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My Adventure in Early Voting
Tea Party Tribune ^ | 2012-11-02 19:18:13 | mrcurmudgeon

Posted on 11/02/2012 7:50:12 PM PDT by morethanright

By Mr. Curmudgeon:

Fox News was televising a Wisconsin campaign rally, with Mitt Romney speaking to an enthusiastic crowd. At one point, the throng of supporters interrupted his speech with chants of, "Four more days, four more days," referring to the waning hours of the Obama administration.

A local news report said that early voting might account for 40% of election 2012's national tally and that early voters in Florida's Dade County waited four hours to exercise their franchise. Worse still, they said Tuesdays' voting crowds might be the largest in U.S. history.

That's when I grabbed my hat, a bottle of water and headed to the polls.

I thought of Alexis de Tocqueville's 1835 book Democracy in America as I stood in a long line Friday to participate in early voting where I live in Florida. "The people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe," he wrote.

Tocqueville noted that American politicians "must haunt the taverns, drink and argue with the mob; that is what is called Electioneering in America."

And that was certainly the case while I waited in line to vote: candidates for mayor, school board and clerk of the county court moved down the line, pressing the flesh.

A forest of political signs advocating on behalf of candidates for all offices and from all parties, surrounded the building. The signs for Romney/Ryan were plentiful. Those for Obama/Biden were pitiful - I counted only two.

The women electioneering on behalf of Mitt Romney were confident and beaming, sitting at their table with brochures and a bulletin board showing Romney's lead in early voting around the nation.

The two men at President Obama's table looked sour and crestfallen - and no one walked over to them ... even to ask the time. That the men in question looked like gruff union goons might explain the public's reluctance to speak with them ... or make eye contact.

It took me nearly an hour to make it into the building that mostly serves as a public library. The crowd, which was friendly and talkative, became silent and reverent as they waited their turn to present identification to precinct workers before receiving their ballot and entering the voting booth.

The late columnist for the Kansas City Star, Bill Vaughan, once wrote, "A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election."

It's too bad Vaughan isn't here to witness the heroic acts of freedom-loving individuals determined to end a corrupt and destructive presidency so as to preserve a system of liberty and justice worth dying for.

Article shared using the Free Republish tool on Tea Party Tribune.


TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: teapartytribune
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To: baa39

“No one is forced to pay for a service.”

Those who buy gas are forced to pay for full-serve.

“Either way you are “forced to pay without a choice” because there are almost no gas stations left that offer a choice.”

When the market denies you a choice, that’s freedom. When the government denies a choice, it’s different.

By supporting laws that prohibit business people from offering self-service gasoline, you’re in bed with the Obamacare supporters.

I’ve had this argument with leftists dozens of times, so I’m probably done now.


21 posted on 11/03/2012 3:04:46 PM PDT by Atlas Sneezed (Hold My Beer and Watch This!)
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To: Lmo56; morethanright; muawiyah; Liz; left that other site; dfwgator; GladesGuru; Eleutheria5; ...
Early voting should be repealed - everywhere. Election Day voting and absentee ballots only.

Early voting aids and abets voting multiple times by the same individual, whether she or he is an eligible voter or not. In other words, it plays into the hands of cheaters and fraudsters, what with all the time it presents to drive the same busloads of hacks around a state, or for that matter, from state to state. It also creates more confusion with big crowds and election workers not aware of who may have voted before and is trying to vote again.

Yes, it should be repealed everwhere it exists in order to improve the integrity of the voting process. It's just a wrinkle introduced relatively recently into the system to bolster the prospects for cheating 'Rats. And this year, it may well have propelled Zero to alleged "re-election." Not by accident, it seems to be most prevalent in the swing states such as Florida

As for absentee ballots, "no-excuse" absentee balloting should be repealed wherever it exists, especially mandatory mail-in absentee ballots (as exists in Washington and Oregon). Absentee ballots are always prone to the fraud of "assistants" doing the voting instead of the alleged voter, who may be mentally incapacitated or even deceased.

What has happened beginning in the Clinton era is that "reforms" in election procedure with the misguided aim of making voting more convenient have given election fixers and fraudsters an easier pathway in plying their heinous criminal schemes on an all-too trusting public.

22 posted on 12/09/2012 4:23:27 PM PST by justiceseeker93
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To: justiceseeker93
Way back in 2000 there was a ginormous snowfall on the way to New Mexico. If they'd had early voting Republicans could have beat the storm. Because they didn't, most Republicans actually ended up unable to get to the polls due to the snow and ice.

If 'W' had won New Mexico he didn't need Florida ~ obviously the Democrats figured this one out.

23 posted on 12/09/2012 4:36:11 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah; All
If 'W' had won New Mexico he didn't need Florida ~ obviously the Democrats figured this one out.

Check out your facts again from the 2000 election. W very much needed Florida to obtain the majority of the electoral college and hence the presidency, regardless of the outcome in New Mexico.

As it turned out, the 'Rats won New Mexico in 2000 under very suspicious circumstances. It's hard to describe what happened there, but Bush seemed to have won the state over Gore by a couple of hundred votes with all the precincts reporting. Then, early in the morning the next day, about 500 Gore ballots were somehow "discovered," switching the state to Gore. The GOP didn't bother to challenge that strange event in New Mexico, because it would have been a waste of time and effort to divert attention from the crucial struggle in Florida.

24 posted on 12/09/2012 5:27:11 PM PST by justiceseeker93
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To: justiceseeker93

Somebody picked Forida to be the challenge state ~ with NM we had an easier target ~ remember, 12 years back ~


25 posted on 12/09/2012 5:42:15 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: justiceseeker93

Answer me this.

Obama got fewer votes this time than the first time. Romney got less votes than McCain. In other words, what does early voting have to do with it? Our side didn’t get out the vote.


26 posted on 12/09/2012 6:17:26 PM PST by nikos1121
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To: nikos1121; muawiyah; MinuteGal; Liz; little jeremiah; editor-surveyor; Conservativegreatgrandma; ...
Obama got fewer votes this time than the first time. Romney got less votes than McCain. In other words, what does early voting have to do with it? Our side didn’t get out the vote.

It is intuitive to me that Obama would get fewer votes, in fact something like 9 million (?) less than he did back in '08. After all, he was very unpopular and had slipped in percentage among just about every demographic group since '08. Aside from that, many of his '08 supporters probably just stayed home.

It is counterintuitive, however, that Romney would get a couple of million less votes than McCain, given the unpopularity of Obama, the fact that Romney certainly ran a much stronger campaign than McCain, and Romney's stronger debate performance vs. Obama as compared to McCain.

What does early voting have to do with it? We'll never get a statistical breakdown of early voting vs. Election Day voting state by state, but the educated guess is that the early voting, especially in the swing states, went decisively to Zero because of the megafraud with the busloads of multiple-time voters and illegals in highly populated and targeted Dem-controlled cities and counties. In fact, the surmise would be that Romney did win among Election Day voters..

The 'Rats surely did get out the vote: they had their lackeys vote many times, transporting them through the many days of early voting, and had obvious foreigners ineligible to vote in some instances: for example the photo posted here by FReeper patriot08 of Somalians in African garb lining up to vote in Ohio.

My guess is that the announced Romney vote total was artificially low because of (1) votes for him not counted by hacked or phony devices (example would be the "shutouts" or near shutouts in a couple of hundred precincts in places like Philadelphia and Cleveland) and (2) the failure of state and local election officials to get ballots to many overseas military personnel who would have voted Romney in a big majority, among other irregularities.

27 posted on 12/09/2012 7:33:43 PM PST by justiceseeker93
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To: justiceseeker93
We've had Somalians in this country since George H.W. Bush was last President ~ that'd be 1992 ~ or 20 years ago. Even at that time some were citizens and voted!

People are not flying Somalians into the country just to vote ~ these people are here. Not at all surprised that someone rented a bus to take a bunch of them to the polls ~ could be that due to redistricting these voters (possibly part of a single church) might have gone to more than one voting location.

We really need more information than that they were from Somalia originally and they came to vote on a bus. It's also pretty obvious they wore their Friday Go to Prayers clothes though ~ 'cept for the ones who are Christian ~ they were wearing their Sunday (or Saturday) go to Church best clothes.

28 posted on 12/09/2012 7:50:26 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: justiceseeker93
BTW, Democrats who voted for Obama in 2008 who didn't vote for him in 2012 probably wouldn't have voted for Romney under any circumstances.

The name of the game in the fall campaign is to get your own voters out to vote for you. It's not a contest involving voters who can go either way. They all go one way, or no way.

You have to win the ideological contests during the years between elections.

Romney and McCain both forgot to get Republican voters out to vote. In the end they both got about the same number of votes ~ give or take half a mil ~ trivial in any election with 125 million voters!

29 posted on 12/09/2012 7:54:33 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah

Romney got out the vote. The votes were stolen.


30 posted on 12/09/2012 7:59:30 PM PST by wintertime
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To: wintertime

Believe that if you want. I”m still waiting on him to start his campaign. (crickets).


31 posted on 12/09/2012 8:00:28 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah; patriot08; editor-surveyor; butterdezillion; theothercheek; firebrand; Candor7; ...
People are not flying Somalians into the country just to vote ~ these people are here. Not at all surprised that someone rented a bus to take a bunch of them to the polls ~ could be that due to redistricting these voters (possibly part of a single church) might have gone to more than one voting location.

So what? Why should we as Americans consider it a taboo to ask people who look to be foreign and who hardly speak English to present proof of citizenship before we allow them to register to vote in our election? Don't we still require proof of citizenship (or at least a valid visa) to get driver's licenses, for example? Who cares what country they are from? Foreign nationals have no right to participate in American elections, period!

32 posted on 12/09/2012 9:51:20 PM PST by justiceseeker93
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To: justiceseeker93
Yeah. You have to be a citizen to vote. A Somalian who's been here 20 years or more is probably a citizen.

I suspect the problem was they were busy speaking in Amharic or possibly even Swahili ~ person to person ~ but that doesn't mean they don't know English.

A big part of the problem we've had integrating Somalian refugees is they come from two ends of society ~ primitive and urbane Westernized people. There doesn't seem to be an inbetween there.

33 posted on 12/10/2012 5:18:22 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: justiceseeker93; LucyT
My guess is that the announced Romney vote total was artificially low because of (1) votes for him not counted by hacked or phony devices

Maybe in a dream world.

Romney got less votes because a lot of people who had trouble stomaching McCain went to the polls and voted for him anyway--they decided not to do that with Romney.

And frankly, after the election, I have learned things about his intended tax and spending policies that make me think the people who stayed home were correct. Zero is bad; Romney might well have been worse.

34 posted on 12/10/2012 10:05:54 AM PST by David
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To: David

Romney would have been worse? Yes, opening up our oil resources would have HORRIBLE. Stopping Obamacare on Day One..AWFUL...Moderate to Conservative Supreme Court Judges..UNTHINKINKABLE.

Do you have any idea how ridciculous you are?


35 posted on 12/10/2012 9:00:25 PM PST by Hildy (hen the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser." - Socrates)
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To: David

Romney would have been worse? Yes, opening up our oil resources would have HORRIBLE. Stopping Obamacare on Day One..AWFUL...Moderate to Conservative Supreme Court Judges..UNTHINKINKABLE.

Do you have any idea how ridciculous you are?


36 posted on 12/10/2012 9:00:36 PM PST by Hildy (hen the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser." - Socrates)
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To: justiceseeker93; David; muawiyah; sickoflibs; AuH2ORepublican; BillyBoy; fieldmarshaldj

They’ve counted all the late votes now and Romney ended up with more votes than McCain

Dave Leip’s Atlas has him at 60,772,932 (McCain got 59,950,323)

That still indicates a decline in GOP turnout since he did better among independents.


37 posted on 12/14/2012 2:28:29 AM PST by Impy (All in favor of Harry Reid meeting Mr. Mayhem?)
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