Posted on 11/04/2004 11:58:22 AM PST by Diddle E. Squat
Republicans in Michigan are breathing a sigh of relief today - and not only because President Bush won a second term, despite narrowly losing Michigan.
In Detroit, mostly white Republican poll watchers dispatched to monitor mostly-black city vote counting encountered uncomfortable, racially charged situations. Poll watchers overseeing absentee vote-counting at Cobo Center, for example, reported widespread fraud in the counting of ballots. The incident raised the specter of a politically dicey GOP lawsuit, a move now less urgent given Bush's national victory.
"Craziest thing I've ever seen," said one poll watcher. "They had 100 tables and just five poll watchers trying to monitor them. Every table had a pile of empty ballots. If the machine rejected a ballot, the workers would just take a fresh ballot, fill it in the way they thought the voter wanted (Detroit voted heavily for Kerry), and then put THAT ballot through the machine." The poll watcher also reported unsigned ballots being counted in the machines, a violation of absentee procedures.
Alarmed by this open fraud, the party brought in more poll watchers only to be confronted, according to a Detroit Free Press account, by a Kerry campaign lawyer "who arrived and began yelling at the 20-30 GOP lawyers." Policemen were called to restore order to the proceedings after which the additional Republican poll watchers were all escorted off the premises.
The Cobo vote fraud was the most serious incident in an evening that included a judge ruling for Republicans when poll watchers were cast out of other polling places. Democratic voters, in turn, complained that "they felt intimidated by a stranger watching them and wanting to check identification" according the Free Press account. All in all, an unsettling evening here in Southeast Michigan.
DemoncRATS tried awfully hard to cheat their way in 2000. This time the pubbies put up a large fight nationwide demanding accurate accountability that we've probably seen the most accurate presidential election in history, not fully accurate by far, but the most accurate.
I think it may be why John Kerry backed down so quickly, the democrats couldn't afford a great deal of scrutiny.I really wish the republicans would pursue this.
Bush had something like a 5 point lead with over 65% of precincts reporting in Mi.
We may have only two years if we don't fix it.
Why 2 years?
When I vote, I'm perfectly happy to show ID and expect others to do the same.
I thought they only counted the absentee ballots if needed.
Sign up to be a RAT poll watcher.
The poll workers were very good.
There were 5 democrat watchers and attorneys, all white. They were so gracious that they loaned me their cell phones to call in vote totals.
It couldn't have been more collegial. We were all shocked!
One of the attorneys said they were told to expect ugly antics. LOL - I told her I was told to expect the same. I joked, "You were expecting eeeeeevil republicans, and you got me instead!"
LOL, when my shift was over, they were sorry to see me go. 3 of them told me they hoped the next watcher was as nice as I.
We all agreed that it's a shame politics at a national level couldn't be as compatible.
Business as ususual there! Nothing new for them. The only thing new was that someone was hip to what was going on. Guess they did not like that!
This imformation needs to be told.
Justice demands that voting corruption (Philadelphia, Detroit etc.) be dealt with swiftly.
I'm amazed! These "intimidated voters" ALWAYS "vote" in heavily Democrat precincts. /sarcasm
Our votes were stolen from us!
yep
This is SOP for Detroit. Has been since 1967 at least and maybe even before. Repubs have to get their hands around the process because this kind of stuff disenfranchises legitimate voters.
Any remade punchcard should be witnessed and approved by someone non-partisan.
AMEN BROTHER.
Kicking the fraud will give us anoth 4 senators in two years. IF Republicans have the will to do it.
Local TV in Pittsburgh had film of people working the polls objecting to one lonesome white guy at a black polling place. We were assured that it was intimidating for him to be there "looking over their shoulders." This was probably the very first time they ever had to put up with anything like this and it looks like it showed in the returns too or else there wasn't much interest in this election in the city!
Without the voter fraud, the US is a lot more "red" that the maps show. If we wipe out voter fraud, the Democrats will be absolutely powerless. Voter fraud and tight voter restrictions should be #1 on the agenda. Enact that, and it's all over and after one or two more election cycles we can enact anything we want.
excellent point
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