Voter fraud: nothing much to see here, move along
This caper by James O’Keefe doesn’t prove voter fraud exists, of course. But it certainly proves how easy it would be in a state like Colorado, and that there are plenty of people willing and eager to commit it. So, what are the chances it doesn’t happen? Very small, in my opinion.
And I’ve never understood the argument that not having a lot of proven cases of voter fraud is some sort of proof that it’s not already happening. If the fraud is good, the perps wouldn’t be caught, or there wouldn’t be enough proof to convict even it caught. It reminds me a bit of people saying they can always detect a false hairpiece; it’s false reasoning, because if a hairpiece were very good they wouldn’t know they’d failed to detect it.
This is what O’Keefe did:
Today, he is releasing some new undercover footage that raises disturbing questions about ballot integrity in Colorado, the site of fiercely contested races for the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, and the governorship. When he raised the issue of filling out some of the unused ballots that are mailed to every household in the state this month, he was told by Meredith Hicks, the director of Work for Progress, a liberal group funded by Democratic Super PACS.: “That is not even like lying or something, if someone throws out a ballot, like if you want to fill it out you should do it.” She then brazenly offered O’Keefe, disguised as a middle-aged college instructor, a job with her group.
Actually, what’s even more shocking than that incident (and there were other similar ones that O’Keefe documented as well) is the incredibly lax election law passed in Colorado. It facilitates cheating, and was sponsored by Democrats. So far the protests against it have not been effective. Here’s the way it works:
Colorado secretary of state Scott Gessler, along with several county election clerks, have raised warning flags that a new state law that automatically mails a ballot to everyone is an engraved invitation to commit fraud. “Sending ballots to people who did not even ask for them or have moved out of state is asking for trouble” he told me. For example, little can stop someone who collects discarded ballots from trash cans, fills out the ballots, and mails them in. Election workers are supposed to compare signatures on registration records with signed ballots. But if a person has a “witness” who signs the ballot on the witness line, then the signatures do not have to match and the vote is counted.
Secretary of State Gessler had futile arguments with Democratic state legislators last year who insisted on ramming a bill through that mandated Colorado become the only state in the nation with both all-mail balloting and same-day registration. Under same-day registration someone can register to vote online, have a mail ballot sent to them, and never physically show up to register or vote. Other places that use same-day registration treat the vote as a provisional ballot pending verification. Colorado immediately counts the vote and there is no way to separate it out if the person who votes is later found ineligible.
I haven’t been able to find a record of any court challenges, but these laws seem outrageous to me.
Oh, no. Nobody would WANT to cast false ballots!
The only reason to have these kinds of laws is to facilitate voting fraud. Period.
The problem isn’t with who votes for Republicans or not. The problem is the 20m Democrat fake votes nobody can talk about or deal with.
I know a guy in college who voted 5 times for Gerald Ford thereby nullifying my and my friends votes for Carter. (yeah, I know. I was young and stupid.)
So I know for a fact that voter fraud happens and people do not get caught.
Living in Nebraska, this concept is shocking to me.
Just wondering how many illegal aliens will be voting in CO.
Just checked the CO Secretary of State’s website.
What a joke.
On the paper voter registration just check a box stating, “I am a citizen of the United States.” Then sign and swear you are telling the truth. No need to supply SS number or driver’s license.
This whole process *assumes* people are honest and truthful. Illegals have already established their dishonesty. What difference would it make to fill out a false form?
This is incredible. Republicans in CO need to track the voter fraud after this election. Udall wins. You watch.
I don’t know why anyone is even bothering to survey in CO, the election will just come down to who has the best operation to collect and file the ballots that were discarded.
It is so, so easy to game this system and cast thousands of fraudulent votes.
I am sure that one reason that there are few proven cases of voter fraud is that so few attempts are made to prove cases. Sort of a self fulfilling prophecy situation.
On the other hand there are a sufficient number of anecdotal stories of fraud to arouse suspicion that proven cases could be found if the attempt were made.
The best way to position this thing legally is to arrest a bunch of people who voted illegally and have them convicted.
That requires work by a county DA.
And then repeal the law.
Same problem exists with the scam-y Motor Voter law. Only time Scalia was asleep.
Reason #1016 NOT to vote: a corrupt government with gin trap election procedures. Participating in pretense legitimates the pretense. The system, the procedures, become more dishonest than the simple ways of voter fraud such as stuffing ballot boxes. Ultimately, people get not what they vote for but what they will stand for – Brave New America.
Most democrats and all leftists view voter fraud as a minor corrective to an inherently flawed and even evil system. The end therefore justifies the means. They will continue until forced to stop.
George Pal:
That makes zero sense for a conservative. Zero.
All not voting does is allow the fraud more chance of working, and empower and elect those who would perpetuate and extend it.
Actually, the only reason people refuse to fight is not so much fear of the Left as hope that the system can work. Politics is a way to stop people from rebelling, after all. When people are denied their say, they get cranky. And when denied their food, they become hostile.
Guerilla movements have often played up these elements in order to undermine the occupation’s power. Since a satisfied population with political rights, infrastructure, and food on the table, generally won’t support rebels against an occupying oppressor.
Diplomacy and politics are a way to avoid war. But that is of little benefit when the LEft is already waging war.
What stood out for me was that they were sending ballots to college dorms. Many students are not legal residents of the state in which they attend college. I live in PA, 20 miles from the OH line. What’s to stop a student attending school in a nearby state from voting twice?
Leftists encouraging election fraud? Next you’re going to tell me bears crap in the woods.
Neo,
I trust we will agree to disagree. To vote here, now, makes about as much sense as having voted in the People’s (Soviet) Union. In either instance there is/was nothing to be gained by it other than fronting for a faé§ade. I understand the disposition — never give up. But one doesn’t give up by not participating in massive subterfuge. There’s something to be said for another brilliant George – Orwell — who’d observed that seeing what is in front of one’s nose is a constant struggle. I am, as much as I am conservative, indefatigable.
GP,
Not every gop candidate will be a Palin, Cruz, or a Gowdy. And yes, there are many big government gops. However, you need to consider SCOTUS appointments and treaties, plus allowing house legislation to come up for debate in the senate. I agree the country is destined for a big fall. I am concerned with the height of the fall. I’ll take 20 feet over 200 any day.
This will be taken seriously when Dems become the victims. In all seriousness, I strenuously advocate pro-Republican voter fraud.
It’s the only way to clean up the system.
Parker,
I have considered SCOTUS and recall Bush appointed the reprehensible John Roberts. Taking into consideration all the other disastrous appointments made by Republican presidents I don’t consider such considerations as worthwhile. As to the House, have they not, by and large, talked like Patton but rubber stamped like good commissars – even if only by silent acquiescence? And finally, 20 feet or 200 — makes no difference to once fine crystal.
GP – I consider you to be one of those trolls who declare themselves to be Republican or a conservative and this time is the last straw so I’m not going to vote – the purpose is to make others feel down and also decide not to vote because the candidate is not 100% to their liking.
I’ll vote because I’ll go for someone who is 50% what I want and then I’ll just bug them every week with calls, emails and visits. 50% in my favor with a chance to change is better that 100% against what I want to see happen for America.
My mother was born in Riga, Latvia and married my father after the war. She kept a lot from me since she wanted to be an American as well as forget what she went through in Europe. When I was cleaning up the homestead after she died, I found her wedding dress, dried roses from Latvia and newsclippings from her early days here in America. She was interviewed about her life in Nazi Germany. Her response was that the Nazis were easy compared to what the Russians/Soviets were going to do to her country.
She commented that many Americans did not realize what a great life they had. It was true in 1949 and it is so true now.
20 feet or 200 feet – it makes a lot of difference when you are trying to escape from the Nazis or the Russians. For my mother, it meant her life and mine.
On the issue of voter fraud….
When my aunt died in August 2004, I call up the election department to find out what I needed to do to get her off the rolls before they sent out the absentee ballot which she had requested. I was surprised that Lee County Florida had already removed her from the voting rolls based on the obits in the local newspaper.
When my mom died, the city office was just a few miles from the house, so I stopped by with the death certificate to get her removed from the rolls. They took my word without even looking at the certificate. I could have continued voting for her since the ballots were automatically on absentee due to her age. Heck, she voted and signed her ballot and I delivered it to the office with no questions asked. But I think they kinda recognized me as the daughter and I always identified myself as such. This was in Michigan.
Here in the conservative state of Oklahoma, I need to present a picture ID to vote. If I don’t have one, I can show the paper voter ID card which is mailed, no charge. Don’t have that paper on me, then I can still vote, but it is provisional (I can’t run the paper ballot through the scanner, it has to be verified at the state election office). If I have an absentee ballot, I vote, place the ballot into an envelope and seal it, find a notary and sign the envelope in front of them, they notarize it. That envelope goes into another envelope to be mailed.
Voting is hard to do here, but it is also a privilege. I study the candidates and the issues and I vote. It is scary to talk to people who have no idea why they are voting.
Quite frankly, I’ve never understood the attitude of “not voting.”
Why choose to not vote? Because no candidate is 100% to your liking? Wait until one appears that is 100% to your liking and you will:
A) vote for an Obama because you’ve finally had a drink of Kool-Aid, or,
B) die without ever having voted because no one, and I mean NO ONE will ever be 100% to your liking.
In order for a candidate to be 100% to your liking he (or she) will not be 100% to my liking. I thought that was common sense.
As for the thought that all politicians are the same. Well, yea, if you don’t vote they are all the same because they are only responding to those low-information, give-me-everything, voters because they are the only ones voting.
We need as many folks as possible to see all the issues and vote for whomever they think will govern best. That is will govern better than the other candidates, not govern in the exact manner that I think is best.
Voting really is voting for the least offensive, least likely to do damage, candidate. Approach it that way and you won’t be so tempted to not vote.
“GP — I consider you to be one of those trolls who declare themselves to be Republican or a conservative and this time is the last straw so I’m not going to vote — the purpose is to make others feel down and also decide not to vote because the candidate is not 100% to their liking.” Liz
I don’t know if GP is a troll, though I doubt it but in any case you are IMO gravely mistaken in your apparent belief that conservatives who refuse to vote for RINOs are doing so out of some childish demand that republican candidates must be 100% to their liking. Nor is the purpose of any sincere conservative who is of that view to make you or anyone else depressed.
At a certain point, principles are the only thing that matters and the GOP leadership’s support for Comprehensive Amnesty is one of those points. Passage of amnesty means permanent one party rule in America and the institution of demagoguery and the rule of the mob.
You have to stand for something Liz or you’ll fall for anything. And if by standing for something, you do not mean “Here I stand; I can do no other” nor will I move from it, then your ‘stand’ is no stand at all.
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” Now that was a stand.
Liz,
Not sure you are correct about GP. I know people who are definitely conservative who will not vote unless the gop candidate is to their liking. Witness all the gop leaning voters who stayed home in 2012 and probably cost Romney the election. Politics is a sleazy, ugly affair; always has been and will always be so. I am not made of crystal. I prefer the 20 foot fall over the 200. If push comes to shove I won’t shatter.
Liz,
Troll? I’d always thought of myself as more gremlin – an imaginary mischievous sprite regarded as responsible for an unexplained problem or fault — in this regarded, as responsible for the problem of candidates not being 100% to my liking. The candidates not to my liking are those that talk like Patton but vote like Quisling. In my reckoning that includes the overwhelming core of the GOP. I take it as given that any candidate that passes muster in a primary, i.e., is approved by the Republican Party is unfit for political office.
Geoffrey Britain takes my point very well. The GOP has capitulated, routinely, to Democrat aspirations – Comprehensive Amnesty being just the most recent. Here is the principle, the policy, the action, to which I demand 100% concord – courage of conviction. Until such time as such candidates appear – as more than chimera, I can see no benefit to voting.
George and Geoffrey — thanks for electing Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and the rest of the Dems. I know, I know, keeping the 100% jerks in power is better than electing the 45% jerks, because the 100% jerks will make the revolution come faster. And if it doesn’t?
“Winning isn’t everything, winning is the ONLY thing.”
No, thank you, Richard Saunders, for electing RINO blowhards and cowards – Bush, McCain, Boehner, Rubio, et al. In case you hadn’t noticed there hadn’t been a Democrat coup. Republican decade long capitulations to liberal/Leftist aspirations have made our schools what they are, our election process what it is, our borders meaningless, our nation a memory. Pat yourself on the back for having played the game, but there’s no credit to be had for to stemming the revolutionary tide or stanching the national hemorrhage.
@George Pal:
Even with RINOs in office, Obamacare would not have passed. And probably a lot of other bad things as well. It’s called “the lesser of two evils”, and the “lesser” part of it is significant.
Would you rather have the gun pointed at your head have 6 bullets in the chamber (i.e., Democrats), or 5, (i.e., Republicans) when the barrel is spun and the trigger pulled?
What can one say in the face of such fearless determination to drive off a cliff?
ConceptJunkie,
I’ll grant that ACA would not have passed this time but what of it? A reasonable facsimile would eventually have passed on the, I believe, most reasonable assumption, that the socializers and levelers are in it for the long march. First Lady Ms Clinton’s social medicine overhaul died in the crib. The second iteration would have advanced further the third further and so on until it had passed. That which ails us had come upon as not as a perfect and sudden storm but as decades long pyroclastic flow.
The lesser of two evils argument is acceptable in benign circumstances but never in dire. Liz, in a comment above, had recounted the notion held by a family member that Red Communists were more frightening to her mother than Aryan Nazis. It’s a palpable concern of extraordinary personal interest if you were Jewish on the one hand or a member or supporter of the royal family on the other, but, in the larger, wide angle view, the consequences, the mounds and pits of the dead, dismiss, out of hand, the lesser evil argument.
As for the chambered gun pointed at my head, I take it you believe Republicans would never ever pull the trigger twice. I am not, based not on prejudice but the historical record, so sanguine.
Richard Saunders,
”What can one say in the face of such fearless determination to drive off a cliff?”
Finally, you have got it! Voting for Republicans, of the sort we are handed, presumes just such a fearless determination to drive off a cliff — slooowwwwer.
Per Instapundit, it isn’t enough to win. We must win by more than the margin of fraud.
GP…
Your ideological opponents are absolutely THRILLED that you’ve taken your stand — and not voted.
&&&&&
Perfection is the enemy of the good.
The correct attitude is to pull the polity back to sanity… which may require you to grab a soap box and stump, yourself.
There are no end of lesser offices that can be pursued at the local level that have an impact.
{
School boards
Police commission
}
One can also be a king maker. You’d be SHOCKED as to how far a little bit of funding goes — when you’re launching a young man/ woman into local politics.
THIS is the perfect hobby for retirees.
It’s this kind of activism that’s elevated Barry, Hillary, Bill and the rest of the flotsam.
This is the kind of activism that the KGB engages in. The KGB famously started both Blair and Brown in politics right out of college. Their sponsorship cost peanuts.
Most Conservatives are sitting back and allowing Big Government types (Leftists) to just dominate the lower ranks.
This was exactly how Hillary lost her nomination in 2008. She totally ignored the cheap electors in all of the caucus states. Barry didn’t. She actually won a hefty plurality of those electors decided by vote! She had more votes. But, Barry’s head start was too much.
The Internet/ Facebook etc. provides any activist — even a Conservative — the means to network up.
At local levels Conservatives actually have the advantage. They just never employ it, too busy flogging national issues decided by Big Media.
In my area a mere five retired women conspired to have a library built — over the dead bodies of the local powers that be. Eventually they collected enough signatures for Proposition L (for library) to attain an unheard of 2/3 popular vote.
After that, the powers that be were terrified of the five.
Their own expenditures were trivial. If they’d been younger, any of them could’ve run for local office — with excellent prospects for success.
blert:
See this.
Richard Saunders,
I voted for McCain in 2008 and for Romney in 2012. Remember what they say about assumptions. I freely acknowledge the validity of the points neo and others here on her side of the issue make, I just don’t think those valid points invalidate the points I and others make on our side of the issue.