Hokay. This is just getting ridiculous.
Watching MSNBC covering the robocall issue, reporting that repug lawyers say their calls are not in violation of the laws because they're put out by nonpoliticals or 527s or whatever they are. Then MSNBC put up a comment by a rightwing blogger, taunting the leftwing bloggers, saying that we're only upset because Ken Mehlman thought of this first and Howard Dean didn't!!
Oh, man, this so exposes their sick mentality. That loophole, offshore banking, send someone else's son to war mentality.
Whatever they can get away with, completely missing the point and purpose of the law, only exerting effort to weasle their way around it.
So does this mentality come with a prerequisite that you go into life assuming you are a loser, so the only option left to you is to cheat?? (Actually, clinically speaking, that is - most unfortunately - the case.)
To punctuate the point, it appears
How low can they go? Really??
Things could get really nasty.
[Update 1: OK. Now you guys watch this and tell me, does this just SMACK of that Rove 'bugged' incident of TX lore? I mean, Kean's guy even looks like a Rove wannabe!]
[Update 2: Desperado in MD. Seems the First Lady has bussed in the homeless from across the line to distribute fake ballots. Folks, this is just going to be Theatre of the Absurd.]
6 comments:
You're blowing us away today, doc. Thanks for the inspired analysis.
I'll be checking in later tonight from PA.
I knew it, I knew they would switch party affiliation. We had good clues of that early on (think Foley). I checked my electronic ballot very closely for that. My other concern is with the absentee ballots. And of course now we find there were not enough. And lo and behold Erlich, the guy who encouraged their use, doesn't care. From early on Erlich has dripped slime. From ousting Dems when he first started his job to sliming O'Malley with outright lies. And of course the "power outages" in a.m. voting is always interesting.
Yes the true colors are showing.
Miss P.
We should make clear that by "first lady" we mean the Governor's wife.
The homeless folk are being asked to distribute flyers which portray the Republican Robert Ehrlich and Senate candidate Michael Steele as Democrats.
They would not be trying a trick like that if there really was a "Republican surge."
I wish this wasn't happening...incidents of electronic vote machines flipping to Republican candidates is happening over and over again across the country in addition to Jim Crow voter intimidation, one-on-one voter poll challenges, voter registration purges, across the country. go to Brad Friedman's blog for more stories, I have listed two of them below.
Even Maryland's First Lady is proud to be organizing a small army of homeless bused in to hand out sample ballots with Repub candidates listed as Democrats:
"Sample Ballots in Pr. Georges Misidentify Candidates" www.washingtonpost.com
by Ernesto Londono
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/07/AR2006110700740.html
Rep. Governor Robert Ehrlich and Reb. Senate candidate Michael Steele have been using the unemployed from Pennsylvania and Delaware, who arrived in Maryland on buses, to hand out sample ballots at four precincts in majority-African American Prince Georges County. The sample ballots incorrectly identify Ehrlich and Steele as Democrats.
"After a two-hour bus ride to Maryland, Markle said the workers were greeted early this morning by first lady Kendel Ehrlich, who thanked them as they were outfitted in T-shirts and hats with the logo for Ehrlich's reelection campaign. Nearly all of those recruited, Markle said, are poor and black. Workers traveled to Maryland in at least seven large buses."
Here's the story about the vote flipping in Missouri:
MO-SEN: Machine Records Dem Vote For GOP
http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2006/nov/07/mo_sen_machine_records_dem_vote_for_gop
By Justin Rood | bio
Reader PW writes:
My wife just came home from voting here in Webster Groves MO. She used the electronic touch-screen voting system. . . She touched Claire McCaskill's picture and the machine recorded a vote for Jim Talent. She then called one of the people running the polling center who helped her correct the problem. My wife then had to call the person over another time after it recorded her vote a Republican again. In her frustration she asked the person who was responsible for the design of this system. The polling person leaned in very close to my wife and whispered, "We're f----d."
The Missouri Senate race is perhaps the closest in the country, and polls are being watched very closely, by both sides, for any errors or malfeasance.
NBC is in partnership with the GOP and are reporting some glitches with the electronic voting machines but are portraying these problems as minor and that otherwise voting is proceeding smoothly. Check out the Anti-Dem banner ads that were shown last this afternoon on MSNBC's Tucker Carlson's show.
From NBC's Doug Adams and the "Making Your Vote Count" team
We've been running down reports of voting problems in several states. None has been terribly serious, but here's an update:
Delaware County, Indiana (Muncie) - A state court ruled that polls must stay open until 8:40 p.m. ET, an hour and 40 minutes later than the scheduled close. Problems this morning with touchscreen machines prevented voters from casting ballots in 75 precincts for several hours this morning. The polls will stay open until 8:40 p.m. to accommodate voters who may have left the polls without voting this morning because of the problems. The problems were caused by faulty voting cards that are used to bring up the ballots on the electronic touch screen voting machines.
Marion County, Indiana (Indianapolis) - A problem this morning affected all 222 precincts throughout the county. According to County Clerk Doris Ann Sadler: The county uses an optical-scan system - which means that voters use paper ballots and fill in "dots" next to the candidate they want to vote for. All voters were given the normal paper ballot and allowed to vote normally. There was no delay in that process, and many voters didn't realize that any problem was occurring.
The problem occurred with the computer connection to the vote counter in all 222 precincts, which prevented the reading and counting of the ballot in the presence of the voter. Technicians were sent to the precincts and fixed the issue. All machines were up and running by midmorning. The ballots were then fed into machines for the tallying process. This poses one potential problem, in that the voter was no longer present to fix any "overvote" problem with their ballot. (An overvote is when a voter selects more than one candidate). However, Sadler said she has not had any reports of ballots being kicked out because of an overvote problem.
New Jersey - The state's Republican Party had a phone press conference with reporters this afternoon alleging "rigging" of vote machines and widespread voting machine failures. The New Jersey attorney general's office has been investigating the allegations, which include seven counties where they say voters went into the booth and found that Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez was "pre-selected" on their electronic ballots.
The attorney general's office said they sent deputies to all of the counties cited by the Republicans, but their investigators have not reported any problems. They've been running tests on the machines (but we haven't heard precisely how many tests have been run).
Also, the New Jersey attorney general's office said investigators could not find any poll workers who witnessed the pre-selection problem that was alleged by the GOP.
As for the allegations by other media outlets that some voters have gone into the booth, selected a candidate's name and then not pressed the final "Vote" button before walking out - the state attorney general's office says that is a "possibility" but has not been confirmed. In any case, that would be voter error, not an instance of machine problems.
Did anyone else see this recently on MSNBC's Tucker Carlson show?
Talk about negative ads:
During the 4 o'clock hour I was listening briefly to MSNBC's Tucker (bowtieless) Carlson interviewing Rick Santorum. There was quite a disturbing caption conveniently placed at the bottom of the screen. It read: Vote Democrat and get nuked? I'm certain it was placed there intentionally to scare voters that hadn't yet voted. How low can MSNBC go? The caption was uncalled for! Aside from a noble Keith Olbermann, MSNBC is pure partisan scum.
Why doesn't the cowardly Cheney-Bush-Rove-Rumsfeld-Rice group just come out and declare that the US is no longer a democracy and that there will be no more useless elections?
things are pretty bad and only getting worse.
Here are some more meltdowns from Brad's blog:
MELTDOWN '06:
Orange County CA Candidate Says Machines Down, No Paper Ballots AvailableŠ
Voters in Predominently Dem Areas Unable to Vote, Some Voting on Paper Ballots in Chinese and Vietnamese as English Ballots Not AvailableŠ
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3748
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MELTDOWN '06:
'Voting Nightmare' Reported by Denver Post
Dems Seek Extension of Voting Times after Hundreds of Voters Turned Away from Polls as Machines FailŠ
'We Will Not Get to Vote Today' Says Voter Turned Away After an Hour Who Had Arrived at 6:45amŠ
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3747
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MELTDOWN '06: AP
'Polling places turn to paper ballots after glitches'
Voting Machine Companies (as expected) Blame 'Human Error'Š (True enough, since the idiots who created these machines, and agreed to use them are most likely 'human')
First, they're not "glitches"ŠThey are failures!...
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3746
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MELTDOWN '06:
Diebold Voting Machines Failing to Start Up in Utah, Voters Being Turned AwayŠ
Smartcard Encoders Reportedly Not WorkingŠPaper Ballots Not Available EverywhereŠ
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3745
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