President Bush’s exit from the political scene is replete with irony. In 2000, many thought he won an election by disenfranchising thousands of African-American voters in Florida through the intervention of the partisan U.S. Supreme Court. Now, the outgoing president is handing over power to the nation’s first African-American president (”The Obamas check out future home,” News, Last Tuesday).
(Greeting the future: President Bush hosts last Monday’s visit to the White House by President-elect Barack Obama)
The 2000 Florida race had a distinct Third World aura about it, featuring nepotism, biased officials, questionable counting of ballots and transparent voter intimidation. Allegations abounded of police barricades near polling places to intimidate voters, refusal to accept voter registrations from blacks and a disproportionate number of faulty voting machines in predominantly black areas. Also, a highly confusing ballot was used in a predominantly Democratic county.
The race also saw an unprecedented mobilization among African-American voters who supported then-vice president Al Gore over Bush by more than 90% to 9%.
With the election of Barack Obama, history has given its final verdict on Bush, who will remain a permanent scar on American democracy.
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NOTE 1:GOP back to square one with Hispanics — John McCain won just 31 percent of the Hispanic vote. In 2004, Bush won 54 percent of Latino Protestants. This year, Obama won 67 percent. While the economic crisis eclipsed cultural values among all voters, the shift in the Hispanic vote was especially pronounced. McCain’s reputation among Hispanics was damaged when he backed away from his failed 2007 immigration reform bill in this year’s Republican primary, as anger among the party faithful about illegal immigration led to a competition among the candidates to offer the most aggressively enforcement-oriented immigration plans. McCain said he would not vote for his own bill if it were to be reintroduced. — [MORE]
NOTE 2:The Republicans are in serious denial. — The post-election Republican soul searching has featured a convenient amnesia about the party’s race-based ‘Southern strategy.‘
A few heretics excepted, they hope to blame all their woes on their unpopular president, the inept McCain campaign and their party’s latent greed for budget-busting earmarks. The trouble is far more fundamental than that. The G.O.P. ran out of steam and ideas well before George W. Bush took office and Tom DeLay ran amok, and it is now more representative of 20th-century South Africa during apartheid than 21st-century America. The proof is in the vanilla pudding. When David Letterman said that the 10 G.O.P. presidential candidates at an early debate looked like ‘guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club,‘ he was the first to correctly call the election.
Scare tactics, dirty tricks used to sway voters — Desperate McCain-Palin camp and the GOP machine “climbing walls” like scared “hissing cockroaches.” The rotting corpse of the Republican Party is stinking up the United States from top to bottom.
Report By: Associated Press
[Enlarge] In the hours before Election Day, as inevitable as winter, comes an onslaught of dirty tricks — confusing e-mails, disturbing phone calls and insinuating fliers left on doorsteps during the night.
The intent usually is to keep folks from voting or to confuse them, usually through intimidation or misinformation.
Complaints have surfaced in predominantly black neighborhoods of Philadelphia where fliers have circulated, warning voters they could be arrested at the polls if they had unpaid parking tickets or if they had criminal convictions.
In Virginia, bogus fliers with an authentic-looking commonwealth seal have appeared saying fears of high voter turnout had prompted officials to hold two elections — one on Tuesday for Republicans and another on Wednesday for Democrats.
In New Mexico, two Hispanic women sued last week, saying they were harassed by a private investigator working for a Republican lawyer who came to their homes and threatened to call immigration officials, even though they are U.S. citizens.
“He was questioning her status, saying that he needed to see her papers and documents to show that she was a U.S. citizen and was a legitimate voter,” said Guadalupe Bojorquez, speaking for her mother, Dora Escobedo, a 67-year-old Albuquerque resident who speaks only Spanish. “He totally, totally scared the heck out of her.”
Laughlin McDonald, who leads the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said he has never seen “an election where there was more interest and more voter turnout, and more efforts to suppress registration and turnout. And that has a real impact on minorities.”
Mccain’s Sex-Talk Robocalls
Hate on Halloween
References:
1.The Right’s Final Attack:Obama is a Black Muslim, Anti-Christian Socialist Plotting with an Evil Jewish Billionaire 2.
….All the above in order to elect FRAUDULENTLY — A washed up, half-dead, dazed and confused WHITE man and his semi-illiterate lying COW!
“Nobody should take any of this (election ‘08) for granted. … Instead of taking about it, everybody should be working tomorrow, the next day, the next day …” — Michael Moore
Remember This:
With Buffalo getting absolutely crushed by Dallas in the 4th quarter of Superbowl XXVII, Cowboys defensemen Leon Lett picked up a fumble and appeared to be heading for yet another Dallas touchdown. But speedy Bills WR Don Beebe, with his team down by 35 and the game well out of reach, made an all-out sprint to chase down Lett and stripped him of the ball just before he crossed the goal line, one of the greatest hustle plays in the history of pro sports.
The message is clear: no matter how bad your team is getting killed, whether it is a super bowl or a youth sports game, never give up on a play, or your team. Even Cowboys fans can appreciate Beebe’s efforts in a losing cause. — Author: sasilv1129
Translate that to: McCain could still upset Obama, so VOTE! | No HotDogging at Home …..VOTE!
West Virginia voters say voting machines are switching votes. In several cases, Democratic votes flipped to GOP. An electronic vote for “Barack Obama” flips to “John McCain”.
Some early W.Va. voters angry over switched votes — Jackson County touch-screens switched votes, 3 residents say. At least three early voters in Jackson County had a hard time voting for candidates they want to win.
By Paul J. Nyden Staff writer
At least three early voters in Jackson County had a hard time voting for candidates they want to win.
Virginia Matheney and Calvin Thomas said touch-screen machines in the county clerk’s office in Ripley kept switching their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates.
“When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain,” said Matheney, who lives in Kenna.
When she reported the problem, she said, the poll worker in charge “responded that everything was all right. It was just that the screen was sensitive and I was touching the screen too hard. She instructed me to use only my fingernail.”
Even after she began using her fingernail, Matheney said, the problem persisted.
When she tried to vote for candidates running for two open seats on the Supreme Court, the electronic machine canceled her second vote twice.
On her third try, Matheney managed to cast votes for both Menis Ketchum and Margaret Workman, Democratic candidates for the two open seats.
Calvin Thomas, 81, who retired from Kaiser Aluminum in Ravenswood in 1983 and now lives in Ripley, experienced the same problem.
“When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor’s office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude. When I went to Karen Facemyer [the incumbent Republican state senator], I pushed the Democrat, but it jumped again.
“The rest of them were OK, but the machine sent my votes for those top three offices from the Democrat to the Republican,” Thomas said.
“When I hollered about that, the girl who worked there said, ‘Push it again.’ I pushed Obama again and it stayed there. Then, the machine did the same thing for other candidates.
“Why didn’t she [the polling clerk] tell me before I even used the machine that might happen? And how many people, especially my age, didn’t notice that? …..[MORE]
More W.Va. voters say machines are switching votes — In six cases, Democratic votes flipped to GOP
Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week. This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for “Barack Obama” kept flipping to “John McCain”.
By Paul J. Nyden Staff writer
WINFIELD, W.Va. — Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week.
This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for “Barack Obama” kept flipping to “John McCain”.
In both counties, Republicans are responsible for overseeing elections. Both county clerks said the problem is isolated.
They also blamed voters for not being more careful.
“People make mistakes more than machines,” said Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright.
Shelba Ketchum, a 69-year-old nurse retired from Thomas Memorial Hospital, described what happened Friday at the Putnam County Courthouse in Winfield.
“I pushed buttons and they all came up Republican,” she said. “I hit Obama and it switched to McCain. I am really concerned about that. If McCain wins, there was something wrong with the machines.
“I asked them for a printout of my votes,” Ketchum said. “But they said it was in the machine and I could not get it. I did not feel right when I left the courthouse. My son felt the same way.
“I heard from some other people they also had trouble. But no one in there knew how to fix it,” said Ketchum, who is not related to Menis Ketchum, a Democratic Supreme Court candidate.
Ketchum’s son, Chris, said he had the same problem. And Bobbi Oates of Scott Depot said her vote for incumbent Democratic Sen. John D. Rockefeller was switched to GOP opponent Jay Wolfe.
“I touched the one I wanted, Rockefeller, and the machine put a checkmark on the Republican instead,” Oates said of her experience Thursday.
She said she caught the mistake, called over a worker in the county clerk’s office and was able to correct her vote. But she worries other voters may not catch such a mistake.
When asked if she is sure she touched the box for Rockefeller, she said, “I’m absolutely positive.”
Putnam County Clerk Brian Wood said on Saturday that he is upset there are “so many negative stories out there and not enough positive ones. We want people to vote. People need to know the facts.
“But we haven’t had any major issues. We try to explain to voters how the machines work then they come in,” Wood said.
In Putnam County, early voters have the option of asking for either touch-screen machines or optical scan ballots — paper ballots on which people mark in their election choices.
Wood said some voters might not realize that touch-screen voting machines may take a few seconds to record their choices.
WINFIELD, W.Va. — Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week.
This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for “Barack Obama” kept flipping to “John McCain”.
In both counties, Republicans are responsible for overseeing elections. Both county clerks said the problem is isolated.
They also blamed voters for not being more careful.
“People make mistakes more than machines,” said Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright.
Shelba Ketchum, a 69-year-old nurse retired from Thomas Memorial Hospital, described what happened Friday at the Putnam County Courthouse in Winfield.
“I pushed buttons and they all came up Republican,” she said. “I hit Obama and it switched to McCain. I am really concerned about that. If McCain wins, there was something wrong with the machines.
“I asked them for a printout of my votes,” Ketchum said. “But they said it was in the machine and I could not get it. I did not feel right when I left the courthouse. My son felt the same way.
“I heard from some other people they also had trouble. But no one in there knew how to fix it,” said Ketchum, who is not related to Menis Ketchum, a Democratic Supreme Court candidate.
Ketchum’s son, Chris, said he had the same problem. And Bobbi Oates of Scott Depot said her vote for incumbent Democratic Sen. John D. Rockefeller was switched to GOP opponent Jay Wolfe.
“I touched the one I wanted, Rockefeller, and the machine put a checkmark on the Republican instead,” Oates said of her experience Thursday.
She said she caught the mistake, called over a worker in the county clerk’s office and was able to correct her vote. But she worries other voters may not catch such a mistake.
When asked if she is sure she touched the box for Rockefeller, she said, “I’m absolutely positive.”
Putnam County Clerk Brian Wood said on Saturday that he is upset there are “so many negative stories out there and not enough positive ones. We want people to vote. People need to know the facts.
“But we haven’t had any major issues. We try to explain to voters how the machines work then they come in,” Wood said.
In Putnam County, early voters have the option of asking for either touch-screen machines or optical scan ballots — paper ballots on which people mark in their election choices.
Wood said some voters might not realize that touch-screen voting machines may take a few seconds to record their choices.
“The reaction time [on the machines] may be different. And when you hit the screen a second time, it cancels your vote,” Wood said. “When you get in a hurry, if you go to fast and hit it again, you can cancel what you just did.
“The main thing people need to remember is that when you are done voting, make sure everybody you wanted to vote for has a check mark beside them,” Wood said.
Ketchum said, “I am educated person. I know what I wanted. I am anxious to see who wins.
“My son Chris said, ‘Mom, I didn’t vote for the people who came up on that machine. I wanted to go back and vote again. I called the lady at the polls and she said it was my fault because of the way I was punching the buttons.’
“I want a paper ballot. I think it was very bad when they did away with paper ballots. I wish you had something in your hand that is a record of how you voted.
“I never felt that way before. It was early voting, so we went over there to get it over with. We won’t do that again,” Ketchum said.
Last week, three Jackson County residents said they experienced similar problems when they cast early ballots at the county courthouse in Ripley.
Virginia Matheney, one of those voters, said Friday, “When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain.”
Retired factory worker Calvin Thomas of Ripley said he experienced the same problem.
“When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor’s office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude.
“After I finished, my daughter voted. When she pushed Obama, it went to McCain. It happened to her the same way it happened to me,” Thomas said.
Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright, a Republican, said 400 other people voted without reporting any problems.
Wood said he and Waybright are both very careful to guarantee people’s votes are recorded properly.
Wood said, “Voting machines are very reliable. I hate the fact that stories like this are printed. It makes everybody get scared.
“That is not good for anybody. Where the fault is, I don’t know and the voter doesn’t know. There needs to be good communication between the voters and the poll workers.”
Wood offered this advice to voters: “The best way to solve this whole problem is that before you leave the voting booth, make sure on the review screen that everybody you want to vote for is checked.”
More than 1,000 voters from 48 local precincts in Putnam County cast early ballots in the past three days, Wood said. Putnam County has 36,000 registered voters….[MORE]
Under the guise of protecting elections from voter fraud, the GOP is seeking to disenfranchise new, poor, minority and new voters? Is It a racist strategy, absolutely, and African-Americans and Latinos are perfect targets. It is a simple three-step process. Fraud allegations lead to restrictive voter laws, which lead to a class-skewed electorate. As the Democrats try to get out the vote, Republicans will try to stop it. — Andrew Burmon, Salon.com.
It is a fact that Republican’s have always tried to suppress turn-out, while Democrats have tried to increase it. This time around they (McCain and Co.) do not have the resources with which to carry out “voter intimidation” — hence the cry of FRAUD.
The most recent being the theft of Florida in broad daylight, in 2000, for George Bush, when his Florida campaign manager, Republican Secretary of State Kathleen Harris and Governor Jeb Bush, the president’s brother, illegally removed 57,700 voters from the rolls, 90% of who were Democratic.
How Bush Stole Florida - Part 1 0f 2
How Bush Stole Florida - Part 2 0f 2
According to Lori Minnite, a professor of political science at Barnard College, who has spent the last eight years studying the role of fraud in U.S. elections, the Republican crusade against voter fraud is a strategic ruse. Rather than protecting the election process from voter fraud — a problem that barely exists — Minnite says the true aim of Republican efforts appears to be voter suppression across the partisan divide. According to Minnite, investigating voter fraud has become a Republican cottage industry over the last 20 years because it justifies questioning the eligibility of thousands of would-be voters — often targeting poor and minority citizens in urban areas that lean Democratic. Playing the role of vigilant watchdog gives GOP bureaucrats a pretext for obstructing the path of marginalized and first-time voters headed for the polls…..[MORE]
As I write this post, there are plenty of ‘Jim Crawford’ Republicans working overtime to keep blacks, new voters and other minorities from voting.
The GOP relies on voter suppression methods developed in once-segregated South, and perfected for 2008. These include:
â?¢ Intimidating and mis-leading black voters through phone calls
â?¢ Making ballots in heavily Democratic neighborhoods ambiguous and hard to read. Some, especially the poorly educated end up voting for the wrong candidate. In 2000, because of the confusing layout of the ballot papers, thousands of Al Gore supporters across the state of Florida, ended up voting for Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan, a Racist White Nationalist. Buchanan is currently peddling his Nativist Views at MSNBC News.
â?¢ Physically tampering with voting machines. This includes statewide computer database manipulation
â?¢ Sudden equipment shortages — causing long lines, confusion and thousands fail to vote
â?¢ Burdensome residency requirements and periodic registration
â?¢ Literacy or understanding requirements with stringent dis-qualification provisions
â?¢ Over aggressive voter roll purges
â?¢ Giving the power to challenge to private poll watchers — in some instances the police have been used to intimidate minority voters — The current Florida statute on voter challenges permits poll watchers to challenge a voter merely by signing an oath that states they have “reason to believe” that the voter is ineligible to vote and stating the reasons for the challenge.
â?¢ Voter Caging — a practice of sending mass direct mailings to registered voters by non-forwardable mail, then compiling lists of voters, called ‘caging lists,‘ from the returned mail in order to formally challenge their right to vote on that basis alone….[MORE]
ACORN — The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which registers low-income and minority voters who tend to favor Democrats, is under siege for allegedly falsifying voter registrations, and Republicans have sought to taint Obama with the allegations.
According to Politico: Obama in the 1990s represented the group in a lawsuit, and on Tuesday, he said that ‘as an elected official, I’ve had interactions with’ the Chicago branch of the group, which he said has ‘been active,‘ according to a pool report.
‘But they are not advising our campaign,‘ stressed Obama, who himself worked as a community organizer in Chicago before attending law school.
Nevada authorities last week raided ACORN’s state headquarters after the branch submitted voter registrations with the names of celebrities including Dallas Cowboy stars Tony Romo and Terrell Owens, and other voters came forward alleging they were asked by ACORN employees to submit multiple registration forms.
Smelling blood, a malicious John McCain pounced on the controversy, releasing a statement last week asserting that given ‘ACORN’s recent efforts to engage in voter fraud and to disrupt our political system, Obama’s affiliation with this group raises serious questions about his judgment and ability to lead this nation.’ …[MORE]
It is important to note that ACORN pays its “Paid Volunteers” on a quota basis, therefore it is reasonable to expect a few bad apples who will concoct several fake registrations to earn some extra bucks. Yglesias wrote last week about the problem with “paying people based on the number of names they bring in — it creates an incentive for people to pad their lists.”
Registration FRAUD is not Voting FRAUD, and it is pretty obvious why McCain and the GOP are running so scared. This time around, they so overwhelmed by the millions of new Democratic registrations — they can’t stop the flood that is coming their way. A flood that will probably sweep McCain and the GOP filth away into permanent purgatory.
After all, a voter still has to present state issued documents before voting. So, a fake “Tony Romo” registered in Nevada will definitely not surface somewhere in Ohio to vote!
Fox News and affiliated barbarian “Hate News” outlets, have been all over this issue, vomiting huge quantities of lies on top of humongous falsehoods — and conveniently forgetting that McCain had no trouble fraternizing with ACORN in 2006, as the Key-Note speaker [see video below], when their political interests coincided with his. Now, his campaign is writing e-mails in his name bashing ACORN as a tool of the Obama machine.
Feb. 20, 2006 — McCain Praises ACORN
Olbermann Special Comment: McCain Suspend Your Campaign
Two days ago Obama had this to say: We’ve got the best voter registration and turnout and volunteer operation in politics right now, and we don’t need ACORN’s help,’ he told reporters in Toledo, Ohio while preparing for Wednesday’s debate. “We don’t need ACORN’s help.”
So, desperate McCain — Please SHUT UP! You are losing, and this time there is no THIEVING WAY AROUND IT!
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Overheard: ‘If he were white, this would be a blowout.’ ‘I think the country has come a long, long, long way since the 1960s. I think everybody would agree with that. But if you talk to people in certain states, they will say there are impulses that do not benefit Barack Obama because of the color of his skin.’ — Harold Ickes,Senior adviser to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in her race against Mr. Obama this year.
kept switching their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates.
