29 Comments

1. Ron Hardin:

Counting fails when it’s a close election, always, at some point.

At that point, though, democracy no longer cares which way it goes. I mean, individuals care, but it’s evenly split, more or less, so democracy does not care.

What is important to democracy is that the count be final, not that it be accurate.

If fraud is present, it means at worst that you need 53% to toss the rascals out rather than 50%.

That’s small damage compared to votes that don’t decide elections; so the choice of representatives winds up in the courts instead.

Nov 8, 2008 - 4:50 pm 2. Peter Boston:

If Al Franken becomes a US Senator the democracy would have become so degraded that is not worth saving anyway. I cannot understand how my fellow Americans would vote for such a crass individual.

Nobody knows the extent to which the deliberate absence of credit card security protocols on Obama’s website influenced the election. Chances are we never will know either. Maybe Hamas contributed $100 million to Obama?

We are in deep doo doo. There is no reason to have any confidence in our national politicians. Less so the Democrats but not by much. Obama’s appointment of somebody who is neck deep in the Fannie/Freddie debacle adds to the concern.

Perhaps the US had become a de facto rent seeking oligarchy, or something close to it.

Nov 8, 2008 - 5:14 pm 3. Cannoneer No. 4:

Vote fraud is as old as elections. We The People tolerated it in the interest of comity and peace, preferring to bestow a mantle of legitimacy on “the winner” rather than listen to endless whining from “the loser.” Good sportmanship used to be a tenet of American civil religion.

Gore destroyed that polite little fiction eight years ago. Finding ways to deny legitimacy to “the winner” is now an important tool for limiting his freedom of action.

Nov 8, 2008 - 5:46 pm 4. vk45:

Ron Hardin said:
“If fraud is present, it means at worst that you need 53% to toss the rascals out rather than 50%.”

Do you mean that fraud larger than 3% is not fraud?

Nov 8, 2008 - 6:32 pm 5. trangbang68:

agree PeterBoston, what kind of a self respecting nation would elect a cretin like Franken to a “deliberative” body? Of course they already have Sheets Byrd, Harry Reid, Barbara Mikulski (the ugliest woman on earth), Barbara Boxer who is dumber than brain dead Tim Johnson, Patty Murray who thinks OBL builds daycare centers. Franken will fit in. But who’s running next; Rosie O’Donnell, Joy Behar, Peewee Herman, Madonna, Snoop Dogg?

Nov 8, 2008 - 6:43 pm 6. NahnCee:

It’s an accepted fact of life that Old Joe Kennedy bought the election from JFK to the detriment of Nixon.

To me, the 2004 election had overt hanky-panky going on, too, with the introduction of ACORN and its antics. But since Bush was elected I didn’t care that much at that point and thought that surely the powers that be would fix it before the next election.

That it has not been fixed is now evident and I personally think that ACORN in and of itself added thousands (if not millions) of dead and illegal voters to Obama’s column.

I guess a little fraud is to be expected and part of the human condition. But when you have great chunks of votes coming and going and everyone knows it, that’s fraud on a scale that would make Robert Mugabe smile. It’s just unacceptable that a group of unemployed ghetto-dwellers can spend their idle days making up names and registering them and then causing those names to vote for their messiah and there doesn’t seem to be a damned thing that legally registered Americans-with-a-job-and-less-time can do about it.

Nov 8, 2008 - 6:49 pm 7. Jim Nicholas:

I think we all agree that any fraud is undesirable and that great efforts should be made to prevent it and expose it. But I think that Ron Hardin (#1) has a valid point.

I remember a talk given about 40 years ago by Justice George Edwards, a member of the US 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. He quoted the engraving on the Court House: “Equal and exact justice for all”. And then, exaggerating to make a point, he said “The goal of the courts is not equal and exact justice but finality”. No one who knew him would ever think he was uncaring about justice, but he wanted to make the point that a time comes when it is best for an individual or for society to accept an imperfect judgment rather than be immobilized by a demand for perfection.

Jim

Nov 8, 2008 - 7:15 pm 8. wretchard:

What is important to democracy is that the count be final, not that it be accurate.

This is a brilliant observation. But I think it’s incomplete. The other characteristics of an acceptable voting system is that while the count may be final it should never be completely predictable beforehand. That’s to say that for so long as the the challenger has a reasonable chance of winning against the incumbent, the voting system works. There is a chance to unseat the men in power through the ballot. So one test of how much cheating is permissible is “enough to keep it from being determinate”. Once fraud reach that point, the outcome is preordained and the process itself becomes pointless.

Nov 8, 2008 - 7:33 pm 9. Cannoneer No. 4:

Tampering with the ballet box has put a regime in power that is very likely to tamper with our right to the soap box and ban our access to the bullet box.

Use these next 72 days wisely.

Nov 8, 2008 - 8:14 pm 10. sgi:

Federal elections in Canada are governed by the Canada Elections Act that was passed in 1920. Since then there have been only six Chief Electoral Officers. Electoral fraud is practically non-existent.

It’s not a perfect system but has reduced fraud and partisan meddling considerably.

A revitalized Republican platform should include a proposal to establish a Federal Elections Commission to oversee elections for President, the House and Senate.

Nov 8, 2008 - 9:38 pm 11. Voltimand:

I read with sour amusement the comments that come down to the notion that a democracy must get used to taking a little fraud into its diet without getting too upset about it.

Historically, before the invention of democracy and the public settling of who and what has power for a specified period of time, they did things differently. Before the invention of gunpowder they did it w/o gunpowder–after the invention of gunpowder, they did it with gunpowder. IOW, voting is what we do instead of settling matters of political power distribution by killing one another.

Now if Americans are willing to suffer political knaves gladly, then ipso facto they no longer believe democracy and are too lazy or scared, or . . . or . . . to care.

Now we could, if we wanted, go back to settling such matters by periodic bloodbaths–you can be sure people would start taking seriously how power is distributed under those circumstances. No cynicsm there, where either you save your life by siding with the biggest guys, or you resign yourself to an early death.

My point is perhaps too obvious to be worth the effort of keyboarding, but here goes anyway: power can be claimed by people who win elections to the exact degree that people award to them, and they award it to them by voting for them. If the vote outcome ceases to be respected, then the power ceases not so much to be respected so much as cease to be power. The democrats seriously eroded Bush’s power because of the 24/7 assaults on his legitimacy. Obama bids fair to end up the same way, and with considerable more justification.

If vote fraud becomes business as usual, then indeed thuggery of varying degrees of violence will come back in style.

We have no choice, as I see it, but to pursue vote fraud with zero tolerance and aiming at 100% eradication.

All of which lays open to scrutiny all the posturings Obama and his people are going through now prior to inauguration, when all the suspected vote frauds that arguably put him en train toward inauguration bid fair to damage his victory if not his respectability and credility as well.

It was very stupid to invent ACORN in the first place, and equally stupid to allow it to operate in plain sight.

Nov 8, 2008 - 9:38 pm 12. Semi Cartman:

The idea of ‘final’ seems to be the problem with this story. Nobody in Minnesota seems to understand what it means. Almost as vague and complex as ‘is’ is. -The polls close at a certain time. All ballots and related data are under the control of sworn personnel. The optical scan method of ballot recording leaves three distinct wayys for you to see how each precinct voted, the memory card, which is uniquely numbered, and registered to one machine in one precinct; the results tape, three copies of which are printed by the machine, and each signed by each poll worker; and the ballots themselves, which as to results and total count must match the results on the tape. All of this stuff is returned to the election authority after the polling place is cleaned up. Any and I mean any mystery ballots, funky forms, etc which appear after the recorded time on the tape are immediately suspect. Any ballots at all, which appear after the polls officially close are likewise suspect, and must be sequestered. The controversy here has nothing to do with ‘count’, it’s about exempting certain piles of undocumented ballots from the deadline required by the law. It’s not surprising to hear which party wants the consideration. If the meaning of ‘final’ is lost, then even sworn, hard records, all there in easy to read form, are meaningless, and we’re making fools of ourselves by even participating.

Nov 8, 2008 - 9:55 pm 13. whiskey:

Systematic fraud by Dems will only beget even greater systematic fraud by Republicans.

A race to the bottom, to see who can stuff the ballot boxes most.

If Franken wins by cheating, expect ALL Republican candidates to have organizations devoted to cheating on their part.

This is just human nature.

Nov 8, 2008 - 9:58 pm 14. JFSanders:

Amen brother, The saying goes: Fight fire with fire or die.

Jim

Or you could go down to defeat while taking the high road secure in your superiority.

Nov 8, 2008 - 10:42 pm 15. NahnCee:

Gee, I’m surprised Whiskey isn’t blaming voter fraud on single women, since according to him on multiple occasions and with great verbosity, single women are the cause of all human frailty since that first bite of the apple on down to the current situation we find ourselves in.

Of course, if/when anyone does muster up the wherewithal to go after ACORN, they will be accused of racism, since ACORN is made up of black folks with the sole goal of registering black folks … or at least registering names that black folks who may be illegal or convicts or too young can use to cast multiple many votes for their chosen brother candidate.

Nov 8, 2008 - 11:32 pm 16. Utopia Parkway:

This is one of the benefits of the electoral college system. If a few counties in west (name your small state you’ve never been to here) are totally bought it doesn’t really matter. The electoral college system provides a large buffer against vote fraud. If we had a real one-man-one-vote system then it would make vote fraud in small precincts worthwhile. Right now it really isn’t worthwhile to fraudulently win in small precincts. In large precincts it might be worthwhile to win fraudulently but it’s much harder to do it. There’s just too much visibility and oversight in the larger precincts.

Nov 9, 2008 - 12:08 am 17. SpeakEasy:

I submit to you, Utopia, that the fraud in question was not so small. The Democrats focused their fraud on the key states, if the (numerous) reports are to be believed. What is most ironic, or more importantly, hypocritical of the libs is their concern for how the rest of the world views the US. If we can not hold a fair, democratic election then why should those less inclined to do so even bother?

And any amount of fraud is unacceptable to me. How about some CHANGE on that account Mr. Obama?

Nov 9, 2008 - 1:45 am 18. Unsk:

Whad’ya expect? The Marxists have taken over.

Didn’t Stalin say something like ” We WILL keep counting until we win”

That has become the official election protocol of the Democrat/ACORN Party.

Do you notice the lack of outrage? Republican Democracy dies with a whimper, not a bang.

Nov 9, 2008 - 2:20 am 19. Don51:

Jefferson’s ‘consent of the governed’ is not just about voting. It’s what Lincoln articulated in those who ‘gave their full measure of devotion’. When you corrupt a system so much, who are you going to have around to defend it. Sure you can draft the serfs to send to the front like so many cattle, but time after time in history, that just bought time delaying the inevitable.

Nov 9, 2008 - 5:14 am 20. Raoul Ortega:

The Dems are just following the playbook the used to steal the governorship of the Upper Left Washington from Rossi in ‘004. Keep finding votes and keep finding mistakes that despite statistical randomness, always favors one candidate. Recount multiple times if necessary, then stop counting as soon as the Dem gets dragged over the 50%+1 mark.

Why is anyone surprised that after that success they wouldn’t employ it in another close race?

Nov 9, 2008 - 9:55 am 21. Raoul Ortega:

Also notice how this is happening, as in ‘004, in a state the has prided itself on “clean, open government”. Who needs the Chicago Way or Philadelphia 110% turnout when the good-government types will look the other way no matter what you do?

Nov 9, 2008 - 9:58 am 22. Ammo Guy:

Just out of curiosity, can anyone cite examples of “Republican voter fraud?” It seems that only takes place when Republicans try to purge voter registration lists of fraudulent names and dead people…but I could be wrong.

Nov 9, 2008 - 10:10 am 23. NahnCee:

I believe the Dem’s are convinced that the Florida results in Bush’s favor was “voter fraud”. Something about that Iatherine Harris dame (who was a painted Republican) personally gluing back on all the hanging chads that should have gone for Kerry.

Nov 9, 2008 - 11:02 am 24. Utopia Parkway:

I do think that voter fraud is mostly self-limiting. If there’s too much of it in one place then everyone will know. If there’s not very much of it then it won’t be a factor in national elections. Where is that line? I don’t know.

I do believe that all election boards in the country are manned by members of both parties so the fraud can’t be to obvious or someone will catch on.

It might have a bigger effect on local elections.

Nov 9, 2008 - 12:54 pm 25. Wadeusaf:

Most accounts of GOP instigated voter fraud has of late been seen as attempts to suppress voter turnout. Having control of the weather of course means that GOP directed snow and rain and hail storms have keep many registered voters indoors and away from the ballot box. But not the GOPer’s whose sense of civic duty requires them to overcome even the worst of miami heat to make it to the poling place of record.

That is why motor voter is so important to the Dems, it is a matter not of record but of convenience. Other examples of voter suppression include but are not limited to attempts to ensure the registered voter is the same as the person who shows up to vote, via photo id or verifying signatures and demanding that voters registered in a certain location use that polling place and that polling place only to cast their ballot, as well as the time frame for which the vote needs to be cast. Allotting the allowable polling places can be seen as a means of demographically suppressing the vote.

Other forms of voter suppression (formerly associated with the Democrat party) include the pole tax and literacy tests. It should not be surprising that like the current testing done in order to determine graduate-ability for high schools, the tests can be skewed to support an increase in salaries for a job well done one week to a desperate cry for assistance for a hopeless challenge the next. Motor voter and the vote by mail movement has eliminated all of the aforementioned attempts to suppress voting. The only real vote suppression currently on going is the suppression of ballots of US Military members overseas, as in the grand tradition of Albert Gore in 2000, and others enforcing technicalities which would eliminate the votes of our fighting men and women because the ballots cannot physically arrive be filled out and then returned to the precinct of record in time for the election especially if the ballots are not sent out until four or in some cases two weeks prior to the close of the elections. This is very much the case were challenges as to the appearance.

Nov 9, 2008 - 1:33 pm 26. Wadeusaf:

This is very much the case were \where\ challenges as to the appearance as in the placement on the ballot of the candidates name or the spelling of same or even the manner in which the instructions for each line obscures which line said instructions refer to. As the Secretary of State for each of the 50 states is in charge of the ballots, unless the state authorizes the local government intities to design or alter the look of the ballots or even the mechanisms for counting the ballots, and as SoS the only real function is in certifying the result was delivered at a certain time in a certain manner in with certain safe guards in place all of which have no effect on the count or accuracy of the actual result.

I hope I have expressed that in a clear fashion. And I apologize for the typos.

Nov 9, 2008 - 1:46 pm 27. steveaz:

It is easy to scoff at voter-fraud. Few of us ever directly feel the pinch of it. It is like medicare fraud in that respect…

Seems, if we aren’t piqued too bluntly by a phlebotomist’s capillary, we can be bled slowly without noticing.

The vampire bats of central America learned this a long time ago. So did the Masai peoples of Africa.

Makes one wonder if America isn’t under a concerted attack?

Nov 9, 2008 - 2:45 pm 28. OldSalt:

Systematic fraud by Dems will only beget even greater systematic fraud by Republicans. – Whiskey

Excuse me? Which? Where? When?

It’s taken as an axiom of truth by Democrats that all Republicans are corrupt. Concepts like evidence and truth doesn’t bother them much. They blamed Delay in Texas for corrupting an electoral system that was already corrupted, i.e. by Democrats, to the point where something like 45% of the Democrat vote controlled about 55% of the Texas legislative and Federal Congressional seats in Texas.

I have a real problem with people, usually the main stream Democrat-owned news media (MSDM), who will acknowledge a Democrat sin only when it’s is all but undeniable, but then immediately try to trivialize it by saying “…but they all do it, I mean, look at what those Republicans do!”. I watched (via news reports) a sitting Vice President and Presidential candidate attempt to steal a Presidential election in broad daylight in 2000. I watched the media and Democrats defend the indefensible. I saw every single military absentee ballot challenged by a Democrat lawyer, and that most were thrown out or failed to make it to the ballot box for counting in Democrat counties. I’ve seen Democrats trying to twist and remold election results in ways that have nothing to do with “voter education” or “get out the vote”. I don’t know what you know about Republican efforts at voter fraud, but I don’t think it happens. If and when it does, no Republican will support it, or the politician.

Gerrymandering was the first corruption of the nation’s elections, with the idea that the politicians could slice and dice precincts to maximize congressional seats (and therefore political power and patronage) for one party over the other, regardless of how the body politic actually voted. I’m actually surprised that California passed proposition 11, but it was close, and there are lots of way for the rulers-that-be to defeat a trivial thing like law or the will of the people. (Example: California’s Constitution forbids running a deficit, and California’s been running a deficit for about 10 years now.)

The issue of integrity of the ballot is vitally important, that and the Constitution that supposedly governs us. Without that, there will ultimately be bullets flying. Maybe not today, but “disenfranchisement” will ultimately result in in some sort of civil war. One must follow the other. (And, as long as Americans DO have an effective right to vote and the Constitutional rule of law, rebellion could never be justified.)

Nov 9, 2008 - 8:30 pm 29. Ms. Know:

The left-wing illuminati had direct ties to the fraud organization ACORN and no one cared, so they’re not going to care about Minn. either.

Nov 15, 2008 - 9:10 am

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