Posted on 11/04/2009 4:56:24 PM PST by darth
I have written a lot over the years on my experiences with vote fraud in elections. Were it not for fraud, Republicans would win far more elections.
After serving as a campaign worker, Poll Watcher, Alternate Judge in a democrat-dominated precinct, and yesterday as an Election Judge, I have concluded that being an election worker is the BEST way to prevent fraud.
As a Judge you can enforce the law to the letter. In Texas we have an air tight system enhanced by our outstanding, un-hackable ESlate voting system in Harris County. I was aided by fellow Freepers, Tropicana Rose and Zeppelin who put in a long day. Both of them would make great Election Judges themselves.
In previous elections I noticed the same guy (very odd looking obese blonde fellow) voting. He seemed nervous and yet practiced as he worked the voting machine much faster than other voters. Then I realized that I had seen the SAME guy IN A DIFFERENT PRECINCT IN A PREVIOUS ELECTION. This aroused my suspicion.
In another incident, I was the Alternate Judge in a democrat dominated precinct. A very well dressed man came in and handed the Judge a slip of paper saying, "This is my address, but I am not in the Poll Book. But that's the address I am voting from today." The Judge knew the man well since he was a democrat activist (she told me later he was loud, arrogant, and disruptive at democrat meetings). The Judge told him, "I know that house; its only a block from my house. Its your rental property and I know your renters." He then became very angry and insisted that the rental house was his official residence and that he WAS going to vote in the precinct. I offered him the Statement of Residence Affidavit to complete. Texas voting law says that if you are not in the Poll Book and the county confirms that you are not registered at that address, then you MUST complete the Affidavit. He angrily refused to complete it. Then the Judge tried to let him know that a Republican was watching by introducing me as the Republican Alternate Judge. He exploded in anger and told her, "WE AINT NEVER HAD NO REPUBLICANS HERE IN THIS PRECINCT. YOU GOTTA THROW HIM OUT NOW!" She politely called the county for instructions. They county officials sighed and told her, "Yeah, we know who he is. Let him vote." Later the Election Judge told me that the guy had rental properties all over the county and probably bullied his way into voting in multiple precincts.
Now that I have been to Judge Law Class, I know that he committed a FELONY and the meek, democrat Election Judge committed a CLASS A MISDEMEANOR by letting him vote.
My dear fellow Freepers, this is where the rubber meets the road! We only need a handful of successful prosecutions to discourage fraud.
As I worked this election I realized how fraud is possible even with air tight laws and systems. The vote fraud perps just need to create "Phantom Voters" one time. He makes up a name, registers said phantom by mail with a residence address he controls (examples: empty apartments in a building he owns or manages, rental houses where he can tell tenants to hold mail addressed to the phantom "who used to live there", his brother-in-law's house, the homes of other democrats in on the scheme).
When the perp goes to the Polling Place with the phantom VRC there are several methods he can use to get past the ID required by law. If he has just one Clerk at Early Voting who is in on the scheme (bribed, perhaps), the Clerk pretends to check his Drivers License and lets him vote. NOW THE PHANTOM IS IN THE SYSTEM AS A VALID VOTER. As long as he can keep getting the mail for the phantom, he gets current VRCs and keeps voting!
Another method would be to put the cable TV at the phantom's address in the phantom's name long enough to generate a "current utility bill" which is allowed under Texas law as a method of identification. Or the perp could have a friendly printer make checks (with a computer?) with the phantom's name and address which are also OK for ID under Texas law.
Once a phantom voter is in the system and the perp can get the VRC (Voter Registration Certificate), its easy. The perp walks into the Polling Place, presents his phantom VRC, and VOTES. A serous vote fraud perp could get VRCs for phantoms in many precincts and vote 10, 50,or 100 times on Election Day. In Harris County we have over 800 Polling Places on Election Day. An organized ring of perps would be even more effective.
THE BEST WAY TO PREVENT FRAUD IS TO BE THERE. When I voted early how many Republican Poll Watchers were there? ZERO. When Election Day rolled around the county was BEGGING for Republican workers and coming up short.
Please consider working in the next election. Its best if you become a Judge because knowing the law and penalties gives you enormous power to enforce it to the letter. When I was a Poll Watcher if I had known the law well I could have called the Secretary of State and THEY WOULD HAVE ARRESTED THE DEMOCRAT ELECTION JUDGE ON THEY SPOT FOR THE EGREGIOUS VIOLATIONS TAKING PLACE.
As a Judge, no one can browbeat you. In the case above where the guy was berating the Judge she could have called the police and had the guy arrested. You are a REAL JUDGE for that day!
Being an election worker is not hard. I took two evening classes, spent a few hours coordinating with the others on the phone, and put in one long Election Day.
Reading FR, posting, and commenting is fun...but you gotta get into the FIGHT!
Only 20% turnout for the election. If Republicans are ever going to win the Houston Mayor’s office, they are going to need to get more voters to the polls when there is a 5 way race loaded with Democrats.
and here is your problem. In 2000 when G W Bush was elected President I remember my dad asking the DA in Fort Bend County, a Republican who is still in office, how many voter fraud cases he had prosecuted. The guy had been DA and an assistant DA for years. The answer was NONE - 0 - NEVER.
How many republicans are left in Houston? Maybe 20 or 30? LOL
Excellent info Darth.
Politicians or citizens?
Some of the Republicans around town are out of touch with local politics (going so far as to make mistakes like taking Bob Lanier for a Republican). Money != Republican.
I’m now hearing it cast the Parker is Moderate and Locke a Republican. And yet I heard that Republicans were going to vote for Brown. Morales was the Republican on the ballot.
If we stay on ACORN ass, I guarantee there WILL BE LESS>
And last Governor’s race, we had several former Democrats, a Democrat who ran as an Independent (and is running as a Democrat this time) and a Democrat. There was another candidate (Libertarian?). The Republican was a former Democrat and one of the Independents was a former Republican who was a former Democrat.
Time was in the 1960s you had to vote in the Democrat primaries if you wanted a say in the judges races in Texas. But we are talking about some Democrats in the 1980s who became Republicans AFTER Reagan left office.
Paul Bettoncourt used to work to crossreference voter information against tax records and the like and worked to clear voters from the rolls (on more evidence than just a hunch).
Eventually he left office. He now consults on tax assessment for residences and has a radio show. And a legal challenge was brought to his purging voter rolls.
I’m talking about voters, I was born in Houston, moved out as soon as I was old enough to leave home. All my people did the same, we all moved out in the burbs and sticks. How long since a republican (a real conservative) held office? The Houston metro area is a lost cause. They need to build a wall around it to keep the parasites from escaping and make them suffer in the socialist cesspit they’ve created for themselves.
Residents? Seriously? Hundreds of thousands, at least. But if we sit at home, what difference does it make?
Yep. The only way we’re going to stop the crap is for people to get off their butt, learn the law, and poll watch.
If I hadn’t read about Roy Morales here at FR, I wouldn’t even have know he was even running for mayor. I didn’t even see a single yard sign for him.
The Harris County DA sent a rep to our Judge Law class who told us, “Bring us evidence; we WANT to prosecute”.
Sorry about your sorry DA.
You can bypass the DA and call the Sec of State when you catch a perp. As a Judge, you can actually arrest someone on the spot and ask the police to come pick them up.
I’m telling you that if the perps KNOW that Republicans are there, they WILL think twice about committing felonies. They are not getting paid very much!
Don’t let the bastards get you down! Don’t give up!
With all due respect I hear a lot of defeatist talk here on FR.
There are plenty of Republicans in Houston.
I might add that there are plenty of LAZY Republicans in Houston who won’t get off their duff to come out and FIGHT.
How is it possible that in suburban precincts where the majority of voters are Republican and where the law says WE should appoint the Judge, I go there and discover that EVERY WORKER AND JUDGE IS A DEMOCRAT BECAUSE NO REPUBLICAN WOULD SACRIFICE A FEW HOURS TO BECOME A JUDGE?
Conservatives keep losing because they are not as COMMITTED as liberals are. When I meet the democrat judge I usually find that he has spent all of his spare time for MONTHS walking the blocks. They contribute TIME AND MONEY TO THEIR CAUSE.
In 2008 how much money and how many volunteers did our conservative candidates get? Add up Tancredo, Hunter, Thompson, and the other conservatives and compare that to the money and volunteers for Giuliani, McCain, Romney, et al.
I challenge EVERY Freeper to be a real activist not just a keyboard activist.
I’ve worked as an Election Judge 2-3 times over the years. It’s not very hard and it does reinforce the integrity of the system. I’ve always felt that vote fraud happens at City Hall, not at the precinct level, because it would be harder to do in secret at the precinct level with all those amateurs standing around.
Anyway, I worked a primary one time in a middle clas precinct where we had Republicans and Democrats on separate ballots so the voter had to declare which party they planned to vote for before they got to vote. I played “guess the party” as people walked in to vote and I found I was right 90% of the time. Republicans usually lined up in an orderly fashion, pleasant, neatly dressed with their voter registrations already out of their billfolds or available after the first request.
Democrats appeared annoyed-to-angry, often unkempt, never had their voter registration card ready for you, sometimes didn’t even have their voter registration card, and a few were already wearing “I VOTED” stickers on their clothing.
It was amazingly easy to tell much of the time who was who.
I’ve poll watched as well. You need scrutineers! Remember they can’t commit fraud if you’ve got eyes out there.
I did act, I voted with my feet in 1982 haven’t been back to metro “jouston” since.. Liberty county is as red and conservative as they get. Our school district is one of the best in the nation.
It makes me sick that my federal and state tax dollars go to feed the parasites in metro jouston..
Corruption is there in every major urban city. And unsurprizingly, the corruption spread between multiple cities with the same names involved.
There was a federal investigation and prosecution of it but every community treated it as a local story.
Lee P. Brown’s staff aide was part of it. Corruption went to New Orleans, Cleveland, Detroit, don’t recall where else.
It had to do with contract bids, etc.
Look at the national election maps and you will see large expanses of conservative/Republican (not necessarily the same thing) districts with large clumps of Democrats in the big cities.
I don’t know if we will see strong conservativism in Texas. Dan Patrick talked a good game on the radio at times but he’s swallowed the bait on some nannystate legislation here and there. And HE’S treated as an outsider of the Party by some insiders. If he scares them, what’s it going to take to put people in office?
Whoa dude - we’ve got tons of “Republicans” left in Houston. Sadly, many of them don’t get off their @sses to vote in off year elections - but I don’t doubt they’ll show up next November.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.