2008 Stolen Election

Re: The Truth About ACORN's Voter Registration Drive

davidswanson — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:49:37 -0400

Urban Journal will cover this today: http://www.theurbanjournal.org

To: Interested Parties
From: Bertha Lewis and Steve Kest
Date: October 9, 2008
Re: The Truth About ACORN's Voter Registration Drive

Election Day is less than a month away, and our efforts to make sure that low-income and minority voters have a voice and vote on November 4th are in full swing. Unfortunately, just as we've seen in previous election cycles, the more success we have in empowering these voters, the more attacks we have to fend off from partisan forces making unfounded accusations to disparage our work and help maintain the status quo of an unbalanced electorate. We want to take this opportunity to separate the facts of our successes from the falsehoods of our attackers.

On Monday, October 6, as voter registration deadlines passed in most states, ACORN completed the largest, most successful nonpartisan voter registration drive in history. In partnership with the nonpartisan organization Project Vote, we helped register over 1.3 million low-income, minority, and young voters in a total of 21 states. Highlights of this success include:

We collected over 151,000 registrations in Florida, 153,000 in Pennsylvania, 215,000 in Michigan, and nearly 250,000 in Ohio.

An estimated 60-70 percent of our applicants are people of color.

At least HALF of all are registrations are from young people between 18-29.

We are proud of this unprecedented success, and grateful to everyone who supported us in this massive effort, from our funders and partners to the literally thousands of hardworking individuals across the country who dedicated themselves to the cause and conducted the difficult work of registering 1.3 million Americans, one voter at a time.

And this work is far from over: now begins our effort mobilize these new voters around local and national issues, getting them to the polls and helping to channel their commitment and conviction into an ongoing movement for change in our communities.

As The Nation pointed out recently, ACORN's success in registering millions of low-income and minority voters has made it "something of a right-wing bogeyman." Though ACORN believes that the right to vote is not, and should never be, a partisan issue, attacks from groups threatened by our historic success continue to come, motivated by partisan politics and often perpetuated by the media without full investigation of the facts. As a result, there have been a few recent stories about investigations of former ACORN workers for turning in incomplete, erroneous, or fraudulent voter registration applications. Predictably, partisan forces have tried to use these isolated incidents to incite fear of the "bogeyman" of "widespread voter fraud." But we want to take this opportunity to set the record straight and tell you a few facts to show how these incidents really exemplify everything that ACORN is doing right:

Fact: ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control system in the voter engagement field, but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic.

Fact: ACORN flags incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in, but these warnings are often ignored by election officials. Often these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards.

Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card, so there is NO incentive for them to falsify cards. ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the relatively rare cases where our internal quality controls have identified this happening we have fired the workers involved and turned them in to election officials and law-enforcement.

Fact: No charges have ever been brought against ACORN itself. Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained through our quality control and verification processes.

Fact: Voter fraud by individuals is extremely rare, and incredibly difficult. There has never been a single proven case of anyone, anywhere, casting an illegal vote as a result of a phony voter registration. Even if someone wanted to influence the election this way, it would not work.

Fact: Most election officials have recognized ACORN's good work and praised our quality control systems. Even in the cities where election officials have complained about ACORN, the applications in question represent less than 1% of the thousands and thousands of registrations ACORN has collected.

Fact: Our accusers not only fail to provide any evidence, they fail to suggest a motive: there is virtually no chance anyone would be able to vote fraudulently, so there is no reason to deliberately submit phony registrations. ACORN is committed to ensuring that the greatest possible numbers of people are registered and allowed to vote, so there is also NO incentive to "disrupt the system" with phony cards.

Fact: Similar accusations were made, and attacks launched, against ACORN and other voter registration organizations in 2004 and 2006. These attacks were not only groundless, they have since been exposed as part of the U.S. Attorney-gate scandal and revealed to be part of a systematic partisan agenda of voter suppression.

These are the facts, and the truth is that a relatively small group of political operatives are trying to orchestrate hysteria about "voter fraud" and manufacture public outrage that they can use to further suppress the votes of millions of low-income and minority Americans.

These tactics are nothing new, and history has shown that they will come to nothing. We'll continue to weather the storm, as we've done for years, and we'll continue to share the truth about our work and express pride about our accomplishments.
Most importantly, we want to assure you that this good work continues, unabated and undeterred. ACORN will not be intimidated, we will not be provoked, and in this important moment in history we will not allow anyone to distract us from these vital efforts to empower our constituencies and our communities to speak for themselves. If the partisan political machines are afraid of low-income and minority voters, they're going to have to do a lot better than coming after ACORN.

After all, there are now at least 1.3 million more of them, and they will not be silenced. They're taking an interest, and taking a stand, and they'll be taking their concerns to the voting booth in November.

And ACORN will be here, to make sure that the voices of these Americans are heard, on Election Day and for every day to come.

ACORN Is Not the Nut Here

davidswanson — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:28:55 -0400

By David Swanson

From 2000 to 2003 I was the communications coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. I don't know whether to be sorry or relieved that I don't have my old job now.

ACORN has been through some scandals of its own making, but it is currently all over the news because of a pair of absolutely fraudulent and nationally coordinated attacks.

One of these attacks involves accusations of voter fraud. But, of course, "voter fraud" almost doesn't exist, and federal prosecutors have lost their jobs because they couldn't find evidence of its existence to satisfy the Bush White House. In fact, the accusations against ACORN are not about voting, but about voter registration.

Now, if some kid fills out bogus forms in order to make more money from ACORN for supposedly registering voters, ACORN is supposed to try to catch that stuff and not turn in those forms. On the whole, ACORN has registered huge numbers of people with only a tiny percentage of problems. But the more important point is that the kid trying to scam extra bucks has no intention of trying to vote multiple times, risking imprisonment, and no intention of bringing in corpses to have them vote, as CNN seems to imagine. There's no money in fraudulent voting, only enormous risk. But there is money and power in vote suppression and vote miscounting, the major stories that this one is meant to distract from.

The other attack on ACORN focuses on blaming the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) for the collapse of Wall Street. Most subprime loans, and therefore most predatory loans, are not made in order to comply with CRA. In fact, low-income and minority communities have seen a great deal of activism in recent years demanding that the predatory lenders stay out, not in. ACORN coined the phrase "predatory lending" and made news years ago by beginning a major campaign to keep loans that are worse than nothing out of neighborhoods.

Predatory loans are not loans made to the wrong kind of people. They are loans made in very deceptive ways with the aim of making the borrower believe they'll be able to pay it back, but with the aim of making them fail. Predatory mortgage lenders make money by refinancing repeatedly, extracting more fees each time, and eventually seizing the property. This is accomplished with misleading fine print that strips people of their equity through all sorts of hidden fees and charges and rate increases, and by consolidating credit card and other debt with house debt. Every year, ACORN produces a lengthy report documenting the targeting of racial minorities with these loans.

For years, ACORN has led efforts to ban predatory loans through local and state legislation, while the same gang that is now so upset about these loans being made has fought endlessly against bans and restrictions.

The good news is that the family of organizations known as ACORN is growing, raising wages, improving schools, reforming corporations, building housing, organizing active citizens, and clearly threatening the powers that be. ACORN has decidedly moved past the stage of being ignored and even the stage of being laughed at. ACORN is now being attacked. Next comes victory.

Changing procedures at polling booths to create long lines

deft — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:59:19 -0400

I am a poll worker in NYC.

Our training was changed, and if followed to the letter, would create long lines.

The old way was to issue a card to each voter to wait on a line creating two comfortable lines. If challenged that voter could step aside and not hold up other voters, then sign the challenge oath.

The NEW way is to hold that card on the table. Logistically it creates a lot problems.

If you lineup the cards in the order of voters on the line and people move around. It increases the possibly of people voting for other people, maybe twice. If you issue only one card at time, you have created a long line of people just waiting to sign the book (and possibly a vacant booth). People for many reasons may not have their names in the book possibly holding up the longer line. People simply may not be on the right line for their ED and AD.
Voters might have had their first and last names reversed, changed
their name or just by the incompetency of the worker looking up the
name. A voter might not have voted often enough to remain on the voting rolls and use the option of a provisional ballot.

This is were it gets very serious! Valid voters whom for all the wrong reasons had their names taken off the list (purged).
Worse still voters on the rolls being wrongfully challenged! Voters
might have moved, too recently to re-register at their new site (recent
foreclosure). Voters whom happen to have a name similar to a person not
eligible to vote. There is no real penalty for a wrongful challenge, except after the election is over. After being challenged the voter signs the challenge oath and votes, but not before the challenge evildoer holds up the line for as long as they can. Doing
preprocessing of potential voters may help shorten the line, allowing
voters on the wrong line to find their booth and purged voters to vote
by affidavit (provisional) ballot. Realistically there is no way to stop this tactic (using the new way), the challenger would wait until the voter was about to sign.

The old and new way still allows the extremely few people whom
fraudulently voted to be prosecuted after the election as well as the
wrongful challenger for false witness.

Should We Believe the Polls?

davidswanson — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:08:44 -0400

By Ernest Partridge, The Crisis Papers

If we are to believe the most recent public opinion polls, this has been a very bad week for the Obama/Biden ticket.

According to Gallup, the Democrats’ consistent eleven to fifteen point advantage since January dropped to three points this week. Newsweek, CNN, NBC/WSJ, and CBS all report a tie.

But should we believe the most recent public opinion polls? Today’s “dead heat” seems inconsistent with other statistics. Among them:

New registrations are overwhelmingly Democratic: The AP reported, just last week (September 7) that during the primary season, “more than two million Democrats [were added] to voter rolls in the 28 states that register voters according to party affiliation. The Republicans have lost nearly 344 thousand voters in the same states.”

The same AP article reported that nationwide, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans, 42 million to 31 million.

As recently as September, Gallup reported that the Democrats had a ten percent lead in party affiliation among voters: 47% to 37%.

And 80% of the American public is “dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States.” (Gallup, August 23, 2008).

And yet Gallup chooses to survey an even number of Democrats and Republicans. Why? In addition, the pollsters contact users of land-line phones and exclude cell phone users. Presumably, younger and more liberal voters are more inclined to use cell phones. Both factors would surely inflate the GOP numbers.

Moreover, some of the recent alleged shifts in public opinion strain credulity. For example, Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian notes that last week, “the ABC News-Washington Post survey ... found McCain ahead among white women by 53% to 41%. Two weeks ago [before the Democratic convention!], Obama had a 15% lead among women.”

That’s a shift of 27%. And what could account for it? We can only assume that three days of GOP bombast from Minneapolis and the introduction of a new, pretty, face, convinced a quarter of those white women voters to change their minds.

Sorry, but that’s more than I can swallow. Somehow it just doesn’t add up.

So, should we believe the polls?

Frankly, I can’t offer a simple answer. But I most assuredly have a few nagging questions.

First of all, why wouldn’t the polling organizations publish results that are as accurate as reasonably possible? After all, their reputations, and therefore their profitability, depends upon proven records of accuracy. The fate of the Literary Digest poll, which predicted the overwhelming defeat of FDR in 1936, is indelible in the institutional memory of all polling organizations. Soon after that election, the Literary Digest ceased publication.

But an “accurate prediction” of an election presupposes honest elections. Thanks to “paperless” electronic voting, on machines operating with secret software, manufactured and programmed by private firms with Republican affiliations, U.S. elections are “faith-based.” Are our elections honest and accurate? Unknown and unknowable. And the corporate media, both political parties, and the Congress are spectacularly uncurious and unperturbed about the insecurity of U.S. elections.

Furthermore, we now know that the corporate media print and broadcast lies (Saddam’s alleged WMDs and involvement in 9/11, Al Gore’s “invention of the internet”) and fail to report essential truths (Bush’s AWOL from the national guard, election fraud, John McCain’s involvement with embezzler Charles Keating). So why assume that the same media publishes accurate opinion polls? And if the polls are not scrupulously accurate, this does not necessarily mean that their numbers are simply “made-up” on the spot. Deliberate sampling bias will suffice to yield the “desired” results.

So might it not just be possible that the covert function of opinion polls is not to “track” public opinion or to predict the outcome of elections, but rather to validate the predetermined outcome? Likewise unknown and unknowable.

If the major national polls are “in on” another fixed election, it would not be their task to report actual public opinion. Rather it would be to publish a “prediction” close enough to the outcome to make the theft plausible. (See my “The Fix is In, Again,” and other essays on election fraud).

In the meantime, absent legal, legislative, and journalistic diligence, it is up to individual citizens and citizen organizations such as these (here, here, here, and here) to raise the question of election integrity, and to cite the abundant and growing evidence – anecdotal, circumstantial, and statistical – that during the past decade at least, the “will of the people” has not always prevailed in our national elections. As Republican Congressman Peter King carelessly blurted out on election night, 2004: “It’s all over but the counting, and we do the counting.”

Contrary to these dire, and possibly paranoid, suspicions, is this plain fact: There are numerous polling organizations, independent of each other. Some of these are affiliated with and sponsored by the Democratic Party. Thus it is highly unlikely that all of them would be complicit in a grand conspiracy to lie to the American public.

As I said at the outset, I have many questions, some suspicions, but no definitive answers.

But these are questions that all concerned citizens should be asking, even though the corporate media are not.

And if these questions indicate that the polling organizations have lost some of their former credibility, along with the media that publish them, they have only themselves to blame.

Obama Campaign Sues to Block Republican Voter Suppression Tactic in Michigan

davidswanson — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:13:30 -0400

Incredibly encouraging is what this development is. This moves us a discernable step closer to the possibility that Obama would actually challenge a stolen election.

What If McCain "Wins" the Election But Can't Remember What Office He Was Running For?

davidswanson — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:17:40 -0400

Florida Dems Trash Touchscreens

Bob Fertik — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:03:32 -0400

Here's an awesome TV ad by Florida's Broward County Democrats, who are celebrating the trashing of all touchscreens in Florida.

See if you catch the joke about the name of the machine :)

Speak Live Tonight With Brad Friedman

davidswanson — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:20:41 -0400

By David Swanson

Tonight, Wednesday, May 7, from 8-9 p.m. ET, I'll have the pleasure of interviewing, with your help, the single most serious, dedicated, and inspiring journalist focused on the integrity of our elections in the United States today, Brad Friedman, the creator of http://www.BradBlog.com

Go to: http://thepeoplespeakradio.net to learn more. Go to http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/listen-live to listen live. You'll find instructions there to enter a paltalk chat room where you can post questions. You can also phone in and ask Brad your questions on the air. Call in tollfree from anywhere in the United States or Canada at 888-228-4494 or anywhere else in the world at 877-489-6350. Following the show, the audio file will be posted at http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/audio/2008 and you can find there now the recordings of numerous shows with amazing guests.

Who Will Stop "Lamont Williams" from Stealing The Election?

Bob Fertik — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:07:29 -0400

On Monday, the Supreme Court allowed states to reinstate an anti-democratic poll tax in the form of a state-issued ID. The justification was Republican charges of "voter fraud" which occurs about as often as Haley's Comet visits the earth.

But here's a real case of fraud, courtesy of Shaun Dakin:

According to NC public radio, someone named Lamont Williams is robocalling into Black neighborhoods with mis-information (Click here for the entire article as well as Audio).

He also called into Ohio in November.

According to Democracy NC and others, some guy named “Lamont Williams” is making robo-calls to black neighborhoods.

"Hello, this is Lamont Williams. In the next few days, you will receive a voter registration packet in the mail. All you need to do is fill it out, sign it, date and return your application. Then you will be able to vote and make your voice heard. Please return your registration form when it arrives. Thank you.”

The problem, of course, is that the April 11th mail-in registration deadline was long past by the time this April 24th call went out. So any would-be voter who takes Lamont’s advice instead of going to a one-stop site will miss out on his or her chance to vote in the primary.

This is clear-cut fraud. But right now it's impossible for citizens to trace robocalls and report them to prosecutors.

Update 1: Mystery solved. The calls were made by Women's Voices, Women Vote, a nonpartisan group trying to register 1 million unmarried women in 24 states, including NC. Apparently they screwed up royally in NC and got the deadline wrong. Now they're trying to fix the problem:

"In an attempt to prevent further confusion surrounding our voter registration efforts prior to the North Carolina primary, Women’s Voices. Women Vote took the extra step of attempting to stop the remaining mail from being delivered to homes. In total, 20 postal trucks are carrying Women’s Voices. Women Vote registration applications. Four of the trucks have already delivered, but Women’s Voices. Women Vote is making every attempt to delay the delivery of the remaining sixteen trucks.

Clearly someone needs to lose their job...