'How They Stole the Mid-Term Election"

[Kathryn41 3,205]

HOW THEY STOLE THE MID-TERM ELECTION

by Greg Palast

for The Guardian (UK), Comment

Monday November 6, 2006

Here's how the 2006 mid-term election was stolen.

Note the past tense. And I'm not kidding.

And shoot me for saying this, but it won't be stolen by jerking with

the touch-screen machines (though they'll do their nasty part). While

progressives panic over the viral spread of suspect computer black

boxes, the Karl Rove-bots have been tunneling into the vote vaults

through entirely different means.

For six years now, our investigations team, at first on assignment for

BBC TV and the Guardian, has been digging into the nitty-gritty of the

gaming of US elections. We've found that November 7, 2006 is a day

that will live in infamy. Four and a half million votes have been

shoplifted. Here's how they'll do it, in three easy steps:

Theft #1: Registrations gone with the wind.

On January 1, 2006, while America slept off New Year's Eve hangovers,

a new federal law crept out of the swamps that has devoured 1.9

million votes, overwhelmingly those of African-Americans and

Hispanics. The vote-snatching statute is a cankerous codicil slipped

into the 2002 Help America Vote Act -- strategically timed to go into

effect in this mid-term year. It requires every state to reject new

would-be voters whose identity can't be verified against a state

verification database.

Sounds arcane and not too threatening. But look at the numbers and you

won't feel so fine. About 24.3 million Americans attempt to register

or re-register each year. The New York University Law School's Brennan

Center told me that, under the new law, Republican Secretaries of

State began the year by blocking about one in three new voters.

How? To begin with, Mr. Bush's Social Security Administration has

failed to verify 47% of registrants. After appeals and new attempts to

register, US Elections Assistance Agency statistics indicate 1.9

million would-be voters will still find themselves barred from the

ballot on Tuesday.

But don't worry: those holding passports from their ski vacations to

Switzerland are doing just fine. And that's the point. It's not the

number of voters rejected, it‚s their color. For example, California's

Republican Secretary of State Bruce McPherson figured out how to block

40% of registrants, mostly Hispanics. In a rare counter-move, Los

Angeles, with a Hispanic mayor, contacted these citizens, "verified"

them and got almost every single one back on the rolls. But throughout

the rest of the West, new Hispanics remain victims of the "José Crow"

treatment.

In hotly contested Ohio, Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State and the

Republican's candidate for Governor, remains voter-rejection champ --

partly by keeping the rejection criteria a complete secret.

Theft #2: Turned Away - the ID game

A legion of pimple-faced Republicans with Blackberries loaded with

lists of new voters is assigned to challenge citizens in heavily Black

and Hispanic(i.e. Democratic) precincts to demand photo ID that

perfectly matches registration data.

Sounds benign, but it's not. The federal HAVA law and complex new ID

requirements in states like New Mexico will easily allow the GOP

squads to triple the number of voters turned away. Rather than deny

using these voter suppression tactics, Republican spokesmen are

claiming they are "protecting the integrity of the vote."

I've heard that before. In 2004, we got our hands on fifty

confidential internal memos from the files of the Republican National

Committee. Attached to these were some pretty strange spreadsheets.

They called them "caging lists" -- and it wasn't about zoo feeding

times. They were lists (70,000 for Florida alone) of new Black and

Jewish voters -- a very Democratic demographic -- to challenge on

Election Day. The GOP did so with a vengeance: In 2004, for the first

time in half a century, more than 3.5 million voters were challenged

on Election Day. Worse, nearly half lost their vote: 300,000 were

turned away for wrong ID; 1.1 million were allowed a "provisional"

ballot -- which was then simply tossed out.

Tomorrow, new federal ID requirements and a dozen new state

show-me-your-ID laws will permit the GOP challenge campaign to triple

their 300,000 record to nearly one million voters blocked.

Theft #3: Votes Spoiled Rotten

The nasty little secret of US elections is that three million ballots

are cast in national elections but not counted -- 3,600,380 not

counted in 2004 according to US Election Commission stats. These are

votes lost because a punch card didn't punch (its chad got "hung"), a

stray mark voided a paper ballot and other machinery glitches.

Officials call it "spoilage." I call it, "inaugurating Republicans."

Why? According to statisticians working with the US Civil Rights

Commission, the chance your vote will "spoil" this way is 900% higher

for Black folk and 500% higher for Hispanics than for white voters.

When we do the arithmetic, we find that well over half of all votes

spoiled or "blank" are cast by voters of color. On balance, this

spoilage game produces a million-vote edge for the GOP.

That's where the Black Boxes come into play. Forget about Karl Rove

messing with the software to change your vote. Rather, the big losses

occur when computers crash, fail to start or simply don't respond to

your touch. They are the new spoilage machines of choice with,

statistically, the same racial bias as the old vote-snatching lever

machines. (Funny, but paper ballots with in-precinct scanners don't go

rotten on Black voters. Maybe that's why Republican Secretaries of

State have installed so few of them.)

So Let's Add it Up

Two million legitimate voters will be turned away because of wrongly

rejected or purged registrations.

Add another one million voters challenged and turned away for

"improper ID."

Then add yet another million for Democratic votes "spoiled" by busted

black boxes and by bad ballots.

And let's not forget to include the one million "provisional" ballots

which will never get counted. Based on the experience of 2004, we know

that, overwhelmingly, minority voters are the ones shunted to these

baloney ballots.

And there's one more group of votes that won't be counted: absentee

ballots challenged and discarded. Elections Assistance Agency data

tell us a half million of these absentee votes will go down the drain.

Driving this massive suppression of the vote are sophisticated

challenge operations. And here I must note that the Democrats have no

national challenge campaign. That's morally laudable; electorally

suicidal.

Add it all up -- all those Democratic-leaning votes rejected, barred

and spoiled -- and the Republican Party begins Election Day with a 4.5

million-vote thumb on the vote-tally scale.

So, what are you going to do about it? May I suggest you ∑ steal back

your vote.

It's true you can't win with 51% of the vote anymore. So just get over

it. The regime's sneak attack via vote suppression will only net them

4.5 million votes, about 5% of the total. You should be able to beat

that blindfolded. If you can't get 55%, then you're just a bunch of

crybaby pussycats who don't deserve to win back America.

********

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "ARMED

MADHOUSE."

For specific advice on How to Steal Back Your Vote, go to

<http://64.22.66.182/mailing/link.php?URL=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5ncmVncGFsYXN0LmNvbS9zdGVhbC1iYWNrLXlvdXItdm90ZQ%3D%3D&Name=&EncryptedMemberID=MTkxNDA%3D&CampaignID=50&CampaignStatisticsID=17&Demo=0&Email=doc@doctoraudio.com>http://www.gregpalast.com/steal-back-your-vote

Catch Greg Palast on Election Night on the new Mike Malloy Show on

many Air America affiliates.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

We need a comprehensive, fair and just way that ensures the right to vote for all Americans. This is shameful.

Edited November 7, 2006 by Steven_and_Jinky

[mawilson 2,133]

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

We need a comprehensive, fair and just way that ensures the right to vote for all Americans. This is shameful.

It wouldn't be the first time. Which really cements the view that frontline politics is the province of the irredeemably corrupt.

[GaryC 7]

Oh boy, it starts already!!! Carl Rove did it!!!! The Republicans stole the election!!! We were disenfranchised!!! I LOVE IT!!!! The excuses are starting even before the election! Hedging your bets?

I find this all so funny! The only way Republicans win is if they steal it and the only way dems loose is if they had it stolen!!!!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Oh boy, it starts already!!! Carl Rove did it!!!! The Republicans stole the election!!! We were disenfranchised!!! I LOVE IT!!!! The excuses are starting even before the election! Hedging your bets?

I find this all so funny! The only way Republicans win is if they steal it and the only way dems loose is if they had it stolen!!!!

There's been quite a lot of talk about the fairness of the election process over the last several elections, and things like this have cropped up before. Most recently, the inclusion of electronic voting machines. Check out the Documented Problems

It doesn't matter who wins, if the process itself disenfranchises millions of voters. Are you saying that democracy only has value to you, if you (and people who support your chosen party) are the only ones who benefit from it? Doesn't sound much like democracy to me...

[I'm Gone 60]

Mr. Bush's Social Security Administration. When did that happen? At 3:00 p.m. today SSA was still an independent government agency.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Oh boy, it starts already!!! Carl Rove did it!!!! The Republicans stole the election!!! We were disenfranchised!!! I LOVE IT!!!! The excuses are starting even before the election! Hedging your bets?

I find this all so funny! The only way Republicans win is if they steal it and the only way dems loose is if they had it stolen!!!!

There's been quite a lot of talk about the fairness of the election process over the last several elections, and things like this have cropped up before. Most recently, the inclusion of electronic voting machines. Check out the Documented Problems

It doesn't matter who wins, if the process itself disenfranchises millions of voters. Are you saying that democracy only has value to you, if you (and people who support your chosen party) are the only ones who benefit from it? Doesn't sound much like democracy to me...

Facts are awfully big pills to swallow for those not interested in the truth. Truthiness, like fuzzy math makes more sense on an emotional level...it just 'feels' right.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Oh boy, it starts already!!! Carl Rove did it!!!! The Republicans stole the election!!! We were disenfranchised!!! I LOVE IT!!!! The excuses are starting even before the election! Hedging your bets?

I find this all so funny! The only way Republicans win is if they steal it and the only way dems loose is if they had it stolen!!!!

There's been quite a lot of talk about the fairness of the election process over the last several elections, and things like this have cropped up before. Most recently, the inclusion of electronic voting machines. Check out the Documented Problems

It doesn't matter who wins, if the process itself disenfranchises millions of voters. Are you saying that democracy only has value to you, if you (and people who support your chosen party) are the only ones who benefit from it? Doesn't sound much like democracy to me...

Facts are awfully big pills to swallow for those not interested in the truth. Truthiness, like fuzzy math makes more sense on an emotional level...it just 'feels' right.

Regardless of who wins the election - there will still be significant questions to answer about the fairness of the process. I don't trust either of the parties as far as I could kick them.

Edited November 7, 2006 by erekose

[I'm Gone 60]

In hotly contested Ohio, Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State and the

Republican's candidate for Governor, remains voter-rejection champ --

partly by keeping the rejection criteria a complete secret.

Isn't he black? Oh that's right he's a Republican, so he's not really black.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

In hotly contested Ohio, Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State and the

Republican's candidate for Governor, remains voter-rejection champ --

partly by keeping the rejection criteria a complete secret.

Isn't he black? Oh that's right he's a Republican, so he's not really black.

I guess you have to consider - even if the election goes smoothly, that the level of suspicion towards the Bush administration, and the resulting fear and paranoia are symptomatic of a larger problem that the Bush adminstration has created - regardless of voting irregularities in previous elections - they have disenfranchised many americans on many of the major issues.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

In hotly contested Ohio, Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State and the

Republican's candidate for Governor, remains voter-rejection champ --

partly by keeping the rejection criteria a complete secret.

Isn't he black? Oh that's right he's a Republican, so he's not really black.

I've noted that the party which hollers the most about its opposite stealing elections is one that actually has proven experience at it--the Dems stole the 1960 election.

(as my source on this is Bro. Joe--an Andhra preacher and my spiritual father--I cannot dismiss it lightly despite of my deep dislike of Nixon).

[GaryC 7]

You libs crack me up!!!!!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

In hotly contested Ohio, Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State and the

Republican's candidate for Governor, remains voter-rejection champ --

partly by keeping the rejection criteria a complete secret.

Isn't he black? Oh that's right he's a Republican, so he's not really black.

I've noted that the party which hollers the most about its opposite stealing elections is one that actually has proven experience at it--the Dems stole the 1960 election.

I guess the question is - is there reason to believe that the election process is subject to this kind of abuse?

You libs crack me up!!!!!

So do you nazis

[I'm Gone 60]

In hotly contested Ohio, Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State and the

Republican's candidate for Governor, remains voter-rejection champ --

partly by keeping the rejection criteria a complete secret.

Isn't he black? Oh that's right he's a Republican, so he's not really black.

I've noted that the party which hollers the most about its opposite stealing elections is one that actually has proven experience at it--the Dems stole the 1960 election.

(as my source on this is Bro. Joe--an Andhra preacher and my spiritual father--I cannot dismiss it lightly despite of my deep dislike of Nixon).

Yeah and Nixon had the decency to not whine about and cry about it.