Karl Rove's Big Election-Fraud Hoax (Salon)

[kpete]

Karl Rove's big election-fraud hoax
Republican manipulation of the polls long predates the U.S. attorneys plot -- and the U.S. voting system needs an overhaul.

By Garrett Epps

........

At least part of the U.S. attorneys plot seems to derive from the "election fraud" hoax that Republicans are trying to perpetrate in order to gain control of the country's voter lists. So nailing this inept crew of thugs won't be good enough. We need laws protecting the right to vote from the kind of phony, partisan prosecutors that Gonzales, Rove and Co. were trying to put in place, and from the punitive, restrictive voter-ID laws that are a prominent part of the far-right political agenda.

.............

But the administration has remained ferociously committed to suppressing voter fraud -- as soon as it can find some. In April of last year, Karl Rove warned a Republican lawyers' group that "we have, as you know, an enormous and growing problem with elections in certain parts of America today. We are, in some parts of the country, I'm afraid to say, beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are, you know, colonels in mirrored sunglasses. I mean, it's a real problem.

.................

New voter protections proposed by Rush Holt and Barack Obama don't go far enough

The new Congress so far has considered only a few measures to protect the right to vote: Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., has proposed a bill to require voting machines to keep paper trails; Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., wants to outlaw certain deceptive practices aimed at voter suppression.

But such defensive measures amount to little more than swatting sharks' noses. We're going to need a bigger boat. In the 1970 case of Oregon v. Mitchell, a fractured court approved a statute lowering the voting age to 18 in federal elections, even if states insisted on keeping it at 21 for state voting. (The 26th Amendment subsequently lowered the age to 18 for all elections.) How about a bill making clear that every American who is not under active sentence for felony has a right to vote for those who will govern the country? The bill could go on to say that states could require reasonable identification for new registrants, but outlaw onerous provisions like Missouri's, which would, for example, have required that married women produce legal documentation of their name change. (I reviewed the Missouri law with my mother, who has voted in every election since 1944. We determined that, had she lived in Missouri, she would have been barred from the polls in 2006.)

much more at:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/05/10/voting_rights/

[yourout]

1. Rove was partly right......

"We are, in some parts of the country, I'm afraid to say, beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are, you know, colonels in mirrored sunglasses. I mean, it's a real problem....."


Just not for the reasons he gives....

[Old and In the Way]

2. Well, the good news is the plan is completely wrecked.

No doubt we need to put in the necessary safeguards to protect our elections. But Rove's plans for this cycle are exposed and fundamentally neutralized. I think every USA in this country will have his actions scrutinized. Any attempt to use the office to benefit Republicans or attack Democrats is going to get plenty of negative press and I think the American people will not stand for it. This plan required a high level of coordinated secrecy to work....and that's no longer operational.

So what will Karl resort to now?

[Peace Patriot]

3. Well, he has Diebold and ES&S to fall back on.

The vote suppression is a supplemental plan--extra insurance, in case the American public at last awakens and throws Diebold, ES&S and other election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' where they belong!

But right now--unfortunately, tragically, absurdly, mind-bogglingly--the Democratic Party leadership is in collusion with Rove and the Global Corporate Predators who rule over us, to RETAIN vote "counting" with "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations.

Give this thread a read, and you'll see the problem buried way down in the OP, in boldface FAQ (#7), "Will this review (of voting systems) be open to the public?"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x472374

Vote suppression is in violation of existing law, the Voting Rights Act of 1965--if we can get it enforced. But there is no law protecting us from "TRADE SECRET" vote counting. The Global Corporate Predators have written the laws!

Emergency remedy: So let them keep their corrupt, unreliable, extremely insider hackable election theft machines, and their dirty billion-dollar contracts. But, a) Demand a paper ballot for every vote, and b) Demand that they count every one, and post the results BEFORE any electronics are involved.

Best venue for reform: Local/state, where ordinary people still have some influence.

Strategy: Organize the Absentee Ballot voters--a big constituency (it's gotten up to 50% in some venues)--to bring pressure for hand-counting of ballots.

Another mitigation: '06 showed that the people can outvote the machines. Voter turnout continues to be very important! But with an estimated 5% to 10% "thumb on the scales" for Bushites, warmongers and corporatists, it's an uphill battle, and one that we can never really win. We have 75% of the American people opposing the Iraq War and wanting it ended, and could only achieve a 50/50 Congress, which is NOT stopping the war but rather FUNDING it SOME MORE, with $100 billion. Is Bush/Cheney going to use that money to "withdraw"? Get real. They're gonna send Congress a "report." It would be funny, if people weren't getting blown to bits because of it. A REPORT! From these lying bastards! So, voter turnout, yes! Big turnout is needed, just to keep us even*. And, having been deprived of one or more other election theft schemes, Rove & Predators may risk a higher percentage of vote theft with the machines.

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*(By even, I mean just to keep a heavily Diebold/ES&S-influenced Democratic Congress in power, with a few good people in committee chairmanships, and better oversight, but with minimal reform legislation, and with a large contingent of "Blue Dog" Democrats, who want to cut everything except the military budget. We will not be permitted to nominate or elect an antiwar candidate or anything close to a populist or reformer candidate, for president. The best we can expect is fascism-lite, as opposed to fascism-brutal, in the presidency. As in 1968, our "choice" is going to be Democratic war or Republican war. Take your pick. And please, let the scales fall from your eyes on this. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are ever going to give up this foothold in the Middle East. A huge US military presence will continue there indefinitely, with more war almost inevitable. In my first vote for president, in 1964, I chose the candidate who advocated for peace in Vietnam. LBJ. What I got for that vote was upwards of 2 million people, including over 55,000 US solders, slaughtered in Southeast Asia, before it was over. A hard, hard lesson. An unforgettable lesson. The war machine infests BOTH party leaderships, and the one thing that WILL NOT BE ALLOWED is a president who seriously challenges that machine. So, in this sense, our votes for president don't matter. If somebody really good starts to make a showing--by the people outvoting the machines in the primaries--they will pick him off, one way or another. But our votes for Congress, and for state offices, DO matter and CAN make a difference. If we keep turning out bigger and bigger numbers of votes, eventually we will get a Congress or state legislators that will restore transparent vote counting. And only then will we have our democracy back.)