Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Vote Fraud: It's Not Just From Diebold Any More
We have been banging the drum of danger, ringing the bell of alarm, and generally advocating taking the hammer of outrage to electronic voting machines, on numerous grounds that regular readers know well.
The fact of the matter is that there was vote fraud LONG before electrons came along. The late great saint Mike Royko was ranting decades ago about boxes of ballots turning up in the Calumet Sag Canal in the days after elections in Chicago.
Florida wasn't lost in 2000 because of electronic voting. It was lost in large part because of shenannigans with voter registration rolls, conducted months before election day itself. They have a mess going on in Nashville right now because they haven't updated the registration lists in ten years fer cryin' out loud. People who don't read the paper much may very well show up on Nov. 2 and be turned away because they moved three years ago and never updated their paperwork.
(via Nashville Tennessean)
More importantly, no matter where you live, sometime this summer or fall swing by your county courthouse or whatever place the voting registrar's office is. Make sure your registration card is in there, and that the address thereon is the place you're going to be living on Election Day.
As long as you're going anyway, drag along a friend or relative or two. If you get carried away and volunteer for a poll-workers job, you might just save your country while you're at it.
The fact of the matter is that there was vote fraud LONG before electrons came along. The late great saint Mike Royko was ranting decades ago about boxes of ballots turning up in the Calumet Sag Canal in the days after elections in Chicago.
Florida wasn't lost in 2000 because of electronic voting. It was lost in large part because of shenannigans with voter registration rolls, conducted months before election day itself. They have a mess going on in Nashville right now because they haven't updated the registration lists in ten years fer cryin' out loud. People who don't read the paper much may very well show up on Nov. 2 and be turned away because they moved three years ago and never updated their paperwork.
(via Nashville Tennessean)
[County Election Commissioner Lynn] Greer, who told the commission last week he found inaccuracies...There are safeguards, but the situation could give someone a greater chance to fraudulently swing a local election, he said. Some of those races can be decided by a few votes. The issue of the rolls' accuracy could come up if a close election were challenged in court, he said.First of all, I think this Greer person is doing a little "move along, nothing to see here folks" routine. I live in Tennessee and I don't care what happened last time, I think this state is in play. The reasons Gore lost it are complex but most of them don't really affect Kerry if he handles it right. (A sprinkle of Clinton here and there and gallons and gallons of Edwards, in case a DNC worker is reading.)
''I don't think you could do a massive fraud, but I think you could do enough to sway one of these little legislative elections,'' said Greer, one of two Republicans on the five-member commission. ''I don't think you could sway the presidential election in Tennessee.''
More importantly, no matter where you live, sometime this summer or fall swing by your county courthouse or whatever place the voting registrar's office is. Make sure your registration card is in there, and that the address thereon is the place you're going to be living on Election Day.
As long as you're going anyway, drag along a friend or relative or two. If you get carried away and volunteer for a poll-workers job, you might just save your country while you're at it.
