JACOBY: How to steal an election

Boston Globe ^ | September 16, 2004 | Jeff Jacoby

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A RECENT story that didn't get nearly the attention it deserved was the New York Daily News report that 46,000 registered New York City voters are also registered to vote in Florida. Nearly 1,700 of them have had absentee ballots mailed to their home in the other state, and as many as 1,000 have voted twice in the same election. ...........

It is illegal to register to vote simultaneously in different jurisdictions, but scofflaws have little to worry about. As the Daily News noted, "efforts to prevent people from registering and voting in more than one state rely mostly on the honor system." Those who break the law rarely face prosecution or serious punishment. It's easy -- and painless -- to cheat.

I learned this firsthand in 1996, when I registered my wife's cat as a voter in Cook County, Ill., Norfolk County, Mass., and Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and then requested absentee ballots from all three venues. My purpose wasn't to cast illegal multiple votes but to demonstrate how vulnerable to manipulation America's election system has become.

It was a simple scam to pull off. "Under the National Voter Registration Act -- the `Motor Voter Law' -- states are required to accept voter registrations by mail," I wrote at the time. "No longer can citizens be asked to make a trip to town hall or the county office. No longer do they have to provide proof of residence or citizenship. In fact, they don't have to exist. Motor Voter obliges election officials to add to the voter list any name mailed in on a properly filled-out registration form. Anyone so registered can then request an absentee ballot -- by mail, of course. The system is not only open to manipulation, it invites it."

[Robert A Cook PE]

Remember that most of "independent" voters actually are democrats. Very, very few vote conservative.

Many are far left of democrats even.

[syriacus]

Florida license plates are especially visible around here (Long Island, New York) on two dates

• the date of the vote on the school budget and
• Election Day.

The Floridians needn't worry about having their election cards delivered to their old New York addresses, since their own children and grandchildren are now living in the LI houses.

[BookaT]

Here is an idea about the "not needing a photo ID to vote" You need one to drive. So every polling station has a police stop at it. When you show your license you are allowed to proceed with no problems. No license, guess what you get a $25 fine or something like that and you are not allowed to drive your car into the polling area.

This is the craziest thing. I am all about peoples freedom from mandatory identification, I am all about people wanting to wear thier Burka whenever they want. But no photo id showing your uncovered face and you don't get to enjoy the priveledge(right in votings case)of driving,voting,collecting welfare,food stamps, unemployment, etc.

If YOU are collecting anything YOU did not earn you should be registered and maybe put to work at cleaning up the trash in your neighborhood(I can hear the activists moaning,"it is so humiliating.") Well for me not as humiliating as not being able to feed/house/clothe/educate my family. Where has the humiliation of that gone? Really!

If you want to remain ID-less go ahead. Just dont expect to be given the ability to drive,vote,get funds OTHER people have earned in any way.

Sorry for the Rant but, Crominy! People that can work and dont should be shamed and ashamed!

[Robert A Cook PE]

Even simpler.

Yes, your photo is the id.

At the bottom, it has a row of letters: P|G|R|P|G|R|P|G|R etc.

Each election (primary, general, or runoff) when you vote, the letter is punched out.

No duplicates votes.

One man.
One photo.
One punch.
One election.

[Alia]

I'll go ya one: I still have the release. In 1996, CA Repubs put a bill on the table to address vote fraud: Dems shot it to heck. Further, they then turned around and pushed the dual-voting system for Mexicans residing here in the US.

In Re Hillary et al: They wish for the "population" (control) count to be the deciding factor in elections. They do not ever wish for anyone to suggest "property" matters in re elections. Three guesses why, right? :)... and talk about Dems living in the past? Long ago, in America LOOOOOOOONG ago, only those who owned property could vote. It was in place, so that stilldueling-with-America European forces couldn't reseize the emerging America, independent country. This led to that and the other and a lot of American history and changes as America grew in strength and wisdom. Maslow's hierachy principle, big time. (Of course, Dems won't let you apply Maslow's hierarchy, in this matter). Nonetheless...

Ipso, this push by Dems to 'ping' back to a time in American when only "landed" citizens could vote. This of course, had a lot to do with the later concept of Plantation Owners owning "property"; vis a vis: black slaves. Of course, no one is supposed to EVER say this. Or to point this out. It would undermine the racialist charges of America as racists; as opposed to how America has progressed and grown up through time and history.

Of course, the usual rub, fly in the ointment, is that Dems promote the unborn as "property" of women -- to discard as they please. How do they square this with their 'anti-property" positions of the past in re slavery in America? Oops! Don't look there...

Of Course! They wish to do away with the electoral college: there's a "system" involved which Dems don't like. It just doesn't afford them the freedom to "forgerie" a new deal with this nation.

IMHO, of course...

[jshermn]

When I voted in the Florida primary last month, I was told by an election worker that the number of voter registered in multiple states was over 65,000. If they know the numbers how come they can't stop the frauds??

[sauropod]

They can't cheat if it ain't close.

[The Raven]

This is what goes into Zogby's special sauce....Bush needs to be up by 4 or more points to win.

[Elle Bee]

CLICK on IMAGE:

Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens our Democracy

By John Fund

The Florida Fiasco of 2000, with hanging chads, butterfly ballots and Supreme Court intervention, forced Americans to confront an ugly reality. The U.S. has the sloppiest election systems of any industrialized nation, so sloppy that at least eight of the 19 hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were actually able to register to vote in either Virginia or Florida while they made their deadly preparations for 9/11.

In Stealing Elections, John Fund takes the reader on a national tour of voter fraud scandals ranging from rural states like Texas and Mississippi to big cities such as Philadelphia and Milwaukee. He explores dark episodes such as the way "vote brokers" stole a mayoral election in Miami in 1998 by tampering with 4700 absentee ballots. He shows how, in the aftermath of the Motor Voter Law of 1993, Californians used mail-in forms to get absentee ballots for fictitious people and pets, while in St. Louis it was discovered that voter rolls included 13,000 more names than the U.S. Census listed as the total number of adults in the city.

Election officials try to reassure voters by turning to computerized voting machines. But Fund shows that with the new technology come even greater concerns. Early in 2004, for instance, the state of Maryland, which has 16,000 new Diebold machines, commissioned a security expert to try to rig a practice election. He and his team broke into the computer at the State Board of Elections, completely changed the outcome of the election, left, and erased their electronic trail—all in under five minutes.

Stealing Elections gives us a chilling portrait of our electoral vulnerability—in the 2004 presidential election and on into the future. Writing with urgency and authority, John Fund shows how a lethal combination of bureaucratic bungling and ballot rigging have put our democracy at risk.

John Fund is a member of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board and writes the paper's daily Political Diary. He has written on voter fraud and election irregularities for the last decade in the Wall Street Journal, New Republic, American Spectator and other publications. In the past year, Fund has made over 90 appearances on Fox News, MSNBC, C-Span, and CNBC.

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[Robert A Cook PE]

"In the past year, Fund has made over 90 appearances on Fox News, MSNBC, C-Span, and CNBC.

Phrasing it differently, "In the past year, John Fund has not been able to make any appearances on ABBCNNBCBS as the Mainstream Media freezes him from their spotlight of lies, deceit, deception, forgery, and fraud."

[Brilliant]

One of the reasons NYers have homes in Florida and register to vote in Florida is that Florida does not have an income tax. NYers pretend that Florida is their home to avoid the NY income tax. I know several NYers who do that, and come to Florida to stay at their home only a few weeks out of the year.

[pepsionice]

Simple fix...national database. You make registration require a social security number. Every citizen in America has a social security. You provide $0k for each county in America to forward the registration information to a national database 60 days from election. Anyone who shows up duplicate...gets a little card from the national database...and it simply says...if we catch you voting twice in this upcoming election, you spend 60 days (minimum) in the local jail, and you lose your chance to vote for the next five years.

Frankly...I'm sick of this whole mess. Its bad enough that we have to let the mentally ill vote...but we can sure stop duplicate voting. Anyone who is against this national database...ought to explain at length why they don't want to stop duplicate voting....and if we don't stop this soon....then I'm obliged to start registering in at least six different states and offer my votes up as well. The more the merrier, I always say.

[avbsoftworks]

I have thought about this and seems to me that we could solve this problem fairly simply. Why not have a voting card that you can carry with you like a credit card that has only one address. But you would vote at any atm machine at any time after a given date that most likely being the Tuesday after the both canidates have been chosen officialy. Being able to vote early seems no problem to me as you can do that now. So long as you can not vote beyond say 12 pm est election day, and you card is flaged that your vote has been cast and that card is of no effect except to change voter registration as you see fit. This would seen that you could build safe gaurds into an alredy established atm system. Even in poor areas it seems that atms are everywhere. Just a thought

[ProudVet77]

As dukakis would say, the fist starts to rot at the head.
TRex Hienz Kerry is a resident of PA and not MA. She votes in PA even though she spends more time in MA. So I guess she has never voted for hubby.
I'm sure the fact that PA having a 3.07% state income tax rate and MA having a 5.3% state income tax is purely coincidental.

[Paul_B]

There's a simple answer - require ID and allow an override by agreement of reps of both parties at the polling place. Stamp the hand of each override, the way we used to get stamped entering a bar with a cover charge.

But as he says, not everyone wants voting clean up. Guess which Party that might be..

[BigSkyFreeper]

Voter fraud and voter suppression of the black vote. Two weapons in the arsenal of the Liberals hunger for power.

[netmilsmom]

>>Cuyahoga County, Ohio<<

This is a true story!!! I lived there.
My Dad remained on the voter sheets 10 years after his death, my mom was still there when I left in 1997. Every year I would tell the workers that these people were dead and every year they would pop up again.

[monocle]

There should be a national requirement that when a person attempts to register that person must attest to his or her prior state of residency and that the state of prior residency should be notified and required that person from their list of registered voters, i.e. abort any attempt at fraud at the very beginning of the process. One of the advantages of this proposal is that there will be more time to ferret out attempts at fraud and would take place out of sight of sensation-seeking press types.

[NC28203]

>>It is illegal to register to vote simultaneously in different jurisdictions, but scofflaws have little to worry about.

So if one moves out of state, is one required to notify that state's election board before registering in another state?

[Heart of Georgia]

One question that troubles me though whenever I consider this topic is just how much fraud is there exactly? IIRC, the Palm Beach Post found somethign like 4,000 felons voted illegally in Florida in 2000.

And let's not forget about:

The problems regarding the butterfly ballot issue and the pre-recorded phone calls asking voters if they were certain they voted for the "right" candidate (encouraging them to call because maybe they were confused?).

Pregnant, dangling chads.

Algore only wanting to re-count select dem counties.

Dems not wanting to count the military vote.

Sending in good old JJ to stir up a riot.

Dems who were caught with voting machines in their cars; not to mention the "missing" lockboxes of "votes" that just happened to be "found" (seems like this also happened out west [don't remember where] just enough to give algore the state).

Activist judges.

Could go on an on.....