Voting Obama? Live in CO or OH?

[shiney]

Well, maybe you aren't! (http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/10/20/romney-family-investment-ties-to-voting-machine-company-that-could-decide-the-election-causes-concern/)

This could have gone in the "republican'ts lol" thread but instead I made a new thread. Voting machine tabulation lolfest revisited. We went through something similar to this in 2000, there were echoes of it in 2004, now here we go again -- in Ohio. I'm just surprised that the leftist communism-abiding socialist free-love nudist commune rag "Forbes" is running the story. Shouldn't they be promoting drum circles or something?

Seriously though. At some point wouldn't someone stop and think "Well, two of us have personally been responsible for donating or bundling at least $10,000,000 for Romney's campaign. There's also the part where his son Tagg is a director for one of the companies that invested in us. And the historic concern about rigging the machines. We should probably not provide these voting machines for this highly contested race."

Oh who are we kidding, let's do it anyway! It's not like things haven't gotten bad enough that The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, ACLU and NAACP among others (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/21/1147938/-Eight-civil-rights-groups-ask-UN-partner-to-monitor-elections) have actually petitioned the UN to monitor our elections] or anything.

So, anyone have any thoughts? I'm a little concerned I'm jumping off the deep end, but I mean, Forbes isn't known for witch hunts or wild goose chases, particularly about one of their golden gooses, so it's interesting.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Mail-in ballot bitches.

But really, the other shoe needs to come down on this and it needs to come down hard. I'm definitely passing this on to the folks in Colorado so they can keep an eye on it. I'm not sure if our county is one of the ones affected, but we need to check.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Shiny, if you can make the time I'd highly recommend watching Hacking Democracy. I forgot about it until after reading the article and I got that skin crawly sensation.

Would Romney use this to his advantage? After some of the shitawful stunts he's pulled so far I would be surprised if he doesn't in some form or another. This'd be a great way for him to outdo his telling business owners to tell their employees 'it would be in their best interest to vote for you know who' basically.

But I digress, throwin in my lot with Shyria's comment on mail-in ballot. Fuck electronic voting machines.

[Sky Warrior Bob]

Tip of the iceberg...

GOP controlled Virginia Board Of Elections refuses to prosecute GOP voter fraud

A GOP operative was observed by multiple witnesses to have discarded completed voter registration forms in a dumpster. This is a crime in Virginia, but the Republican controlled State Board of Elections will not ask the State Attorney General to investigate the matter.

WTVR.com has reported locally from Virginia that The Virginia State Board of Elections (VSBE) will be refusing to prosecute Colin Small, 31, who was arrested on charges of obstruction of justice and voter fraud. Under the written law the Virgina Attorney General is unable to move forward with a prosecution unless it is requested to investigate by the VSBE. Small, therefore, is off the legal hook despite the fact he was witnessed and there is evidence of him committing a crime.
http://www.examiner.com/article/gop-contro...p-voter-fraud-1 (http://www.examiner.com/article/gop-controlled-virginia-board-of-elections-refuses-to-prosecute-gop-voter-fraud-1)
http://notlarrysabato.typepad.com/doh/2012/10/virginia-gop-caught-destroying-voter-registration-forms.html


Romney Campaign Volunteer Says She Works For Clerk's Office, But Only Registering Romney Voters
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/24/el-paso-co-voter-registra_n_1909234.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular)


Updated: *8:46p.m. ET: *Election officials in six Florida counties are investigating what appears to be "hundreds” of cases of suspected voter fraud by a GOP consulting firm that has been paid nearly $3 million by the Republican National Committee to register Republican voters in five key battleground states, state officials tell NBC.*
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09...llegations?lite (http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/27/14126789-rnc-cuts-ties-with-firm-over-voter-fraud-allegations?lite)


SACRAMENTO — Aggressive recruitment efforts in one of California's most hotly contested voting districts has created a surge of newly minted Republicans like Marleny Reyes. Except she had no intention of joining the GOP.

The Moreno Valley College student is among scores of voters in Riverside County who say they were duped.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ri...0,7018210.story (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-riverside-voters-20120930,0,7018210.story)


Statewide, Republican voter registration in California is in decline. Thirty percent of voters are now listed as Republican as opposed to 32% in 2008. It was awfully suspicious, then, when GOP registrations in Riverside County jumped by 35,000 this year, seemingly giving them an advantage of 51,000 voters over Democrats. It turns out that thousands of Democrats have been re-registered as Republicans without their permission.

A Republican voter outreach program named ‘The Golden State Voter Participation Project’ stationed workers outside of stores and welfare offices to sign people up. Democratic activists are alleging fraud and have given the county registrar of voters 133 affidavits from Democrats, many of whom are Latino or African American, who state that they were wrongly re-registered as Republicans. Many were presented with documents that were misrepresented. One thought he was signing a petition to lower the price of gasoline, another that he was supporting the legalization of marijuana. Some were promised free cigarettes in exchange for signing.


How would such fraud help Republicans? First of all, inflating their numbers gives them a fundraising boost by making their chances of success look greater than they are. Secondly, Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts would be thwarted since the party wouldn’t reach out to people listed as Republican to make sure they made it to the polls.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/10/01/ca...op-voter-fraud/ (http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/10/01/california-gop-voter-fraud/)



Voters in traditionally African-American neighborhoods were disproportionately affected when Harris County officials notified 9,000 people their registrations could be cancelled unless they proved they were not deceased, according to a Chronicle analysis of data obtained from the Texas Secretary of State.

Already, 32 percent of voters who received "Are you dead?" letters across the county in September - just six weeks before the presidential elections - have confirmed they are very much alive, election officials said this week. Because of widespread complaints, no county voters will be purged before the November elections unless their deaths are independently confirmed, according to Don Sumners, the county's tax assessor collector and voter registrar.
http://www.chron.com/news/politics/article...ris-3913984.php (http://www.chron.com/news/politics/article/African-American-voters-hit-harder-by-Harris-3913984.php)


All this, and then you throw in the poll tax requirement of photo IDs & it almost makes you think that Republicans don't think much of this whole democracy thing.

[Ecks]

fuckers

there, i said it. i would ask why this isn't more public than the internet, but then i remembered the media is owned by corporations and republicans.

[Solid Snake]

I'm just surprised that the leftist communism-abiding socialist free-love nudist commune rag "Forbes" is running the story. Shouldn't they be promoting drum circles or something?

Forbes has become an increasingly reputable publication in my eyes over the past couple years or so. I wonder what the hell's going on there.

...Oh I mean I'm sure there are still some rich Wall Street lovin' assholes working for Forbes, but it's increasingly becoming the rich Wall Street haven that doesn't mind occasionally publishing objective criticism of said political and economic bullshittery and even sometimes delves into decent articles about the the gaming industry for some esoteric reason.

[shiney]

Maaaaaaybe some people at Forbes have realized this whole thing that happened in France in the 1700s is a very real possibility in our near future if things continue the way they are, with extremely top-heavy wealth and income inequality threatening their very financial stability and potentially, actual safety.

I mean not every rich person is a Snidely Whiplash type of villain, some of them actually realize a strong middle class will make you infinitely more money than just taking every scrap that a demoralized workforce can push out. But, those ones are still in the minority, and are likely to be right against the same wall if the Whiplashes have their way and end up toppling the whole thing.

Which is kinda what they seem to be trying to do with all this voter suppression and dirty deals.

[stefan]

Mail-in ballot bitches.


As someone who worked elections for two years, I got some bad news for you.

Mail-in ballots? They don't get counted.

I am dead fucking serious.

Absentee ballots are literally ONLY counted in the event of the pre-existing numbers being at a close tie. Otherwise, they're just left untouched and unopened.

Welcome to voting.

[Magus]

Well, now that everyone has reported on it, I'm kind of not worried about it? I mean, the easiest way to tell if a conspiracy theory is not true is if everyone knows about it, right?

[Aerozord]

Nah its completely legit, if abit inaccurate. I live in Ohio, the issue was a glitch in the machine (not gonna argue its source) the machines switched the vote to Republican candidate. That didn't automatically force the vote to them, you just had to reselect (I heard some people had to do it multiple times to get it to stick). This is of course only those that caught it. I imagine lots just cast their vote without double checking. Believe some machines also didn't recognize registered voters but that was more a hassle than something that stopped them

Maybe there is some stuff going on behind the scenes but from first hand experience thats how these stories got started. Just saying dont trust the machine to work right.

[Magus]

So it really is the right time to rage against the machine?

...I'll show myself out.

[Sky Warrior Bob]

Some good news, the voting machine thing might not be nearly as bad. As there are apparently few machines in Ohio, restricted to two counties.

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/10/22/1059171/why-romney-isnt-rigging-the-voting-machines/?mobile=nc

This rigged machine theory is based on actual reporting on Tagg Romney’s Solamere and its cozy relationships with many businesses interested in lobbying the government. However, there is absolutely no evidence that this crony capitalist network extends to interference with voting machines. Furthermore, Hart Intercivic machines are only being used in two counties in Ohio. Though it is not implausible that the election could come down to two Ohio counties, it seems like quite a gamble to plant these supposedly rigged machines so sparsely.

The rigged machines myth is not only distracting, but harms the effort to get out the vote. Conservative groups have been promoting vote suppression tactics for a reason: votes count. In Ohio, for instance, despite the Republican Party’s best efforts to restrict early voting hours, voter turnout is on pace to surpass 2008, with Obama leading among people who have already voted. Spreading the myth that the system is so corrupt that these votes don’t matter tells voters they may as well sit out the election.

[Solid Snake]

Some good news, the voting machine thing might not be nearly as bad. As there are apparently few machines in Ohio, restricted to two counties.

Still more than enough to potentially skew the results in what might be an extremely narrow race decided by a thousand votes or less in that state.

[Magus]

I don't think Ohio will be too close--too many jobs in the auto, solar panel, and windmill industry.

[shiney]

I guess early voting (which coincidentally doesn't use these machines) has broken very favorably for Obama.

[Hatake Kakashi]

Oh, what a surprise. (http://www.policymic.com/articles/18619/voter-fraud-2012-pennsylvania-polling-machine-marks-obama-vote-for-romney---video)

[Magus]

He shoulda tried voting for Jill Stein. I heard that makes the machine vote for FDR's Ghost.

Also the only thing Fox News will run about this was how the guy committed a crime since you're not allowed to have cellphone/video cameras/recording devices filming in a polling place.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

So far over here in NJ Romney has the lead... For now anyway.

[Magus]

I could have told you before he was going to win New Jersey but now it's two hours later and he won it handily.

Still doesn't explain why they all voted for Chris Christie but I can't understand why we all voted for Corbett here, either (the answer of course is that there wasn't as much voter turnout in 2010 because people are dumb and don't realize that the lower down the totem pole the guy is the more effect it has on your daily life--Corbett has caused a metric ton of problems for me and many others with his draconian, across-the-board education cuts).

I wish people voted in off-year elections. But I guess that would just be greasing the wheels of the broken system that can never be fixed or whatever. For we are all important cogs in the machine! Except that our votes don't matter and thus we are not important cogs. Except we are? I dunno. Better just sit back and let someone else drive this machine off a cliff so we can establish our utopia.

[Krylo]

For we are all important cogs in the machine! Except that our votes don't matter and thus we are not important cogs. Except we are? I dunno. Better just sit back and let someone else drive this machine off a cliff so we can establish our utopia.

Your problem is that you're misspelling impotent.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Really it doesn't matter who wins, the people still lose in the end.