Nefarious Schemes
Robert Kennedy Jr. wrote an article entitled: “Was the 2004 Election Stolen?” which made a convincing argument that a Kerry victory in the 2004 presidential election was subverted by a far-reaching Republican strategy of fraud, vote suppression and other crimes against the democratic process. Kennedy insisted that Kerry would have won Ohio and the presidency, if all of his votes had been counted, and if all of the eligible voters who tried to vote for him had been allowed to cast their ballots.
The “nefarious scheme”, which disenfranchised Democratic voters in 2004, were headed by Ohio secretary of state J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican, who was both the chief election official in the state and co-chairman of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign in Ohio.
Every foul-up and arbitrary new regulation, that occurred in Ohio in that election favored Bush. A range of problems and dirty tricks have come to light, such as, the shortages of voting machines and the long lines in urban areas with waits of over five hours, which discouraged mostly Kerry voters. It’s estimated that twenty to thirty thousand voters never got to vote.
During a presidential debate, McCain said: “ACORN may be perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” The fraud is the Republican attempts to purge thousands of eligible voters from the voter rolls.
ACORN is a national network of community groups, who register voters the Republican party wants to exclude. Out of the 13,000 field workers ACORN hired in its drive to register 1.3 million voters, a small fraction submitted fraudulent registration cards. In most states, ACORN is required by law to submit these fraudulent forms, along with the valid forms, to election officials, and in most cases, the fraudulent forms had been flagged by ACORN officials as problematic. Fraudulent registration forms isn’t voter fraud, unless an ineligible voter actually votes. Voter fraud and voter registration fraud are very different, with voter fraud being punishable by a year in jail.
This won’t have any impact on the election, because no one is allowed to vote unless they are properly registered, and there is no evidence of fraudulent registration actually leading to organized voting fraud. Using voter registration fraud to distract from vote suppression is nothing new, for the Republican party.
The McCain campaign’s chief strategist Steve Schmidt, told the New York Times: “The scenario for winning for us is a narrow victory scenario.” McCain will only achieve a narrow victory, with the lowest possible turn out of newly registered voters, because an overwhelming majority of them are Democrats. In order to keep the turnout low and prevent votes from being counted, their plan is to get voters to think that massive voting shenanigans will result in their vote not being counted.
The “nefarious scheme”, which disenfranchised Democratic voters in 2004, were headed by Ohio secretary of state J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican, who was both the chief election official in the state and co-chairman of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign in Ohio.
Every foul-up and arbitrary new regulation, that occurred in Ohio in that election favored Bush. A range of problems and dirty tricks have come to light, such as, the shortages of voting machines and the long lines in urban areas with waits of over five hours, which discouraged mostly Kerry voters. It’s estimated that twenty to thirty thousand voters never got to vote.
During a presidential debate, McCain said: “ACORN may be perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” The fraud is the Republican attempts to purge thousands of eligible voters from the voter rolls.
ACORN is a national network of community groups, who register voters the Republican party wants to exclude. Out of the 13,000 field workers ACORN hired in its drive to register 1.3 million voters, a small fraction submitted fraudulent registration cards. In most states, ACORN is required by law to submit these fraudulent forms, along with the valid forms, to election officials, and in most cases, the fraudulent forms had been flagged by ACORN officials as problematic. Fraudulent registration forms isn’t voter fraud, unless an ineligible voter actually votes. Voter fraud and voter registration fraud are very different, with voter fraud being punishable by a year in jail.
This won’t have any impact on the election, because no one is allowed to vote unless they are properly registered, and there is no evidence of fraudulent registration actually leading to organized voting fraud. Using voter registration fraud to distract from vote suppression is nothing new, for the Republican party.
The McCain campaign’s chief strategist Steve Schmidt, told the New York Times: “The scenario for winning for us is a narrow victory scenario.” McCain will only achieve a narrow victory, with the lowest possible turn out of newly registered voters, because an overwhelming majority of them are Democrats. In order to keep the turnout low and prevent votes from being counted, their plan is to get voters to think that massive voting shenanigans will result in their vote not being counted.
posted by Jim O'Leary | 12:59 AM
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