Voter Fraud in Ohio--already

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OK...It has been awhile since I've visited FYM, but I have GOT to find out why this fraud has even the vaguest amount of a chance of happening.

I am a Canadian, and everything I hear about the voting machines (cydewaze used one in a State election and even though he hit the Democratic candidate, the Republican one came out after several tries, he had to get an official to fix it, who then escorted him out of the room!) and the throwing out of votes and removing whole lists of people because they have a name that sounds like a felon...hello racial profiling? It makes me FURIOUS!!! And it's not even my country! Yet there doesn't seem to be much outrage. Just general "oh yeah...that's very bad. This is a sad state of affairs." etc. I want to know why is this allowed to happen in the first place? I just don't get it.

Why are weathly Republicans/Companies allowed to run the voting machines? It's so OBVIOUS this is a conflict of interest. It should be ILLEGAL. Why is a Republican getting access to Democrat registrations or vice versa? Over here you get a card with your address in the mail and they say "please show up with your ID to this polling station on voting day". Even if you don't have the card they send you, you can just show up with proof of who you are. You don't tell them how you're going to vote, no one has a clue, so no one can throw anything out. How is it possible to throw votes out at all? :banghead:

Everything I hear about what's going on makes me more ill. I just don't see why something isn't done about this. With America being this great bastion of democracy, this isn't very democratic is it?!

Can someone please explain this???

Thank you!
 
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starsgoblue said:



Hmm...that's wierd since Salem is tiny and both her parents are teachers.....interesting :hmm:

Well I went to West Branch--about 10 minutes from Salem--and I lived in Alliance or Homeworth most of my life. I've only lived in Salem for about 3 years and I don't have any kids or anything or any relatives that with kids that go to Salem. But you are right--Salem is tiny-- I guess I just don't get out much. :)
 
Drivemytrabant and starsgoblue - we're trying to keep this topic to voter fraud. If you want to discuss the Mich/Ohio rivalry and/or hometown reminiscing, may I suggest Put Em Under Pressure (sports forum), U2 gatherings, someone's journal, or email? Please and thank you? Not trying to be a bitch, it's just getting hard to follow the topic in here.

Thank you :)
 
Mrs. Edge said:
OK...It has been awhile since I've visited FYM, but I have GOT to find out why this fraud has even the vaguest amount of a chance of happening.

I am a Canadian, and everything I hear about the voting machines (cydewaze used one in a State election and even though he hit the Democratic candidate, the Republican one came out after several tries, he had to get an official to fix it, who then escorted him out of the room!) and the throwing out of votes and removing whole lists of people because they have a name that sounds like a felon...hello racial profiling? It makes me FURIOUS!!! And it's not even my country! Yet there doesn't seem to be much outrage. Just general "oh yeah...that's very bad. This is a sad state of affairs." etc. I want to know why is this allowed to happen in the first place? I just don't get it.

Why are weathly Republicans/Companies allowed to run the voting machines? It's so OBVIOUS this is a conflict of interest. It should be ILLEGAL. Why is a Republican getting access to Democrat registrations or vice versa? Over here you get a card with your address in the mail and they say "please show up with your ID to this polling station on voting day". Even if you don't have the card they send you, you can just show up with proof of who you are. You don't tell them how you're going to vote, no one has a clue, so no one can throw anything out. How is it possible to throw votes out at all? :banghead:

Everything I hear about what's going on makes me more ill. I just don't see why something isn't done about this. With America being this great bastion of democracy, this isn't very democratic is it?!

Can someone please explain this???

Thank you!

I can't really explain any of this because I don't understand why it happens either....my county just went with the electronic voting machines in the last primary election and we had sporadic problems. Some of the machines were coded incorrectly and displayed the wrong party ballot, etc. I don't think it was due to any tampering or attempts at fraud, it was mainly because the machines were rushed into service. I much preferred the punch card system myself.

As far as why the fraud is allowed to continue, my personal opinion is that it is WAY too easy to register to vote in this country, and phony registrations are one of main sources of fraud.

I registered to vote over the internet and all it took was a signature on a card that came via snail mail a few days later, swearing to my true identity. You can register at the mall or in front of a grocery store. I know the people doing the registrations are supposed to verify ID but there aren't any checks and balances in place to make sure things are done by the book.

And I can't remember EVER being asked for ID by a poll worker on an election day.

Fraud happens because our system makes it soooo easy.
 
Mrs. Edge said:
Which brings me to my question, WHY is it so easy and why aren't Americans revolting over this?

Two different problems here:

First, voter fraud. The only way to ensure you have one person - one vote is to clearly identify each person on a national scale. We tend to fear the idea of the government knowing where we all are.

Second, electronic voting. As BAW pointed out, we rushed to replace our punch card methods as a knee jerk reaction to Florida in 2000. Electronic data is far easier to manipulate that thousands upon thousands of punch cards.

I'm not sure why you think Republicans/Corporations control all this.
 
nbcrusader said:
Two different problems here:

First, voter fraud. The only way to ensure you have one person - one vote is to clearly identify each person on a national scale. We tend to fear the idea of the government knowing where we all are.



But the Government DOES know where we all are. The gov't always knows where people are. :confused: The way it works with us is they send you a card with your address based on your last tax return. Your name is also on a list. So, if for some reason you don't have the card, you go in there, show them your name on the list and present ID such as your passport, and then they cross you off. No one knows who you are going to vote for, you mark it down on a ballot, which gets thrown into a sealed box with everyone else's. It just seems very simple to me.

I still don't understand how someone has access to these registrations and can THROW THEM OUT! That boggles my mind.

Second, electronic voting. As BAW pointed out, we rushed to replace our punch card methods as a knee jerk reaction to Florida in 2000. Electronic data is far easier to manipulate that thousands upon thousands of punch cards.

I'm not sure why you think Republicans/Corporations control all this.

I'll get cydewaze to answer that one, he's the one with all the info! I don't want to get it wrong...stay tuned...
 
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Mrs. Edge said:



But the Government DOES know where we all are. The gov't always knows where people are. :confused: The way it works with us is they send you a card with your address based on your last tax return. Your name is also on a list. So, if for some reason you don't have the card, you go in there, show them your name on the list and present ID such as your passport, and then they cross you off. No one knows who you are going to vote for, you mark it down on a ballot, which gets thrown into a sealed box with everyone else's. It just seems very simple to me.



Other than the way we register, our systems sound pretty similar.

Here, its up to each voter to register and to make sure we update our address with the Registrar if we move. Even if you don't update your info like you're supposed to, you can get around the rules and still vote by going to the polling place in your old neighborhood, where you'll probably still be on the list. Its unlikely you will be asked for ID. I think I remember something from primary where we were told to report any poll workers asking for ID, like it was a bad thing :confused:

And we're given our ballots (when they were paper) based on political party...our votes are secret but the people at the polling place do know your affiliation. In the case of paper ballots, they are put into a sealed box as well.

I still don't understand how someone has access to these registrations and can THROW THEM OUT! That boggles my mind.

It would be pretty easy to do in the case of volunteers who sit in front of a grocery store or work voter registration drives. There are no county officials watching over them so it would be pretty easy to just toss them away. And they can simply look at your registration to see what party you belong to if they are looking to tamper with the registrations based on affiliation.
 
Well, it seems to me that it's a very bad and impractical idea having people know what party you are affiliated with.

I understand that you can pick your candidates over there, wheras here you have to belong to the party to do that. But why not have a system there where you can belong to a party, but still vote the regular "anonymous" way?

If that is impossible to change, then knowing that there are corrupt people and that voting is so important AND that people know who each other are affiliated with, there should waaaaaay more stringent safeguards in place. Even something as simple as locking the registrations in some sort of vault (like those slots they throw $20 bills into at movie theatres) and having some scrutineer collect them all at the end of the day. I'm sure there are a million ways a country like the US could come up with to prevent this kind of stuff.
 
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Mrs. Edge said:
I'll get cydewaze to answer that one, he's the one with all the info! I don't want to get it wrong...stay tuned...
Jessica loves to drag me into this forum because she knows I loath debating politics.

The answer to "why we think republicans are in control of this" is because if you do a who's who of the two main voting machine manufacturers (ES&S and Diebold) you basically get a list of big time republican donors. Add to this the fact that a republican senator was (and I think maybe still is) on the board of directors for one of them. Also add the fact that in 2002, there were huge election night swings where the republican candidate was trailing by a significant margin, only to mysteriously emerge victorious on election night. Here in MD, our first year of touch-screen voting brought us our first republican governor in decades - after he got oblitertated in the debates and threatened any group that endorsed his opponent that they would find themselves left out of the budget.

This is what creates the appearance (whether right or wrong) that republicans are in control of the touch screens. Adding to my distrust is that exit polling was removed in 2002 (and I predict it will be absent in November as well). It's much easier to push a bogus election result if you don't have contradictory exit polls to worry about. We found that out in 2000.
 
Mrs. Edge said:
But the Government DOES know where we all are. The gov't always knows where people are. :confused: The way it works with us is they send you a card with your address based on your last tax return. Your name is also on a list. So, if for some reason you don't have the card, you go in there, show them your name on the list and present ID such as your passport, and then they cross you off. No one knows who you are going to vote for, you mark it down on a ballot, which gets thrown into a sealed box with everyone else's. It just seems very simple to me.

For better or worse, the government really doesn't know where we all are. People could register and vote in multiple states with little risk of being caught. People could register and vote using multiple false identities with little risk of being caught. People could register and vote using the identities of dead, homeless, underage, non-resident individuals with little risk of getting caught.

The only reason this doesn't happen on a bigger scale is that most of us are inclined to obey the law.
 
and it continues

New Florida vote scandal feared
By Greg Palast
Reporting for BBC's Newsnight, Oct. 26, 2004

A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.

Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".

It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."

Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm
 
that will offset all the early voter intimidation by the unions and other like groups :ohmy:

For the BBC to think these types of lists aren't held by both parties is fairly naive. Of course, they know better, but have an agenda.
 
Disappointed with how the American presidential election concluded? Apparently, Bush was disappointed, too! Whether or not you value "liberal" news sources, pay attention to the hard numbers and facts presented in the articles below. Then, ask yourself, “Do I value democracy?”

Articles:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65623,00.html
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041105/D865R1DO0.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlate...4598911,00.html
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/c.../05flavote.html
http://www.wsoctv.com/news/3892151/detail.html
http://www.thehill.com/morris/110404.aspx

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