Today's P-I has an AP article about the alarming epidemic of voting by mail:
[Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate in Washington, D.C.] believes it's all but inevitable that as vote-by-mail becomes more common, so will instances of people being coerced to vote a certain way by family members or others.Well, yeah."It essentially eliminates the secret ballot," Gans said. "This process offers all kinds of potential for chicanery and fraud, with someone telling their spouse, 'This is how we're going to fill out our ballots.'"
But Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed said he's seen no evidence that voting by mail has led to coercion or fraud in his state.If Sam doesn't see evidence of fraud it's because he routinely refuses to look at stuff that could conceivably be evidence of fraud. But if I keep posting this stuff enough times maybe one day good ole Sam will accidentally look at this or this or this.
Meanwhile, Bob Edelman sends us an update on the strange case of Phineas Porter, who magically voted by mail from his home in Snohomish County while he was living in Jefferson County and voting at the polls there. It looks like someone else living at Porter's former home in Everett might have (dare I say "fraudulently") voted the mail ballot on his behalf. Snohomish County Auditor Bob Terwilliger has written to the county prosecutor asking for an investigation of the irregularities (the ballot envelope and poll book are here)
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 01, 2006 04:58 PM | Email ThisWill SOMEONE please prosecute one of the people! Pretty please!
Posted by: Jeremy on May 1, 2006 05:10 PMI'm guessing Goldy is fine with all of the music stolen online in the Napster hey-day too, because, well, it was just too convenient not to.
Convenience = 1 / Security
Posted by: Jeff B. on May 1, 2006 05:17 PMDEPORT ALL ILLEGAL WA VOTERS TO CANADA!
Now there is a solution that works!
These are the same people who are welcoming illegal immigrants into our streets! These illegals are chanting "First we march - then we vote!" Doesn't that scare the heck out of anyone?
The only thing that can possibly restore order to our state (and country)- and remove the corrupt communist/liberal takeover that appears to be in full force, would be an army of federal troops.... Guess what? That's not going to happem.
It appears that we are actually giving those responsible for our fraudulent elections - credibility - by giving them small examples of evidence of fraud so they can make media statements that they are investigating them. This gives the public a FALSE impression of a clean up effort.
I don't want to discourage anyone here from revealing the truth. That's not my intent. I just want people to see how huge this mess is and how it's growing. I want people to understand and think about the possibility that their votes will not count while the liberal left is in power. The forms of fraud have expanded and will soon be streamlined with all mail voting. We need to think about what to do to stop this and perhaps begin an initiative for strong federal oversight of all future elections.
Posted by: Deborah on May 1, 2006 06:47 PMInteresting: If you aren't sure whether you can fake the voter's signature well enough to get past the one-second-glance "verification" by someone in the auditor's office, pretend the voter is unable to sign his normal signature.
It seems improbable that Porter's absentee ballot was cast innocently.
But, who did it?
Posted by: Micajah on May 1, 2006 08:15 PM
Joel Connelly??
When you said; "These are the same people who are welcoming illegal immigrants into our streets! These illegals are chanting "First we march - then we vote!" Doesn't that scare the heck out of anyone?"
You don't know how close to the truth you really are.
If you really want to see what can happen with illegal aliens voting, just check out California and LA in particular.
They really will be voting tomorrow; with or with citizenship.
Posted by: jaybo on May 1, 2006 09:31 PMI don't think it really matters what the WSRP does with Reed in '08. I doubt the base will vote for him. Reed is a pollyanna from a byegone era where Democrats were polite and disagreement was honest. Back then, there may have been ground for the very cordial sytle that Reed posseses in dealing with the current issues.
I appluad Reed's style. He really is a nice guy, the trouble is that this is no longer about nice people. The kind of neglect and willful negligence we witnessed from KCREALS in 2004 does not come from people making "honest mistakes." It comes both from partisan gaming of our elections system and utter incompetence.
Reed is a pea shooter when we need a 16" battleship gun.
Posted by: Jeff B. on May 1, 2006 11:23 PMOh..I know how close to the truth I really am..
I just wish everyone did - and then did something about it.
You're kidding me, right?
This man is nothing more than a career politician that will do just about anything to keep his job.
Posted by: jaybo on May 2, 2006 07:30 AMJudge Rejects Attorney General’s Claim that I-601 is Unconstitutional
OLYMPIA—Today Snohomish County Superior Court Judge James Allendoerfer signed an order, reflecting his March 17 oral ruling that the state violated I-601 during the 2005 Legislative Session. The move came after the Judge heard a motion from the Attorney General to reconsider his ruling. The motion argued, among other things, that I-601 was unconstitutional.
Judge Allendoerfer ordered the spending limit adopted in November 2005 be reduced by $250 million dollars, and he invalidated a majority of the taxes raised in HB 2314, with the exception of the cigarette tax. The Judge also rejected the AG's argument that I-601 is unconstitutional, saying it was not an issue properly brought before the court.
"It is shocking that the Attorney General would argue our 13-year-old, voter-approved taxpayer protection law is unconstitutional," said Jason Mercier, senior budget analyst for the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. "As a voting member of the I-601 expenditure limit committee, the Attorney General should be working to ensure state officials are following the law instead of defending their attempts to circumvent it."
"We are hoping that today's scolding by the Judge will be enough to convince the Attorney General to drop this outrageous constitutional challenge to the will of the people," said Mercier.
http://www.effwa.org/main/article.php?article_id=1550&number=56
Right you are. I have no idea what to do about it though, except the obvious individual "storm" preparation, speaking out from time to time, intellectually dogging liberal liars into oblivion, and continuing to support the Republican Party. It is all we really have left. Our discourse is in bad shape because many like you and I won’t openly challenge the liberals for their lies and deceit. There is a huge difference between Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives and now more than ever, the differences need to be highlighted.
The scary fact is that while we observe events unfold it appears as if the Republican Party is as feckless as the Democrat party truly is. This is mostly attributable to the wonderful cadre of power - national media who have turned our culture into an instant opinion forum of made-to-order policy prescriptions. It easily defines what is right and wrong and then makes people's minds up for them. The problem – people believe them!!
I am no constitutional scholar, but I know more about the Constitution than nearly anyone I ever come into contact with and this concerns me greatly. Many lawyers I know have little idea what the constitution actually means even in the broad strokes, blithely accepting the interpretations of the so-called “liberal intelligentsia.” The so-called smart-set composed of women’s rights groups and Communists substituted “social justice” for the “rule of law” that started the perversion with Roe v. Wade and now we have “make it up as you go,” Constitutional law. Our law schools have substituted the inculcation of intellectual rigor for a rubber stamp.
No wonder the general public thinks it might be O.K. to use International Law as precedent for Supreme Court decisions (as Ruth Bader-Ginsberg does) or that illegal aliens are entitled to 1st, 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendment protections just because they are on our turf. THEY ARE NOT!!!! No wonder so many people actually believe it when a$$holes like Dick Durban, Carl Levin, Teddy Kennedy and other liberals outright lie about the supreme law of our land and get away with it. They get away with this because our citizenry lacks historical knowledge, and a discourse that exposes it.
This ignorance of our American birthright along with popular misinformation through the MSM will be our undoing. It starts with ignorance of the simple fact that the 2nd amendment was made to protect the 1st, and it moves to a recognition that our form of government can only function if we all take responsibility as citizens. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.
Without the U.S. Constitution, we are a gathering of people with a government in waiting composed of a communist regime presided over by anyone who can appeal to the least capable of our citizenry. This is the purest of what the tyranny of the elite can perpetrate at the behest of an addle brained majority. Through the MSM, the left has taught us that the Bush administration is the elite, and they are the reasoned and conscientious abiders of law. Examples of this present themselves here in Washington in Gregoire, Sims and Nickels, with institutionalized voting fraud, taxation without accountability, corporatism, and renewed movements toward gun control.
The Republican Party is far from perfect, but if one likes individualism, religious freedom, fundamental liberty, the rule of law and sane policy making based on the U.S. Constitution -- it is the only game in town. Sorry for the wordiness--can't help it.
Vote, and vote Republican, and support Stefan Sharkansky and those like him, and keep your powder dry.
And . . . Nickels says, this is the emerald city, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”