A press release, dated 11 May, posted to the White House Web site (archived copy) announces (all links and party affiliations were added by the submitter):
[...] the issuance of an executive order forming the bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Integrity. The President also named [Republican] Vice President Mike Pence as Chairman and Kansas Secretary of State [Republican] Kris Kobach as Vice-Chair of the Commission.
Five additional members were named to the bipartisan commission today:
Connie Lawson [Republican], Secretary of State of Indiana
Bill Gardner [Democratic], Secretary of State of New Hampshire
Matthew Dunlap [Democratic], Secretary of State of Maine
Ken Blackwell [Republican], Former Secretary of State of Ohio
Christy McCormick, Commissioner, Election Assistance Commission
[...]
The Commission on Election Integrity will study vulnerabilities in voting systems used for federal elections that could lead to improper voter registrations, improper voting, fraudulent voter registrations, and fraudulent voting. The Commission will also study concerns about voter suppression, as well as other voting irregularities. The Commission will utilize all available data, including state and federal databases.
Secretary Kobach, Vice-Chair of the Commission added: "As the chief election officer of a state, ensuring the integrity of elections is my number one responsibility. The work of this commission will assist all state elections officials in the country in understanding, and addressing, the problem of voter fraud."
Additional Commission members will be named at a later time. It is expected the Commission will spend the next year completing its work and issue a report in 2018.
According to Wikipedia's biography of Mr. Kobach (citation style changed by submitter):
Kobach has come to prominence over his hardliner views on immigration, as well as his calls for greater voting restrictions and a Muslim registry.[cite][cite][cite] Kobach regularly makes false or unsubstantiated claims about the extent of voter fraud in the United States.[cite]
As Secretary of State of Kansas, he has implemented some of the strictest voter ID legislation in the nation and has fought to remove nearly 20,000 properly registered voters from the state's voter rolls.[cite] After considerable investigation and prosecution, Kobach secured six convictions for voter fraud; all were cases of double voting and none would have been prevented by voter ID laws.
additional coverage:
- Washington Post
- ABC News
- Chicago Tribune (editorial)
- Los Angeles Times
- Atlanta Journal Constitution blog
- New York Times
- Kansas City Star
- The Nation
- American Civil Rights Union press release
- Rhode Island Public Radio
- Project Veritas
- Observer
- ABC News
- Fox News (archived copy)
- KCUR-FM
- NBC News
related stories:
Kansas Secretary of State Finally Convicts an Immigrant of a Voting Irregularity
Former Colorado GOP chairman charged with voter fraud
Hundreds of Texans may have voted improperly
Donald Trump is Filling Out His Transition Team
Hacking Voter Registration Data in Indiana
Study Finds Texas Voter Photo ID Requirement Discourages Turnout
Related Stories
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. This week also marks a watershed ruling by a federal appeals court striking down the controversial Texas voter ID law as violating that landmark civil rights act.
A new study conducted by the University of Houston Hobby Center for Public Policy and Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy examines the impact of the contested Texas law in U.S. Congressional District 23 (CD-23).
The study suggests that the most significant impact of the Texas voter photo ID law on voter participation in one particular district was to discourage turnout among registered voters who mistakenly believed they did not possess the correct photo identification.
"One of the most striking findings of this study is that potential voters who did not vote actually did possess one of the valid forms of photo ID," said Jim Granato, professor and director of the Hobby Center for Public Policy. "An important issue to be explored is not just the voter photo ID law itself, but the actual education and outreach efforts to ensure all eligible voters understand what form of photo ID may be used to vote."
Five years ago, Vladimir Putin publicly fumed that the US was interfering with internal Russian politics. He felt that the US emboldened local protestors by claiming that the 2012 Russian elections (which he won with more than a 46 point margin) were rigged. It's been said he's seeking payback by discrediting American elections. Not necessarily to help one candidate over another (Putin has said "We don't back anyone – it's not our business"), but to throw the legitimacy of US elections into doubt the same way he believes the US delegitimatized his landslide victory of 2012.
We've been told that hacking the vote would be difficult due to the wide variety of locally implemented voting systems. But that doesn't necessarily apply to state-level voter registration databases. Introducing minor amounts of errors, even just 1% of the total records could cause chaos on election day. If 1 in every 100 voters is turned away from the polls, that would have enormous repercussions on the election, far greater than the hanging chads had in Florida. There have already been reports of the exfiltration of registration data in two states and attacks on registration systems in another 20 states.
Now a white hat hacker has demonstrated just how easy it is to modify registration data in Indiana using only publicly available data.
The former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party is charged with forgery and voter fraud for allegedly forging his wife’s[*] mail-in ballot from last year’s election, according to court records and sources.
Steven Curtis was the chairman of the state party from 1997 to 1999. He was charged Feb. 1 with one count of forgery of a public record, a fifth-degree felony, and an elections mail-in ballot offense, a misdemeanor.
Curtis spoke about voter fraud ahead of last year’s election.
"It seems to be, and correct me if I’m wrong here, but virtually every case of voter fraud I can remember in my lifetime was committed by Democrats,"
[* Note that she is described as his "former spouse" elsewhere, such as ...]
Also covered in more depth, and perhaps more accurately, at Salon.
1 down, 2,999,999 illegal votes to go!
(Score: 1, Troll) by kaszz on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:20PM (17 children)
Documentary tip:
Rigging the Election - Video I: Clinton Campaign and DNC Incite Violence at Trump Rallies [youtube.com] and Video II: Mass Voter Fraud [youtube.com]
Maybe DNC board can get this right?
In case of any trouble Putin can also lend a hand ;)
A lot of illegals also voted from what I read..
Don't forget gerrymandering.... [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:52PM (13 children)
Election Rigging Videos Are Complete Bullshit [snopes.com]:
Rigging the Election - Video I: Clinton Campaign and DNC Incite Violence at Trump Rallies and Video [wikipedia.org] II: Mass Voter Fraud [newyorker.com]
Maybe DNC board can get this right? [thetylt.com]
In case of any trouble Putin can also lend a hand ;) [businessinsider.com]
A lot of illegals also voted from what I read.. [factcheck.org]
Don't forget gerrymandering.... [princeton.edu]
There. FTFY.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @06:02PM (3 children)
Your first link spent a ton of words to really say nothing except, 'the only comment we have about the videos we're discussing is that since we can't see the entire unedited videos things might have been taken out of context'.
As a word of advice from somebody who genuinely doesn't have a strong position one way or the other - quality over quantity. Seeing a link like that as what I assume is supposed to be a rebuttal tends to lead me in the exact opposite direction since it looks more like an attack than a reasoned consideration of the evidence. In any case it made me decide to not check out the other links you provided.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @06:53PM (1 child)
You tl;dr morons can't even be bothered, huh? Or are you functionally illiterate? [snopes.com]:
Now that your spoon-feeding is done, do you need a diaper change too?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @04:28AM
Everything you posted is talking about videos from 2011. The vast majority of their article is just a hit piece on the person doing the filming. Their only comments related to the video itself was:
[quote]Project Veritas’ October 2016 election-related sting videos (embedded above) reveal tidbits of selectively and (likely deceptively edited) footage absent of any context in which to evaluate them. Unless his organization releases the footage in full, undertaking a fair assessment of their veracity is all but impossible. [/quote]
Why didn't they simply contact the people recorded and get them to go on the record clarifying if and exactly how anything was taken out of context. For instance they could have had a side by side video of the people speaking clarifying the context of discussion. Again, I think articles like this are more about preaching to a choir rather than reaching out to inform people.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @06:59PM
As a word of advice from somebody who genuinely doesn't have a strong position one way or the other - quality over quantity. Seeing a link like that as what I assume is supposed to be a rebuttal tends to lead me in the exact opposite direction since it looks more like an attack than a reasoned consideration of the evidence. In any case it made me decide to not check out the other links you provided.
Knock yourself out. Ignorance seems to be working for you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @01:44AM
Yet we've all seen the violence [youtube.com] and "hate crime" hoaxes from the left with our own eyes. We've seen the veritas videos and it doesn't matter if the snippets were out of context because dumb fucks admitted exactly what they were doing on fucking camera. [youtube.com]
The left lost by embracing identity politics in place of class struggle, they are the new puritans and the cool kids are not done mocking them yet! [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @02:07AM (7 children)
Snopes, factcheck, and politifact are all partisan sources.
Trump's estimate of non-citizen voters does seem high, and rather conveniently just enough to win the popular vote. The more-neutral and legit estimate, out of liberal-favoring academia no less, is "only" 800,000 non-citizen votes.
When you consider how close Florida was in both Bush Jr. elections, that 800,000 matters. We easily could get an incorrect result. I'm guessing you don't mind as long as it goes to your team, hmmm?
It's racist to think that ID discriminates by race. Yes, black people have ID. We require ID for all sorts of trivial things. No matter if it is right or not, an adult without ID risks at least a few days in jail if stopped by the police. You need ID to drive, to buy tobacco or alcohol, to board an aircraft, to visit a person in prison or the hospital, to pick kids up from school...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Monday May 15 2017, @03:01AM (1 child)
Snopes, factcheck, and politifact are all partisan sources.
Because you said it, it's true? I've presented evidence (in other comments over the past few years, the most recent about Snopes just a few days ago [soylentnews.org]) that says you're talking out of your ass.
Present some actual evidence for those assertions, if you can. Otherwise your rant is just a misinformed garbage.
Given that you're posting as AC so you don't have to associate your (even pseudonymous) name with such obvious bullshit, which implies that even you don't believe the crap you're spewing. -- Oh, and yes, I have no evidence for that, but hey, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, eh?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @09:56AM
Because you said it, it's true?
It is literally the driving force behind modern conservative media (AM radio, fox news, infowars, breitbart, etc).
There is a huge consumer demand from people immensely frustrated by "reality's well-known liberal bias."
And so modern conservative media have abandoned conservative principles in favor of chasing the dollars of those people who want to be assured that reality is a lie.
And they've made a ton of money in the process. Not just a ton, a fuckton. [businessinsider.com]
Accusations of partisanship made against news sources that make a genuine effort to be neutral (while being un-apologetically partisan themselves) is exactly how the conservative media ecosphere has captured so much of that market. De-legitimizing fact-checking sites as being liberally biased is their gamebook in a nutshell. Its especially ironic because it was Dick Cheney who really brought FactCheck to fame by citing it during it a debate. [washingtonpost.com]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday May 15 2017, @03:04AM (4 children)
> Snopes, factcheck, and politifact are all partisan sources.
Of course. Let's disregard what they say, because they are biased.
/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=19451&page=1&cid=508023#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
> The more-neutral and legit estimate, out of liberal-favoring academia no less, is "only" 800,000 non-citizen votes.
What is the source, please, so we may evaluate it for ourselves?
It's racist to think that ID discriminates by race. Yes, black people have ID. We require ID for all sorts of trivial things.
As reported in the liberal media, Mr. Kobach not only wants ID as a prerequisite for voting, but also proof of citizenship:
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach in Colorado on Saturday was pushing states to adopt the Secure and Fair Elections (“SAFE”) Act, model legislation he wrote to prevent vote fraud by requiring voter identification and proof of citizenship.
-- http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/08/13/kobach-pushes-states-adopt-voter-id-laws/ [breitbart.com]
As I understand it, proof of citizenship might take the form of a birth certificate or a passport. Not everyone has those on hand: recall how long it took for Mr. Obama to produce his birth certificate. Acquiring them represents an expense. Someone who travels internationally would have a passport. It's reasonable to assume that people who make such travel are more wealthy on average than those who do not. The wealthy tend to favour the Republican Party, do they not? I don't see where someone asserted that "ID discriminates by race"; however that is probably supportable: it's not necessarily racist to note a connection between race and wealth in America. Measures that were tried previously didn't explicitly distinguish by race, yet had that effect:
Between 1890 and 1910, ten of the eleven former Confederate states, starting with Mississippi, passed new constitutions or amendments that effectively disenfranchised most blacks and tens of thousands of poor whites through a combination of poll taxes, literacy and comprehension tests, and residency and record-keeping requirements.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @03:18AM (3 children)
Conservatives tend to stay home. Most passport holders are liberal. They like to experience alternative cultures and all that nonsense.
Barely more than half of the wealthy are conservative. The real conservative base is the middle class, particularly those who are insecure in that class. The liberal base are poor. In terms of votes, wealthy people are non-existent.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday May 15 2017, @07:37AM (2 children)
> Conservatives tend to stay home. Most passport holders are liberal.
That sounds plausible, and I can't be bothered to look it up. However I'll assert that the fees for obtaining a passport are a few hundreds of dollars; the poor could find it beyond their means.
> The real conservative base is the middle class, particularly those who are insecure in that class. The liberal base are poor.
Let's agree to conflate conservatives with Republicans and liberals with Democrats. If we agree to that, then we agree that the poor are more likely to vote Democratic. I'll agree that the the Republican party has made a successful appeal to the lower middle class, at least in the 2016 election. Now, if a small monetary expenditure is needed before someone is allowed to vote, won't that tend to most strongly dissuade the poor, whilst having less effect on the participation of the middle class, including the lower middle class?
In Wisconsin, a judge
[...] found that 9 percent of registered voters lack the sort of qualifying ID required under state law — enough to change the outcome of the election [...]
“[T]he photo ID requirement results in the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color” in violation of the Voting Rights Act, Adelman concluded.
-- https://thinkprogress.org/striking-down-wisconsin-voter-id-law-judge-finds-no-rational-person-could-be-worried-about-voter-99edd9befffc [thinkprogress.org]
Paul Weyrich [wikipedia.org] said in 1980,
I don’t want everybody to vote [...] our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.
-- http://www.pfaw.org/blog-posts/the-voter-fraud-fraud/ [pfaw.org]
Here's a brief video with an excerpt from his speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN7IB-d7Hfw [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 16 2017, @07:55PM (1 child)
How would you know which person is voting without a photo-ID ?
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday May 16 2017, @10:37PM
Except in North Dakota, a list of eligible voters is kept.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_registration_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
When someone comes to the voting place, they can be asked their name, and their name may be marked on a printed copy of the list.
According to the North Dakota Secretary of State,
North Dakota's system of voting, and lack of voter registration, is rooted in its rural character by providing small precincts. Establishing relatively small precincts is intended to ensure that election boards know the voters who come to the polls to vote on Election Day and can easily detect those who should not be voting in the precinct.
-- https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_in_North_Dakota [ballotpedia.org]
In some other countries, ink is applied to a voter's hand as a way of detecting and preventing double voting. I'm not aware of that being done in the United States.
During the Zimbabwean presidential election, 2008, reports surfaced that those who had chosen not to vote were attacked and beaten by government sponsored mobs.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_ink#International_use [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:00PM (2 children)
I have noticed this post consistently changes between troll and informative. Obviously there's people that don't want the post present, instead of arguing facts therein. Almost like the Turkish style "you are not allowed to tell any one that".
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday May 17 2017, @12:11AM (1 child)
> I have noticed this post consistently changes between troll and informative.
I've just moderated your post "underrated" so it won't be hidden. However, "In case of any trouble Putin can also lend a hand ;)" looks like trolling to me. I watched the first ten minutes of your first video, and its title seems to be descriptive: the parts I saw were about people being hired to disrupt Mr. Trump's rallies, and allegations that Ms. Clinton's campaign improperly co-ordinated its efforts with political action committees. The second, I'm assuming from its title, may be more pertinent.
In the summary, I linked a page titled "Project Veritas Welcomes Federal Commission on Election Integrity" which is about this new commission, election fraud, and voter fraud. Project Veritas, of course, is the creator of the videos you linked. Is there something in the videos that you find especially pertinent to this topic, that Project Veritas didn't cover in its blog post?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 17 2017, @12:53PM
Dunno about their blog post.
Anyway what I found concerning:
* Evidence of election fraud
* Systematic incitement of violence at political events
* General, official misinformation
* Probably a lot I forgot by now.. but the general theme is corruption and bad intent on many levels.
(it might been another text/video that shown this)
As for Putin, he's used to misdirect the attention span of normal people. Regardless of what Putin is or does. That's why it has become a joke.
The election process has been ripe for a disruption like Trump for a long time. Until the whole frame and manners change this weakness will always be there. It only takes one determined person to person to point out that the emperor is naked for things to fall apart. Being out of touch with reality has a nasty tendency to invite surprises by reality.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:25PM (21 children)
Regardless of what they find, we know the solution will be to make it harder for non-white, non-Christian, non-rich, non-male, non-Republican people to cast a vote. The facts don't matter in the slightest - you think the healthcare bill was based on any facts? Other than removing coverage from the aforementioned?
(Score: -1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:48PM (19 children)
Identity politics much? Might as well, I guess. It's all the Dems have left at this point.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by https on Sunday May 14 2017, @09:29PM (18 children)
The Republicans do identity politics almost exclusively, they just don't want a formal language for it. It's not because they're stupid, it's because once victims of systemic oppression start talking about oppression clearly, it's harder to maintain the illusion of a fair or good society.
The eternal Republican motto: it's not competition unless I win.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 0, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 14 2017, @11:32PM (16 children)
No, my exceedingly unobservant friend, Republicans do fear politics. Democrats are the ones who pick every possible minority and tell them they're being oppressed and only voting D will save them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @04:34AM (15 children)
Forget the potatoes, forget the potAtoes, let's move on to the tomatoes (however you want to say it), keep them green, and cook them in that special movie sauce! I nominate uzzy the guzzy. Republicans are 100% about monocultural identity politics, which is why their fear politics works so very well. You can't use fear tactics quite so easily across diverse populations. Uzzy uzzy uzzy, sure you didn't turn into an ostrich? Cause it sure seems like you're an ostrich...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 15 2017, @10:27AM (14 children)
You've never met or talked to an actual Republican voter, have you?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @10:36AM (13 children)
I was a republican voter. Then the party went off the rails.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 15 2017, @11:18AM (12 children)
You're buying propaganda if you believe that. The politicians are out of their minds, sure, but no more so than the Dems. The voters though are plenty diverse of ideology, more so than Dems in my experience by a long shot. They're still sheep for giving their loyalty to either major party but they're by no means lockstep with their politicians.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @12:24PM (4 children)
> You're buying propaganda if you believe that.
Says the guy who refuses to investigate anything where the mainstream media's reporting confirms his biases.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 15 2017, @02:39PM (3 children)
I don't investigate most of what I hear from any media outlet. Neither do you. Drop the holier than thou shtick.
I do, however, distrust anything I read/hear/watch by default. You should try it sometime.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @11:25PM
I don't investigate most of what I hear from any media outlet. Neither do you. Drop the holier than thou shtick.
Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night, dude.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:52AM (1 child)
> I don't investigate most of what I hear from any media outlet. Neither do you. Drop the holier than thou shtick.
Ah, the old nihlism canard - everyone is equally shitty.
Your incuriosity might be the norm among your cohort, but many of the rest of us are better than that.
> I do, however, distrust anything I read/hear/watch by default.
Facts not in evidence.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 16 2017, @03:29AM
No, you are not remotely better than that. Dozens of stories break every day. You do not research even one of them a day. You simply lie out your teeth.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @01:00PM (5 children)
The voters though are plenty diverse of ideology, more so than Dems in my experience by a long shot.
Sure they are. In exactly the same way they think evangelical christianity is "non-denominational." [wikipedia.org]
Until you GTFO of oklahoma you've got no business commenting on what democrats believe. A democrat in oklahoma would be a republican in New York.
I grew up in Dewey. Then I saw the rest of the country. You should try it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 15 2017, @02:36PM (4 children)
Haven't been in Oklahoma for a couple years now. Do try and keep up. Also, I've been to thirty-some-odd states in my time on this rock and lived in over a dozen of them. I am far from lacking in exposure to different viewpoints.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:49AM (3 children)
> lived in over a dozen of them.
Spending your every waking hour in a cubical doesn't count as living.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:51AM (2 children)
Learn who you're talking to before you spout nonsense, my ignorant friend.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:55AM (1 child)
> Learn who you're talking to before you spout nonsense, my ignorant friend.
The self professed equal opportunity hater of everyone? Yeah, I don't think there are any mysteries here about your unexamined life.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 16 2017, @03:27AM
Why do unintelligent people persist in thinking they are intelligent? I mean you're speaking to a guy you know next to nothing about as if you had clue one. Let's be real clear:
Hope that clarifies things.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday May 15 2017, @04:19PM
Democrat politicians are a lot of things these days, but "out of their minds" is not one of them. Corporate, sure. Urban, definitely. Out of touch, yeah, with about 60% of the population. Insular, dismissive, elitist, ideological, etc. Maybe even corrupt. But when it comes down to it, these days Democrats are the only group you can universally trust to hold the nuclear briefcase for purely defensive purposes. You don't see Democrats picking fights with North Korea.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday May 15 2017, @02:59AM
I guess we could go one step further [cnn.com], even.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @08:21PM
FTFS: Kobach has come to prominence over [...] voting restrictions and [...] regularly makes false or unsubstantiated claims about the extent of voter fraud
To be specific, Kobach has repeatedly committed fraud and should be in prison.
He has made up a list of "fraudulent voters" where he claims that e.g "James K. Brown in Texas" and "James Q. Brown, Jr. in Virginia" are the same voter and are trying to vote twice the same day in polling places hundreds of miles apart.
He has distributed his fraudulent list to the secretaries of state in other states and, in more than a score of those places, officials are also using it to commit fraud.
Trump Picks the Al Capone of Vote-Rigging to Investigate Federal Voter Fraud [alternet.org]
Investigative journalist Greg Palast has made a movie that documents this. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:27PM (7 children)
Where is the commission on Russia?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @06:04PM (6 children)
As soon as they're done with Benghazi, they'll get around to it.
It's like people don't realize they're being manipulated when the manipulation comes from a 'friendly' voice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @06:26PM (5 children)
Hillary messed up in Libya so Trump can sell the country out to the Russkies? Fucking moron.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @07:05PM
No, rather both are mostly witch hunts driven by politics over any sort of actual concern for the events, let alone the magnitude of events, in question.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by c0lo on Sunday May 14 2017, @09:42PM
Let me give you a taste of James O'Keefe's techniques:
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @10:11PM (2 children)
Here, let me spell it out for you.
You are all cows. MOOOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOOOOOO! Moo cows moo! Moo say the cows! YOU DISTRACTED COWS!!
There. Now that's out of my system, allow me to elaborate. The Russia crap is not real. The Benghazi crap is not real. The Hillary's emails crap is not real. The Comey crap is not real. Bathroom rape crap is not real. Womb warfare is not real. I could go on. These are distractions from what is real.
This is what is real: the USA has crumbling infrastructure and a stratified economy, and it's well on the way to becoming a third world country because of those two things alone.
Hope that helps.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday May 15 2017, @03:03AM
This is what is real: the USA has crumbling infrastructure and a stratified economy, and it's well on the way to becoming a third world country because of those two things alone.
Not even going to mention decreasing pasture acreage? You just lost the bovine vote, pal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @10:09AM
The Russia crap is not real.
Really?
Trump admits its real: Trump concedes Russia behind election-related hacking [businessinsider.com]
Reince Preibus admits its real: Reince Priebus acknowledges Russia was behind hacks [businessinsider.com]
Rex Tillerson admits its real: Rex Tillerson says Russian meddling in US election is ‘well-established’ [independent.co.uk]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by its_gonna_be_yuge! on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:33PM (8 children)
Trump stated several times there were 3 million fraudulent votes. Coincidentally the same number as he lost the popular vote by.
So now he's out to find them.
It's like a "where's Wally", except without the Wally.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:42PM
*Waldo.
- 'Merica.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @10:58PM (6 children)
See "Greg Palast" up the (meta)thread.
Kobach's phony list contains 7 million names.
Assuming that each of his claimed "fraudulent voters" votes twice, that comes out to 3.5 million "fraudulent votes".
Kobach is a crook.
He's the ideal guy to pick if you want to rig things on a national scale.
He is well practiced in the art.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday May 15 2017, @02:17AM (5 children)
> Kobach's phony list contains 7 million names.
Despite over seven million "potential double voters" being "flagged" by the Crosscheck program in 2014, less than four people were charged, and not a single flagging led to a conviction, casting doubt on the system's reliability.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Voter_Registration_Crosscheck_Program [wikipedia.org]
article on the topic by Mr. Palast:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-gops-stealth-war-against-voters-w435890 [rollingstone.com]
> He's the ideal guy to pick if you want to rig things on a national scale.
Yes. One critic speculated on the possibility that Interstate Crosscheck could become federal law. Another concluded that some Republican politicians "are willing to disenfranchise millions of people" so that their party may better retain power:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gops-state-by-state-crusade-to-disenfranchise-voters/2011/07/25/gIQAsMmpaI_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
Democratic Party politicians have done similar things when they were in the ascendancy.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/campaign/126295-democrat-part-still-disenfranchising-a-oppressing-votes [thehill.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @03:51AM (3 children)
Yeah. I made a submission [soylentnews.org] noting how long he has been at this stuff and how pitiful the results have been.
You can image how much public money he squandered over that span.
...as if Republican Gov. Sam Brownback hasn't already put that state in a deep enough hole with his (doomed from the start) Reaganomics experiment.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Monday May 15 2017, @04:53AM (2 children)
> I made a submission [...]
I noticed that. I had linked it, and one by Runaway1956, in my submission for this story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @06:33AM (1 child)
Ah, you -are- on top of this.
Gotta get up pretty early to get ahead of you.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @07:39AM
I merely searched for related submissions and stories, as I usually do. But thank you for the compliment. --butthurt
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @10:34AM
> Democratic Party politicians have done similar things when they were in the ascendancy.
That article is a lot of baloney.
The author concedes every single example of democrats suppressing voters was corrected by other democrats. A handful of jerks brought into line by the party is the opposite of a systemic problem with the party. There will always be individual bad actors. A party's behavior is defined by how it deals with those bad actors. The republicans have embraced it as a tactic. The democrats have rejected it.
Meanwhile, half of the article is spinning of democrats enfranchisement of voters (like same-day registration) as 'corrupt.'
All of it becomes clear when reading the last line of the article, a description of the author, "Thielen is the executive director of the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA)." The guy is just trying to provide cover for republican tactics. I skim the TheHill everyday and I've noticed that a lot of opinion pieces there are nothing more than disingenuous false equivalencies designed to provide cover for one party's immorality. Both parties do that on TheHill but one party does it a lot more than the other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:34PM (4 children)
Is it really necessary to add party affiliation? It looks like all republocrats except for Christy McCormick, who may actually be a normal person.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kaszz on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:46PM (2 children)
Noted, the Libertarian Party, Green Party, Constitution Party, Better for America, Evan McMullin, and Mindy Finn are missing..
Maybe US should be named a binocracy?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @06:02PM
Whaddabout Vermin Supreme???
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @06:14PM
No, the US is a binosaurus, soon to be extinct...
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday May 15 2017, @03:54AM
> republocrats
The commission is advertised as "bipartisan." In your post and especially in the word I quoted, I think you're trying to convey the idea that the Republican and Democratic parties are basically alike. I can understand why you hold that opinion; however, I perceive differences between the parties in regard to the topic that this commission is about.
Ms. McCormick is a civil servant, not a politician. I simply copied the affiliations of the others from their biographies on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia's biography of Mr. Dunlap, one of the Democrats on the commission, says that he
[...] directed the implementation of Maine's Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, allowing military personnel and others abroad secure and prompt access to the ballot.
So he acted to enfranchise a group of people who could be expected to favour the Republican Party. That appears fair-minded.
Of the seven members of the commission, three are Indianan politicians: Mr. Pence, Mr. Kobach and Ms. Lawson. Indiana is the 16th most populous state. It's easy to predict that the recommendations of the commission are likely to be modelled upon practices used in Indiana.
Wikipedia's biography of Mr. Blackwell says:
On April 4, 2006, the Columbus Dispatch reported that Blackwell "owned stock [83 shares, down from 178 shares purchased in January 2005] in Diebold, a voting-machine [and ATM] manufacturer, at the same time his office negotiated a deal" with the company. After discovering the stock ownership, Blackwell promptly sold the shares at a loss. He attributed the purchase to an unidentified financial manager at Credit Suisse First Boston who he said had, without his knowledge, violated his instructions to avoid potential conflict of interest.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Blackwell#Diebold_controversies [wikipedia.org]
A top Republican election official also says a Diebold operative told him he made a $50,000 donation to Blackwell's "political interests."
[...] The revelations could have a huge impact on the state whose dubiously counted electoral votes gave George W. Bush a second term. Diebold was the vendor in three Ohio counties in 2004. Because of Blackwell's effort, 41 counties used Diebold machines in Ohio's highly dubious 2005 election, and now 47 counties will use Diebold touchscreen voting machines in the May 2006 primary [...]
In 2005, while he owned Diebold stock, Blackwell converted nearly half Ohio's counties to Diebold equipment.
-- http://freepress.org/article/shocking-diebold-conflict-interest-revelations-secretary-state-further-taint-ohios-electoral [freepress.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:53PM (3 children)
Unless they conclude that all voting systems different from the old fashioned paper in box have been spectacularly sabotaged, to show people we cannot attain direct democracy, which is doable since the 90s, they are a fraud themselves.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday May 14 2017, @06:06PM (2 children)
Have a look at the Schweitzer system.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday May 15 2017, @03:06AM (1 child)
Link please?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday May 15 2017, @04:05AM
Direct democracy and federalism are hallmarks of the Swiss political system. [wikipedia.org] Citizens of Switzerland have the right to submit a federal initiative and a referendum, both of which may overturn parliamentary decisions.
I wonder how many other countries that have provisions to overturn parliamentary decisions during an election period.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by wisnoskij on Sunday May 14 2017, @06:15PM (4 children)
Bipartisan action makes sense when the nation is divided, it is not an excuse to circumvent democracy.
The nation voted these people out of office, we should respect their wishes and treat the democrats like any other fringe political party. If you want to have power over American politics, a significant portion of America should of voted for you first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @06:34PM
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-17/republicans-gerrymandering-could-end-up-helping-democrats [bloomberg.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by butthurt on Monday May 15 2017, @04:33AM (1 child)
> If you want to have power over American politics, a significant portion of America should [have] voted for you first.
From a 10 November 2016 story:
The White House may not be the only institution in Washington that Democrats lost on Tuesday despite getting more votes than Republicans.
It turns out that Democrats also got more votes for the U.S. Senate than Republicans, and yet Republicans maintained their majority on Capitol Hill.
In results that are still preliminary, 45.2 million Americans cast a vote for a Democratic Senate candidate, while 39.3 million Americans voted for a Republican.
-- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/11/10/democrats-won-popular-vote-senate-too/93598998/ [usatoday.com]
You didn't specify which elections you were writing about, but for the U.S. Senate this contradicts what you posted. I didn't find the results for the House of Representatives but I imagine that roughly similar results obtain. Do you have more up-to-date information?
> The nation voted these people out of office, we should respect their wishes and treat the democrats like any other fringe political party.
I wonder what you mean by this. I'm tempted to assume that you mean that once a party gains power, it's proper for that party to arrange the electoral processes so that it continues to win elections (until it gets tired of winning?)--in other words, a one-party state such as practiced in Russia and China, and in the last century Mexico. If that's what you meant, are you sure you want that? If you meant something else, please explain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:27AM
By now we should all realize there is a massive push to shape ideology towards one party fascism. This is the goal, and slowly they are normalizing the ideas, hell I've heard too many trump supporters advocate for dictatorship behaviors because they believe they have some moral high ground. It has been very effective, and we simply must continue speaking out against the shills.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @04:02PM
gerrymandering motherfucker do you speak it
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Lagg on Sunday May 14 2017, @06:20PM
I thought for a second that it sure would make a great satire if someone wrote a story about Trump trying to prove that the popular vote was really 0 people. But I'm not sure if that's actually what's happening or not.
Also nice to see that soylent posts look exactly like the ones on Twitter but with extra linkage.
Just so nice.
Seriously they hit all the points, the party-line post despite retarded party, the "we didn't help cause this but we know we did" so-called "progressive" post complaining about the ebil white men that surely made this come to pass, the propaganda post, the !!myParty boolean fuckery post whining about DNC and of course the "you guys suck" post made by the non-self-aware cunt.
That last one's me :D
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2) by https on Sunday May 14 2017, @07:46PM (5 children)
Trump openly declared, nay, bragged about, interfering with an FBI investigation last week. He waited for the cameras to be rolling before doing so.
I'm really shocked that he's still alive, seeing as he's breaking pretty much every rule imaginable and being an asshole about it. The Secret Service detail must be tearing out what's left of their hair, drinking themselves to sleep, and I'm sure they're off their game.
Doesn't every third american have a high powered rifle or something?
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @09:27PM
Yep, that's his base.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday May 15 2017, @01:17AM (3 children)
"It's against the law to threaten the president, even if you're joking." - Clint Eastwood in "The Line of Fire"
A kuro5hin member once described a hypothetical scenario that involved killing a "covered person" and a few days later was visited at his place of work by two Secret Service agents.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @04:59AM (1 child)
Hoo rah for the surveillance police state! Gotta love thought crimes, along with no respect for people's careers, etc. I guess we never really had freedoms, just the illusion of them.
Putting people on lists is the first step towards government sanctioned horrors, and apparently McCarthyism wasn't enough of a wake up call since we've put every previous list to SHAME with our new techno-fascism.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 17 2017, @12:57PM
Evolution of humans hasn't gone so far since the 1950s. Humans is the factor that people of think changes, but it doesn't even if the software (culture) does.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @10:15AM
A kuro5hin member once described a hypothetical scenario that involved killing a "covered person" and a few days later was visited at his place of work by two Secret Service agents.
Or... they were an attention whore who told a fictional story that still lives on today.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Sunday May 14 2017, @08:03PM
Kenneth Blackwell? Bush's operative in Ohio? The Secretary of State that handed over an entire state to the Republicans? The Monster of Cincinnati? Research on the Family partisan hack? And a Black Republican, non-traditional, in the vein of Clarence Thomas? This guy, the one who has a long history of throwing elections, on Trump's commission to, um, "fix" the electoral system? Holy Toledo! This can only Cleve the Land even further! Akron see that this will not end well. Worst commission since Columbus.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Sunday May 14 2017, @10:03PM
First off, I have to support the involvement of Bill Gardner in anything related to voting in the US. He's the most experienced election official in the entire country, and has stayed in office through multiple changes in the party affiliation of his state government in part because he's viewed as fair by everybody.
But the simple fact is that I will not trust products of the partisan political system of the US to investigate the problems with the partisan political system of the US. What we actually need is the investigative body to be from outside of the US, from allied democracies like Canada, France, and Germany. Have them look into it and make their (non-binding, of course) recommendations. All the partisan officials will see is what they want to see.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.