Wednesday, March 21, 2012

My Illinois Voting "Fraud"

I voted in the Illinois Primary, yesterday. As it is an open Primary, I choose a Republican ballot and cast my vote for Sick Rantorum.

When Rush Limpballs invented Operation: Chaos in 2008, unlike most liberals I didn't have any problems with his idea, it's simply good politics. Now, Limpballs hypothesis was flawed and his plan failed as Obama emerged stronger from the Democratic Primary and desicively crushed the McCain/Palin ticket.

However, Santorum's continued involvement in the 2012 Republican Primary is highlighting the massive flaws around Out-of-Touch Vulture Capitalist Mitt Romney. Romney doesn't know what to do. I'm certain Romney was assured that when he stepped aside in 2008 he'd be the nominee the next go around. Romney has been handed everything in his sheltered life it must be infuriating to Mitt that he hasn't been handed the nomination as is his birthright.

As for Sick Rantorum personally, if he was on fire, I would not piss on him, no matter how much he begged for it, to put him out. However, I would repeatedly hit him with a wet 2x4 to put out the fire. Remember I would do it to save Santorum.

But, getting back to my voting fraud. I moved recently to a different Chicago-area County however, I still "own" my home in a previous near-by county, as I still pay the mortgage, water, gas, trash and electric bill for my house. However, I get my mail at a different address and usually sleep at my new address.

When I went to the voting place, near my house I was listed as an inactive voter. Fortunately, I still have my bills which I showed to the election judges.

So... Did I commit voter fraud?

Of course, not. First, I'm not registered anywhere else, did not vote anywhere else and satisified the request for documentation. Second, I am a white male homeowner. Republicans count on winning the votes of myself and rich, white, male business owners. Poor people, minorities, students and women are known to vote overwhelmingly against Republicans. Hence, the Republican party has been involved in a decades long drive of Voter Suppression and Disenfranchisement.

Republicans and most Right-Wingers don't believe in Democracy. Matthew Vadum at The American Thinker clearly summed up the Conservative View of Democracy, in his article, Registering the Poor to Vote is Un-American.
Registering them [the Poor] to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American...
What they want is an Oligarchical system with a Strong Leader, basically Corporate Neo-Feudalism, in which the 500 or so elected DC bureaucrats use the coercive power of Government to crush Domestic Dissent, keep down the economic and political power of the Working and Middle Class, while opening up Foreign Lands for Exploitation.

Anything else the Government gets involved with the Plutocratic Right-Wing elite constantly claim is Unconstitutional.

But, how to convince the white working class and middle class peoples that Voting needs to be strictly curtailed and suppressed is a problem. So conservatives have hit upon the brilliant strategy of proclaiming an epidemic of Voter Fraud in the Nation.

This is, of course, a shameless out-right lie, but Conservatives have never let the truth or the lack of evidence get in the way of their Agenda. For instance, from Mike Tipping at Downeast.com, a Blog on Maine, we have the lies of Maine GOP Chairman Charlie Webster, who has been spinning tales of massive voter fraud since the 2010 elections.
Defending the passage of Voter Suppression Law LD1376, Webster declared "Buses. They bring them in in buses," said Webster. "Job Corps people -- they move 'em around to wherever they have a tough seat and they want to win an election." Webster's next move was to call a press conference and send out a release in which he announced (in all-caps) "TODAY I WILL BE HAND DELIVERING THE NAMES OF 206 INDIVIDUALS THAT MAY HAVE COMMITTED VOTER FRAUD HERE IN MAINE."

Instead what he presented were the names of 206 students in the University of Maine System that were paying out-of-state tuition and had registered to vote in Maine, something that's 100% legal.
This is all part of the Right-Wing game. Republicans can no longer win elections fairly in the US, they have to resort to Voter Suppression.

As Tipping summed up,
People like Webster engage in this kind of fear-based, fact-less sensationalism because it works and will continue to do so as long as it continues to work. The media should be our bulwark against this practice, not its enabler.

3 comments:

Sarge said...

Great post. That is what the GOP is all about keep the black, Latino, and poor white vote down.
The Republicans care only about the rich and have no concern, none,
for the poor, ill, new born, and elderly.

Sarge

the yellow fringe said...

Add Matthew Vadum to the list of people we shouldn't piss on.
We have this fucking law in Kansas now due to massive fraud by Mexicans they claimed, it seems they walk through the deserts at risk of death to vote democrat in Kansas on computerized voting machines they can't operate or read, who would imagine they are so determined. The only actual fraud they could come up with was a couple who sent in an absentee ballot for the daughter away at school, a guy who voted both in Missouri and Kansas (repub by the way) and a dead guy that voted in Topeka. A Topeka reporter went looking for the guy and found him working in his mid town back yard and much surprised to learn he was a dead voter. In a state where repubs win by 70% or higher, it makes me wonder if the fraud my be the other direction.

ran said...

Great post.

Sounds like you had an easier time voting than I did. When I asked for a Democratic ballot in my upscale suburban historically Repub community, the old lady on auto-pilot tried handing me the Republican ballot. Not wanting to sully my hands, I told her she was giving me the wrong ballot. She just stared at me with this baffled look on her face, arm outstretched with the ballot of chaos and destruction in her hand. Couldn't help but laugh at her. It took another judge to announce that I was a Democrat and reach over and hand me the right ballot.

Of course, after I filled it out, I got to jam the tabulator since it was cut to the wrong width. Note to self, hanging around smiling and joking while the precinct judges have to open up the tabulator, after they've told me I can go, makes them nervous.