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Politics : Electoral College 2000 - Ahead of the Curve -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (3248)	11/24/2000 6:23:34 AM
From: Vendit™	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6710

Chads show election pregnant with new possibilities to cheat Stuffing the ballot box on Election Day is "as American as apple pie," but charges of voiding absentee military votes, trading smokes for votes and cheating by chad in the presidential campaign are new to American elections. Historically, voter fraud was an organized activity directed by the campaign through the local political machine. With the disintegration of the machine, individuals have taken it upon themselves to give their favored candidate a little extra help, political historians and observers say. "It is so easy to do now, virtually any individual acting on their own can have an impact on an election's outcome," said Deborah Phillips, chairman of the Voting Integrity Project. Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican and chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, plans hearings next year on voting practices and procedures in this year's federal elections. The hearings will focus on ballot integrity, poll closing times, ballot format, the timeliness and accuracy of vote counting, the state of voting equipment throughout the country, and overseas and military voting. More than 1,500 overseas absentee ballots — most believed to be cast by military personnel —have been rejected by Florida officials because of technicalities, including missing postmarks. Hand recounts in three heavily Democratic Florida counties have drawn charges of ballot fondling to dislodge chads — dangling pieces of paper not completely severed from the ballot — to swing the vote in favor of Vice President Al Gore. Republicans say chads have been found on the floor and that some are being eaten by ballot counters to hide the evidence. The discombobulated definitions of the chads and handling of ballots is of specific concern to legal scholars. There are dimpled chads, pregnant chads, hanging chads, swing-door chads and tri-chads by three corners, which are being examined by vote counters in Florida by holding ballots to the light to determine the "intent" of the voters. "It's obvious in the interpretation of the chads there appears to be no standard to determine voter intent based on hanging chads," said Todd Gaziano, a senior fellow in legal studies at the Heritage Foundation. "Even if consistent standards are applied, different people have the ability to interrupt it, and the intentional or unintentional bias is something to be concerned about," Mr. Gaziano said. "Everyone who watched the disputes and counter-disputes now understands how standards and subjective hand counts is why we went from hand counting to machines to begin with," Mr. Gaziano said. Eliminating paper ballots in favor of machines was one way to eliminate voter fraud. Party officials would trade half-pints of whiskey or $10 to $20 in cash for ballots and votes. So blatant was the practice that after Kentucky Gov. John Y. Brown lost a Democratic primary bid to Wallace G. Wilkinson in 1987, a county coordinator in Mr. Brown's campaign called the Louisville Courier-Journal to complain — on the record — that Mr. Wilkinson's campaign had unfairly raised the price of a vote from $20 to $25 on Election Day. The most popular form of voter fraud is through a voting chain or by precinct captains stuffing the box after the polls close. The voting chain begins with one voter substituting his ballot with a blank sheet of paper in the ballot box. The voter delivers the blank ballot to a campaign official waiting outside the polling place and is paid. The official marks the ballot for the specific candidate, then gives it to another voter, who drops the marked ballot into the box and gives his blank ballot back to the official in exchange for money, thus continuing the chain. Ballot boxes are stuffed after the polls close. The campaign notifies the precinct captains how many votes the candidate needs to win the precinct. If the total is not reached, officials cast additional ballots under the names of those on the voter list who did not show up to vote, including those known to be dead. An oft-repeated quote from Louisiana's late Gov. Earl Long sums it up: "When I die, bury me in Winnfield Parish, because I would still like to vote." "Cheating in the past involved voting the dead, voting early and voting twice, but you generally could not vote after Election Day —not even the dead," said one political strategist, speaking on the condition of anonymity of his name, party affiliation and Southern home state. "We've reached the 21st century and we are still cheating in ways they didn't even dream of in the 18th century. There has to be massive reform next year," the strategist said. In Milwaukee, WISN-TV reported on Nov. 5, two days before the election, that volunteers for Mr. Gore's campaign used free cigarettes to entice homeless men to follow them to election offices and cast absentee ballots. The Gore campaign told the station the volunteers were acting without authorization and stopped the practice. The call for more money to purchase new equipment to stop voter fraud has already begun in Washington and on the grass-roots level in Florida. Pundits and politicians predict it will cost millions to upgrade election procedures throughout the nation to protect the integrity of votes. Some old dogs learn new tricks. The Voting Integrity Project assisted in a case that led to the Nov. 30, 1999, conviction of former U.S. Rep. Austin J. Murphy, Pennsylvania Democrat, for violating the state's election code. Murphy and others were accused of putting fraudulent votes in the names of nursing home patients in his 1997 re-election bid. Murphy denied any involvement with election tampering.

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (3248)	11/24/2000 10:57:02 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6710

I am interested in history, Ray. But I don't subscribed to the conspiracy theory of history. There is no question that in the 19th and early 20th century the American military were used to secure American interests when there was no direct threat to American security. It was a variation on, an expression of, colonialism and expansionism, a phenomenon which was not limited to the United States. The facts weren't secret, Ray, you just didn't learn them in high school because history for children is pablum. If you had been alive then, you could have read about them in the newspapers. I just don't see where you are going with this, what you are getting at. I hope you aren't going to start talking about the Trilateral Commission or the Bilderbergers or the New World Order. There's nothing wrong with asking, "cui bono?," but don't assume that when you've found someone you've found everything. Most endeavors involving large groups of armed forces are multi-factorial in nature.

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (3248)	11/25/2000 11:03:51 PM
From: Walkingshadow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6710

Hi Ray, How ya been? Lotta people got their knickers in a twist over this election. Ya can't hardly get nobody to talk stocks on SI anymore. Heck, even Vendit's here, I see! Hey Reid, how's the stochastics of the recount lookin' ??? Are we overbought or oversold??? [jes' kiddin', my friend] I enjoyed your Butler speech excerpt. My only question: was he assassinated before he finished his speech, or after ? Or did they just ruin him in more subtle but effective ways......... Whatever, I bet he could tell some stories about the aftermath that would.......uh.......curl the toes of any schoolboy, though I suspect not you or I <ggg>. As for Bushwacked vs. Bore, the significance and ramifications of the outcome pales in comparison with the things Butler spoke about. The major question there is who will carry on the tradition, and what rhetoric and specific tactics will they employ as a smokescreen, effectively fooling you, me, and themselves probably. I'm just beside myself, on the edge of my seat waiting to find out.......... Because the things Butler so devastatingly indicts are not history, per se IMHO. But, as was pointed out, I would submit that these things occur not because there are guys in white hats and guys in black hats, but because of the human nature and unconscious and largely personally unresolvable tensions within ourselves. And yes, though there are some common threads vis-a-vis the attempt to dominate, and greed, and so forth, still the bases are multifactorial and the precise origins rather elusive, but derived from myriad sources. Heck, if we elected Jesus Christ and the 12 apostles, I doubt if a single fundamental thing would change appreciably. Other than possibly the repeal of the constitutional directive regarding separation of church and state, and a new and improved rhetoric and tactic, but no less brutal and dishonest. But maybe that's why Jesus ran off into the desert when they tried to make him king, and instead said "If you would be a king, serve your fellow man." (I'm paraphrasing, of course) Lord Acton had it spot on: "Power tends to corrupt........" And so do electrons, who will do anything (even work, much to our benefit!) to dissipate their own power, and always resist sequestration of their own power. I think it no coincidence that this force is arguably the principal driving force of the universe (i.e., entropy), and the supreme irony of human affairs is that we ceaselessly toil to accomplish just the opposite! And to our dismay, pay the price........ What a marvelously profound cosmic tension there! And we can't even get out of the game (3rd Law of Thermodynamics)! Ya just gotta love it............. Anyhoo, glad to see you're alive and hopefully well. WS