Posted on 11/18/2012 2:31:09 PM PST by smoothsailing
November 18, 2012
By: JIM TURNER
As St. Lucie County has reportedly missed the noon Sunday deadline to certify new numbers after a weekend recount of the first five days of early voting, the campaign manager for U.S. Rep. Allen West says more questions have arisen about how the election was conducted.
Todays actions cast an even greater cloud of suspicion over the results of St. Lucie County than existed before, Tim Edson, the campaign manager for the Palm Beach Gardens Republican, stated in a release.
Consequently, the highly suspect results will be submitted to the secretary of state today -- even though the canvassing board has already admitted they may contain serious errors.
Once again, Gertrude Walker has proven to be absolutely incapable of executing an accurate and fair election. This election is far from over. We will continue to fight on behalf of all voters in District 18 to ensure a fair and accurate count of their votes.
Walker was hospitalized last week and didnt attend the Friday night canvassing board meeting or the weekend refeeding of the five days of early voting through the tabulating machines at the elections office headquarters in Fort Pierce.
No update has been made on her condition.
According to the Palm Beach Post, the weekend refeed increased Democrat Patrick Murphys margin of victory from the .58 percent reported by the county on Nov. 10 to .65 percent in the district that includes all of St. Lucie and Martin counties and Northern Palm Beach County, which spurred Murphy to again declare victory.
Today at noon, it became clear Patrick Murphy will be officially certified as the next congressman from the 18th Congressional District, Anthony Kusich, Murphys campaign manager, stated in a release. The voters have spoken and Patrick Murphy is once again the clear winner. It is beyond time to put this campaign behind us and put the interests of the people of the Treasure Coast and Palm Beaches first.
Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers reported that preliminary results from the recount were forwarded to the state.
St. Lucie County elections supervisor's office had restarted the recount of the first five days of ballots from early voting in the Congressional District 18 contest at 8 a.m. on Sunday, after breaking just after 10 p.m. on Saturday.
The county canvassing board, which had narrowly ordered the recount in the contest between Murphy and U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Palm Beach Gardens, had halted the process of running the ballots through the tabulating machines late Saturday night to give county officials a rest.
Barring further court filings -- judges have advised West that he has 10 days to contest the contest once certified, while attorneys for his campaign have announced they would seek an emergency hearing on the deadline -- the results from St. Lucie County next head to the state.
According to state rules, Emergency means any occurrence, or threat thereof, whether accidental, natural, or caused by human beings, in war or in peace, that results or may result in substantial injury or harm to the population or substantial damage to or loss of property to the extent it will prohibit an election officers ability to conduct a safe and orderly election.
Floridas Elections Canvassing Commission, comprised of Gov. Rick Scott, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, meet Tuesday.
While I’m not thrilled with early voting, I think a good compromise would be to allow voting on the Saturday before election day. If folks cannot get their act together that day or election day, they just need to stay home.
Photo ID or 2 forms of govt issued, non-photo ID required.
i.e. EBT card and SS card.
SOME FORM OF ID.
And land sakes, we need to go back to a paper ballot!
No more electronic voting machines. TOO much distrust.
Having been a poll watcher, during early voting, they have a lot more days to commit voter fraud without getting caught.
It's already super easy to vote. You can now register during early voting and vote the same day, at least you can in this state. They don't check whether you have the right to vote or not. Felons on parole are not supposed to vote. Non citizens are not supposed to vote, but they do not require a birth certificate or citizen papers. Yet to get a job, we have to show these papers. If they don't have the papers they shouldn't be able to vote.
Overheard at the local Democratic meeting...”Zis distikt is now Republikanfrei!”
You’re right, and we’ve got to start working NOW, because for one thing that will get us a better candidate. The primaries seemed to come as a surprise to the GOP and there was really nobody lined up, except Romney (who had done nothing except campaign, sometimes very viciously, since 2008) and Santorum (who had also taken a year off to do nothing but travel around Iowa looking for votes). But these people were promoted by themselves, and not by any great groundswell of popular interest in their positions or enthusiasm for them personally. Perhaps the GOP leaders supported Romney believing that he had a chance of winning because he would bring to the general election that same vicious, focused quality that he displayed in his primary campaign - but he didn’t.
I voted for him, of course, and I encouraged other people who didn’t like him to vote for him simply because anybody he appointed or surrounded himself was bound to be better than any of the evil fools surrounding the chief evil fool himself, Obama. But it’s hard for people to get enthusiastic about voting “strategically,” and I think not enough of them could get motivated to get out the door and down to the polling place.
So we need to start working NOW on getting a candidate with some clear positions and a personality (since, like it or not, voters in the US now do seem to go for the “celebrity effect”) so that there is at least somebody leading when the primaries roll around. Remember, Obama didn’t have a primary fight to worry about.
The other thing was a fascinating article I read in the WSJ this morning. It said that the Dems got voters out through “big data,” and that they had been running this campaign ever since the day after the last election, literally. They kept in touch with their supporters, put cookies on their PCs so that they could track things ranging from website visits to shopping preferences, sent them regular e-mail contacts about one thing or another (and not just asking for money, which was all I ever got from the GOP), and got them out to vote early, which is vitally important. This doesn’t show that they won in the sphere of ideas, of course, but simply in the sphere of diligent voter management. That may seem a little unfair, but we have to think about it and do the same: stay in touch with the voters, develop their interest and committment, and not suddenly remember four years from now that there are voters out there and we’re not going to win if we don’t get them!
AMEN!
Enough of this “early” fraud voting. Make it one day only, for 24 hours - midnight to midnight - on Election Day.
If you can’t make THAT, you’re intentionally trying not to.
Early voting is bad when it’s extended to the point that it’s essentially unsupervised. If you have six weeks of early voting, who’s going to show up as poll watchers etc. for that entire time.
I’m not against it for a few days just the extended.
If I am not mistaken, the constitution sets the voting day and I don’t know how all this other crap gets in....except for elderly vote on voting day or stay home who cares..I am not one of these people that think everyone should vote, if your not interested stay home....such people probably don’t know whos on the ballot anyway...
Sorry, but it should NOT be easier to vote. If one can’t do one’s civic duty once every 4 years then tough cookies.
It’s a great opportunity to teach civics to your kids too. I took my son to vote with me. It’s just not the same when your son or daughter just watches you fill out a form.
Actually, I’ve come to the point where the harder it is to vote the better. Less chance of voter fraud too if everybody shows up on one day and ONLY one day.
We lived in Iran in the ‘70s, voted at the embassy; now, in good ol’Texas, we’re not physiclly able, but vote by absentee. Never had a problem; but then, we never tried to cheat either!
Allen West just conceded.
I watched in disgust! You know it's bad when even the good guys give up!
Yes it was disappointing. I thought he was going to make his election an example of how out of control the Democrats are. He is such a great person who I hope runs for President in 2016.
I have been posting my "Dream Team" since last year!
I was just musing: suppose the team had been Marco Rubio and Allen West. Would we have had a better shot at The Presidency?
We will Barry you!
Hell, there wasn't a "this time", so you know what the answer is.
Are you kidding? The RINO and the elephant? That would be a disaster.
You’re right. Nov. 6 activities were exactly what happens on election days in third-world countries. Not an election, but a pretense to give the appearance of propriety.
RE : I think Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie would have kicked Obamas behind. I am sorry they didn’t run
Are you kidding? The RINO and the elephant? That would be a disaster. “
I have heard the same about Rubio. God help us all....
Why not Colin Powell?
Let’s finish America off!
Let’s get it over with!!
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