full of conservative church goin' folks. Finally, if we have no border enforcement, how can anyone with a straight face say that requireing proof of residency is "disenfranchising" anyone unless you count how many of our votes are neutralized by fraud?
It's horrible that Americans have been willing to forfeit their voting rights for the sake of being assured by the Conservatives that if you are white you are better off with them, and the only way to assure that we keep an apartheid society is to surrender our right to fair elections.
Some have predicted that America will not again be willing to suffer another stolen birthright.
Bull
Well, Jeb Bush lead the charge in 2000 to purge 4000+ off the voter role. A State judge issued a court order that
this purge be reversed. Jeb did nothing. The judge then ordered it again saying Jeb would be held in contempt if he
defied the court order. Jeb left office leaving it undone.
Crist not wanted to be held in contempt, finally had it taken care of. I live in Florida....the only state surrounded on three sides by water and run by idiots.
They cut 244 million for education this year while increasing the millions spent on new private prisons
and the morals police, to inforce porno laws and slouching pants laws.
Since democrats do not have representation in DC. They should not pay taxes. There is very little representation of liberals in print,radio or TV. Time to stop paying taxes until somebody starts applying the justice system to republicans as well as democrats. Don Seigleman.
Get out the votes!
"They can't steal a landslide."
OBAMA-BIDEN 2008
There better be a federal criminal investigation then long sentences for rove etc..involved in this BS..nader would prosecute these criminals, the others will give them a free pass
uh............Robert F. Kennedy Jr............isn't he the idiot that believes that vaccinations cause autism?
Why would ANYONE, even a Democrat like me, BELIEVE anything that came out of the vacuum that passes for this idiot's brain?
If you really want to prove Republican voter disenfranchisement, find someone who is believable and reliable - not someone who bases his decisions in life on hallucinogenic memories.
Not to worry. Heck, have you heard Colin Powell is going to endorse Obama? With an endorsement of such an ethical man of esteemed high integrity coming on board, how can he lose. Yeah right! Why is it big news that a known liar and General All Around Scumbag is going to endorse somebody?
I have truly become mentally weary of trying to keep up with everything in politics. The corruption from all angles in government has become so massive that I find it impossible to know who and what to trust anymore. I never thought I'd be one to give up the fight to help put someone as progressive and intelligent as Obama into the White House, but I surrender. I have never been so ashamed of America. I have never been impressed with American's labeling as "The SuperPower of the World", I don't even know what that means anymore. It's not as if we've played nice to get that reputation to begin with. We ran off the American Indians, deceiving and killing them without mercy, we brought over African slaves and treated them like dogs and for many years and are still a very racist country, and oh so much more to tell....I see how the Repulicans play upon the ignorance of the religious movement, especially playing the fundamentalist Christians like little pawns, dangling the subject of abortion and gays in their face when it's appropriate to promote their agenda...I still see the great division in this country, mostly due to religion and ignorance...quite frankly, I just plain give up. The more complicated things get, the easier it is for corruption to thrive because even the most interested people, such as myself, just plain give up after a while. I say let American get what it deserves. The Christians keep hoping for the end times, thinking Jesus will come down to save us instead of realizing that maybe God instilled the ability within ourselves to help us survive and to learn to live in a community where we all share the same hopes and dreams...simple things like food, shelter, health care, jobs, families, love, friends...but it seems like there are forces greater than we know of, probably the World Banking System and Elite groups that are really running the world. It would take a massive REVOLUTION and an awakening of all the ignorant sleeping people to see what is really going on before anything can change. So I as of today, just give up. Maybe we have to hit rock, I mean rock bottom, until we are forced to do what we have the chance to do right now...but I don't believe America is ready for it yet...the religious movement is a key player in holding this country back...and the politicans and world bankers know how to pull their little strings like puppets. I being a spiritual person, have grown to despised religion, anyone that clings so tightly to what they believe in eventually become insane in their thinking...they don't realize that just because they believe in something, doesn't make it true. I saw the movie RELIGULOUS....I think that should be a mandatory movie for everyone...but once your brainwashed...I guess nothing will sink in, not even the message that this movie is trying go convey. GOOD LUCK AMERICA....WE WILL BE GOING DOWNWARD FOR A LONG TIME...don't mean to be a pessimist, just being a realist. Until we can overhaul our whole political system and become more united in our thinking, then not much will change...and to think we invaded a middle eastern country, Iraq, and want to turn them into democracy...to be the shining example that we are today.
The Kennedy name has always be associated with justice.
The Bush name has always been associated with corruption.
Thank You for your warning, your efforts, your care.
John McCain has been a F-UP since age 15. He's not even in Bushs' league in terms of emotional, sensible maturity. I believe Bush at least had some empathy for human beings prior to becoming too powerful. McCain seems addicted to chaos; the first sign of a crazyman. There are 100's of stories available that indicate that he has no conscience, the reason for his habit of pathological lying. I lived through Nixon. I have seen this again during the last 8 years.
America cannot afford the arrogance of another 'Bush'...and with the psyche, life choices and deeply disturbed nature of McCain, giving him power will produce a disaster. McCain, at his core, hates people. It's well known in Arizona that he basically despises 'the average Joe.'The fact that he is disquising this disdain and now embracing a true average Joe, tells me just what level he is at: a shade below a sociopath. People to a McCain type of personality, are just 'something to use' for his own ambitions.
When leaders lie, people die. No one died because of Watergate.
Yes, McCain is not George Bush. He's far, far more dangerous
I am most grateful for your warning. I am most grateful for the Kennedy family efforts during this terrible period in American history.
Nice story about music. Great songs. Oh wait.
PS- how is your readership with shit like this?
That is what I thought.
Absolutely despicable. I feel upset that my family and I even anticipated this.
Well, h'yeah. Partly why I've declared myself Independant after voting dem since 1968.
What really, truly pisses me off is that the only thing dems are good at are pointing. Great at pointing to the thieves pulling off unprecedented hiests in broad daylight for oh, 8 years and counting.
Oh yeah, very good at describing criminals.
Robert Kennedy went public with all this stuff FOUR YEARS AGO.
Words mean NOTHING people. What we need to know is who's been prosecuted and brought to justice? No one. What laws have been been legislated to stop this widespread shit? None. And, as in the last two elections this one too will be stolen while we watch the thugs do what we are accustomed to see them do. Steal an election with no consequences. Who let them do it? Democrats and Independents everywhere. Limpdicks all.
But what have they DONE to prevent this from happening. Nothing. Just a lot of yammering about how the next election will be stolen.
The only thing that will give us back the Whitehouse is a landslide that overwhelms the thug efforts. Do ya think they'll do anything to change the laws even if Obama wins by a landslide? Fuck no. The same wide open window will stand open for the thugs with the wind blowing in when 2012 arrives.
Sorry, gents. I'm not expecting dems to get out of their love of thugs bitchslapping addiction any time in the next few decades.
"While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million"
it's more THAN
This is an absolute outrage. From the average media watcher, like me, the first reaction is one of disbelief. A real, quite pleasing at times, cognitive disonance. It's not on the MSM so it has to be suspect is the reflex, quickly followed by the obverse - it's not on the MSM so it's going to be true. I mean, you guys have got the copper bottomed evidence and everything? Like, how come (duh) there's no protest and marches. The politicians over there steal your money and your vote too?! Those overthrown appartchicks in Russia must be kicking (what's left of) themselves. The west does corruption better than SovCom too!
So why isnt something like this making headline news on CNN?
so how do you know if your vote has been stolen? i am neither black nor hispanic. does that mean im safe?
After reading this article, it makes me mad that the republican party is so desperate, that they'll do anything to keep the presidency, and to regain the majority in both houses within their own party. Freedoms we have seem to mean nothing to those who crave on power and above all else to get their hands on money, for their own selfish gains.
I'm hoping that despite this, that the Democrats, will win a fillabuster proof majority in both house and senate and to win the presidency.
I always knew the GOP was doing this and this confirms it....Bring 'EM Down.Keep up the great work you're doing on be half of the regular Joe.
I am a registered Democrat in a largely Republican area. I was living and working in Chillicothe, Ohio at the time of the 2004 election. (Also mainly a Republican area.) I tried to vote for John Kerry and had some difficulty getting my vote into the computer. After voting a sign popped up that read "thank you for voting for George Bush."
I felt than that my basic right to vote had been violated, and I worry that I may feel the same after casting my vote this time.
Do you have any suggestions as to what I, as an ordinary citizen, can do about this if it happens again?
Connie Light
Seems to me as though you should be doing as much as you can to get this news out. I love Rolling Stone, but my mother doesn't read it,bet yours only does because you write for it, and they would never believe this is happening.
Just like the news on Sarah Palin's fudging expense accounts, (and then requesting they be changed, for her three daughters traveling) has been ignored since reported by AP last night, this news is likely to fall by the wayside unless YOU bring it to the general media, and ALL of congress.
I'm completely non-partisan. I couldn't care less whether Obama or McCain wins - I would vote for Ron Paul if I voted.
Nevertheless, it's clear that Obama has an overwhelming and insurmountable lead. So if McCain wins it will only be the result of election fraud.
What happens then? Will the people tolerate it yet again? Or will civil unrest ensue this time? Maybe that's why the Army has been called in for domestic duty.
Dave
http://daveeriqat.wordpress.com/
Most of us have been aware of the potential for corruption to our voter system but it seems that nothing has been done over the past 8 years to rectify that. Perhaps we need to go back to the old way of handcounting with much supervision. By the time we go through contesting voters thrown off the rules or out of the system, we won't get the final results for quite a while anyway. I say hand count!
I just want you to know I appreciate all the hard work you have done. It looks like Americans are going to have to stand together to stop all of this. It would be very sad if we work up the day after the Election and John McCain had won. It would also, be very scarey!
Greg,
Pasted in below is a "press release" I sent to local media yesterday about the potential for people in Thurston County, WA to show up at old polling sites, as they did in the last presidential election, because neither voters' pamphlets nor local media have done enough to emphasize and clarify that this is a mail-in only election. I have 2 specific questions for you:
1--I think it is important to track how many people do show up at their old polling sites expecting to vote in Thurston County on Tues. Since I'm sure that neither the County Auditor's Office, nor the Secretary of State, plans to conduct such a survey (they each told me as much), I wonder if you can suggest another entity which I could approach with this proposal.
2--I work for a free, progressive monthly newspaper in Olympia called Works In Progress ( http://www.olywip.org ). We go to press tomorrow. If space allows, may we reprint the article you wrote with Robert Kennedy Jr. which appeared on the Huffington Post on Oct 28, "Drinking the ACORN Kool-Aid"?
Thanks for your time and all your great work.
-Sandy Mayes
360-956-1136
Potential for voter confusion in Thurston County, WA
[Comment by Sandy Mayes]
October 29, 2008
Some residents in Thurston County may mistakenly believe that they have the option to vote on Nov 4 at the same poll-site they used the last time they voted in a presidential election.
This year, for the first time ever in Thurston County, voting poll-sites will not be open on the day of a general/presidential election.
I have been aware that, since 2005, all local and state elections in Thurston County have been strictly by mail. What I was not clear about, until recently, was whether this would also be true in the general, presidential election. I started asking around and found that nearly every one of the dozen or so people I asked were not sure if, despite having received ballots by mail, there did not also remain the option of voting in person at a regular polling site on Nov 4.
(The question of voting in person on Nov 4 arose for me after reading an article by Robert Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast in the current issue of Rolling Stone in which they advise that, whenever possible, we should vote in person rather than by mail. See the article here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23638322/block_the_vote/print .)
Voters' Pamphlets are not helpful; information about this being a strictly mail-in (or drop-off) election is scant and obscure.
The Thurston County Voters' Pamphlet cover is virtually identical on front and back. It informs readers that ballots begin arriving on Oct 18 and that "Election Day" is Nov 4. It also advises that people must register by Oct 20. It does not clarify that on "Election Day" — for the first time in a general, presidential election in Thurston County — the poll-sites will not be open. One has to scrutinize the 16-page pamphlet very carefully to find the one solitary clarifying sentence, not highlighted in any way, embedded in a paragraph in the middle of page 6, which reads: "NO pollsites will be open in Thurston County on Election Day." I found this sentence only after calling the Thurston County Auditor's Office; the person who answered the phone had to spend a minute or two flipping through the pamphlet before she found that one sentence and directed me to it.
A PDF of page 6 can be viewed here: http://www.co.thurston.wa.us/auditor/Elections/2008Elections/general/pamphlet/pdf/vp_general_6.pdf .
The entire Thurston County Voters' Pamphlet can be accessed here: http://www.co.thurston.wa.us/auditor/Elections/2008Elections/General/pamphlet/VPpdfmain.htm .
The State of Washington Voters' Pamphlet is similarly unhelpful on this question. On both the front and back covers it reminds voters that the General Election is Nov 4, and contains language emphasizing the new Primary Election system. On page 5 of this 89-page pamphlet, it briefly states that "The General Election is November 4, 2008. Polling place hours in King and Pierce Counties are 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m." On page 6, under a small sub-heading entitled "VOTE BY MAIL" it states, "Thirty-seven of Washington's 39 counties now vote entirely by mail."
Nowhere in the pamphlet is it specifically clarified, let alone highlighted or emphasized, that Pierce and King Counties are now the only Washington State counties in which polling sites will be open on Election Day.
The State of Washington Voters' Pamphlet can be accessed at http://www.vote.wa.gov .
We will never know how many people in Thurston County show up on Nov 4, at the site where they last voted in a presidential election, expecting to cast their ballot.
In addition to calling the Thurston County Auditor's Office, I also called the Secretary of State's office to express my concern that some Thurston County residents may show up at their usual polling places, expecting to cast their votes on a General/Presidential Election Day as they have always done. In each case, the individuals I spoke with were surprised by my concern and indicated that citizens should have been aware by now of the switch to mail-only voting in Thurston County, and that there should have been no need to make a point of emphasizing that fact in the voters' pamphlets. When I asked if there were any mechanisms in place to redirect people, I was informed of a poster being mailed this week to all the old polling sites for exactly that purpose.
With only six days left until Election Day, and with at least one very tight regional race (the gubernatorial race between Dino Rossi and Christine Gregoire) we need to make sure that all Thurston County residents understand that the polls will not be open that day.
I did a search on the Olympian newspaper's website looking for recent articles about the upcoming election in which Thurston County voters are specifically reminded that the election is mail-in (or drop-off) only. When I failed to locate any such articles, I called the Olympian's political desk and spoke with a reporter who confirmed that, to his knowledge, election coverage had not specifically clarified or emphasized that point, but that he would now make a point of doing so on or before election day.
I am sending this “press release” to the Olympian, and other regional newspapers and media outlets, hoping to trigger coverage — the sooner the better — which emphasizes and makes very clear that the polls will not be open in Thurston County on Election Day. I am also sending it to various listserves and blogs.
We need to know how many people show up on Nov 4 at old polling sites expecting to vote.
In addition to redirecting voters who mistakenly show up to vote, I suggest that employees at the old voting sites — schools, fire stations, churches, etc. — be advised to keep a record of how many people do mistakenly show up to vote. I intend to visit my old polling site, a grade school, on Nov 5 to ask that very question.
well, what are we going to do about it? What CAN we do about it?
StealBackYourVote is very good and has been cross-posted to Ed B and pharynpula, over at scienceblogs, and elsewhere. Many readers are aware of the issue.
What I hope is that you guys, and the obama campaign have plans afoot to directly counter voter intimidation at polling stations, even from cops.