Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

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Stinger
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Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

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Voter suppression didn't work. Voter fraud didn't work. Just steal it. Openly, blatantly steal it. And it's underway.
A Republican presidential candidate hasn’t carried Michigan since the first George Bush did it back in 1988, seven election cycles ago. And for the GOP, the future doesn’t look much brighter than the past. In the most recent election, Barack Obama carried the state and its 16 electoral votes by a comfortable margin of 9.5 percentage points.

So what’s a losing party to do? Field a better candidate? Develop a message that voters will find more compelling? Nah. Why do things the hard way when you can “fix” the system to your advantage legislatively?

As Reid Wilson explains in National Journal, Michigan Republicans are preparing to use their control of the state Legislature to change the way in which electoral votes are awarded in their state. Rather than use the traditional winner-take-all system, they propose to award electoral votes by congressional district.

What would that mean in practice? It would mean that in 2012, Obama would have won just seven of Michigan’s 16 electoral votes, even though he carried the state very easily. Mitt Romney would have won nine electoral votes even though he lost his native state convincingly.

How could that be? Because unlike state boundaries, boundaries of congressional districts can be gerrymandered to favor one party over another.
In Michigan’s case, its congressional districts have been heavily gerrymandered to maximize GOP power and minimize Democratic power, and if you use those same boundaries to award electoral votes in a presidential race, you get that same distorted outcome.


Here's the scary part:
“If you did the calculation, you’d see a massive shift of electoral votes in states that are blue and fully [in] red control,” said one senior Republican taking an active role in pushing the proposal. “There’s no kind of autopsy and outreach that can grab us those electoral votes that quickly.”

The proposals, the senior GOP official said, are likely to come up in each state’s legislative session in 2013. Bills have been drafted, and legislators are talking to party bosses to craft strategy. Saul Anuzis, the former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, has briefed Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Chief of Staff Jeff Larson on his state’s proposal. The proposal “is not being met with the ‘We can’t do that’ answer. It’s being met with ‘I’ve already got a bill started,’ ” the official said.
Overall, if the changes in question had been in place in all six states listed above, Romney probably would have won an additional 63 electoral votes. Add that to the 206 votes that he did win, and Romney has 269 votes, creating an electoral college tie with Obama.

That tie in turn would have thrown the race into the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a narrow majority thanks in part to their success at gerrymandering.

Which means that Romney, having lost the popular vote by almost four percentage points and 4.7 million votes, would today be President-elect Romney.
LINK

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Stinger
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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

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All three states [Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin] have given the Democratic nominee their electoral votes in each of the last six presidential elections. Now, senior Republicans in Washington are overseeing legislation in all three states to end the winner-take-all system.
...

In the long run, Republican operatives say they would like to pursue similar Electoral College reform in Florida, Ohio, and Virginia. Obama won all three states, but Romney won a majority of the congressional districts in each state.
LINK

So the Republicans are coming up with a plan to legally "steal" the election -- because they can't adapt quickly enough to actually lure voters to their party -- and no one cares?

This isn't just talk. The national party leaders are shepherding legislation in three states to disproportionately divide electoral votes according to gerrymandered congressional districts.

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Stinger
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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

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Vrede wrote:This is how they're able to "work on plans to outright steal the next election":
mike wrote:Here ya go ...

Vrede wrote:46% of the voters = 54% of the seats.
Prior election thefts through blatant gerrymandering.
I'm more worried about future attempts. They're pushing this in three key states this year.

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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

Unread post by DooHickey »

Stinger wrote:So the Republicans are coming up with a plan to legally "steal" the election --
Vrede wrote:This is how they're able to "work on plans to outright steal the next election"... Prior election thefts through blatant gerrymandering.
Them mean old Republican owned companies gonna make them ballots out of tear-proof paper again?

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billy.pilgrim
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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

Unread post by billy.pilgrim »

DooHickey wrote:
Stinger wrote:So the Republicans are coming up with a plan to legally "steal" the election --
Vrede wrote:This is how they're able to "work on plans to outright steal the next election"... Prior election thefts through blatant gerrymandering.
Them mean old Republican owned companies gonna make them ballots out of tear-proof paper again?

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and justify the stealing of the 2000 presidential election, some of them really ignorant people are going to keep posting funny pictures and making sarcastic comments to belittle a long past but legitimate attempt to accurately count votes
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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

Unread post by Mr.B »

billy.pilgrim wrote:
DooHickey wrote: "Them mean old Republican owned companies gonna make them ballots out of tear-proof paper again?"
"and justify the stealing of the 2000 presidential election, some of them really ignorant people are going to keep posting funny pictures and making sarcastic comments to belittle a long past but legitimate attempt to accurately count votes."
"ELECTION RESULTS"
When you rearrange the letters:
LIES - LET'S RECOUNT


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

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Vrede wrote:
Black Pastors Help Rand Paul Divine That Voter ID Laws Are 'Offending People'

...After meeting with the pastors, Paul shared the good news with Jeremy W. Peters of The New York Times: the GOP needs to "lay off" the whole voter ID laws thing, according to Peters. "It's offending people," Paul said.

This isn't the first time Paul has met with black pastors — it's just one element of his ongoing attempt to be the face of (successful) GOP outreach to black and Hispanic voters. And this also isn't the first time he's come out against the restrictive voter fraud laws in red states that disproportionately affect black voters (who are more likely to vote for Democrats). Last month, during a conversation with David Axelrod, a former advisor of President Obama, Paul said he was against the restrictions on early voting passed in Ohio and Wisconsin, according to The Huffington Post. Paul has also come out in favor of restoring voting rights to ex-felons...
Tick-tock, democracy-hating cons, tick-tock.
I have some questions about voter ID laws. As of right now I have no stance on them so I'm hoping someone can enlighten me.

From what I understand: Some states have decided to pass laws requiring you to show a state issued photo ID before voting. People oppose it because they say it's restrictive and hurts minorities. People support it because they say it helps stop fraud. Without looking into it any further I want to call BS on the restrictive argument because it seems like everyone has a photo ID these days, and they're pretty much required for most basic functions in modern society. You can't even cash a check without a photo ID. I want to also call BS on the voter fraud issue, because from what I've read voter fraud isn't as widespread as people think it is, nevertheless I'm sure it does happen.

If the state charges you for IDs, then yeah I can see a problem with that. If they're free, what's the issue? If some form of identification is required, then why not allow voters to supply maybe a social security card (everyone has these, right?), or maybe something else not state issued, like a birth certificate? If you're an immigrant who was granted citizenship, surely you have some form of official identification?

Seems like both sides of this issue have flaky arguments.
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O Really
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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

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Vrede wrote: As you say, it's a manufactured issue by Republicans. I think it should be opposed for that reason alone. They are losing on demographics but are too beholden to their shrinking straight, white male base to change policy to reflect America, so they desperately cast about for any way they can to game democracy. In some nations voting is mandatory, the GOP would hate that.
That is indeed the point. Waay back in the day, election "day" was just one day. You had to state some excuse for an "absentee" ballot. You had to register well in advance of the election. You had to register in specific places. But as efforts were made to make voting more accessible to everyone (such as those who worked during the voting day, or for whatever reason had not registered far enough in advance, or whatever), "absentee" became easier, polls were opened in more places, or at least on more days leading up to the election; same day registration was allowed; people could register most anywhere, including by people going door to door or in booths at festivals...yada... and guess what - voting did increase, but sadly for the Republicans it wasn't within the people who usually voted Republican. And they've been mad about it ever since and tried everything they could to take away the expanded voting practices that didn't help them. The fraud line is just total bullshit. If it weren't, there would be some significant data, but not in years of trying, in state, local, and federal elections, they haven't found diddly in the way of fraud that would have been affected by an ID requirement, or that resulted from expanded voting times, places, etc. Voter fraud is almost always in the counting process, not in the vote casting process.

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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

Unread post by JTA »

O Really wrote:
Vrede wrote: As you say, it's a manufactured issue by Republicans. I think it should be opposed for that reason alone. They are losing on demographics but are too beholden to their shrinking straight, white male base to change policy to reflect America, so they desperately cast about for any way they can to game democracy. In some nations voting is mandatory, the GOP would hate that.
That is indeed the point. Waay back in the day, election "day" was just one day. You had to state some excuse for an "absentee" ballot. You had to register well in advance of the election. You had to register in specific places. But as efforts were made to make voting more accessible to everyone (such as those who worked during the voting day, or for whatever reason had not registered far enough in advance, or whatever), "absentee" became easier, polls were opened in more places, or at least on more days leading up to the election; same day registration was allowed; people could register most anywhere, including by people going door to door or in booths at festivals...yada... and guess what - voting did increase, but sadly for the Republicans it wasn't within the people who usually voted Republican. And they've been mad about it ever since and tried everything they could to take away the expanded voting practices that didn't help them. The fraud line is just total bullshit. If it weren't, there would be some significant data, but not in years of trying, in state, local, and federal elections, they haven't found diddly in the way of fraud that would have been affected by an ID requirement, or that resulted from expanded voting times, places, etc. Voter fraud is almost always in the counting process, not in the vote casting process.
Speaking of fraud: back in the day I wrote an A+ undergrad research paper on electronic voting machines, so I'm basically an expert. Anyway - at least from what I've read - those things are fairly susceptible to fraud. This sort of takes the steam out of the voter-ID-prevents-fraud argument as well. I know some places don't use those machines, but every time I've voted they were being used. Not saying for sure every place is committing voter fraud, just throwing it out there that E-voting issues should be a concern for both parties. This is why I'm cautious about calls for the ability to cast ballots online. It'd make the election process simpler for a lot of people, but there's just too much potential security problems:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 ... 0674870186
Two years ago, hackers gained access to an online voting system created by the District of Columbia and altered every ballot on behalf of their own preferred candidates. On the "Thank You!" page that ran at the end of the voting protocol, they left their trademark—the University of Michigan fight song.

The online voting system was real, intended for use that November, but the compromised election, fortunately, was just a mock-up for testing security. The infiltrators were a team of graduate students led by University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman. Which candidates got the fake votes? Skynet from the "Terminator" movies and Bender, the alcohol-fueled robot from TV's "Futurama."


In all, 31 states will offer some form of online voting, usually for overseas voters.
But the hackers had a serious point: that Internet voting systems were a real threat to the integrity of the democratic process. "The question of whether Internet voting is secure is really not a political question," Dr. Halderman says. "It's a technical question."
You aren't doing it wrong if no one knows what you are doing.

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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

Unread post by Supsalemgr »

Stinger wrote:Voter suppression didn't work. Voter fraud didn't work. Just steal it. Openly, blatantly steal it. And it's underway.
A Republican presidential candidate hasn’t carried Michigan since the first George Bush did it back in 1988, seven election cycles ago. And for the GOP, the future doesn’t look much brighter than the past. In the most recent election, Barack Obama carried the state and its 16 electoral votes by a comfortable margin of 9.5 percentage points.

So what’s a losing party to do? Field a better candidate? Develop a message that voters will find more compelling? Nah. Why do things the hard way when you can “fix” the system to your advantage legislatively?

As Reid Wilson explains in National Journal, Michigan Republicans are preparing to use their control of the state Legislature to change the way in which electoral votes are awarded in their state. Rather than use the traditional winner-take-all system, they propose to award electoral votes by congressional district.

What would that mean in practice? It would mean that in 2012, Obama would have won just seven of Michigan’s 16 electoral votes, even though he carried the state very easily. Mitt Romney would have won nine electoral votes even though he lost his native state convincingly.

How could that be? Because unlike state boundaries, boundaries of congressional districts can be gerrymandered to favor one party over another.
In Michigan’s case, its congressional districts have been heavily gerrymandered to maximize GOP power and minimize Democratic power, and if you use those same boundaries to award electoral votes in a presidential race, you get that same distorted outcome.


Here's the scary part:
“If you did the calculation, you’d see a massive shift of electoral votes in states that are blue and fully [in] red control,” said one senior Republican taking an active role in pushing the proposal. “There’s no kind of autopsy and outreach that can grab us those electoral votes that quickly.”

The proposals, the senior GOP official said, are likely to come up in each state’s legislative session in 2013. Bills have been drafted, and legislators are talking to party bosses to craft strategy. Saul Anuzis, the former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, has briefed Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Chief of Staff Jeff Larson on his state’s proposal. The proposal “is not being met with the ‘We can’t do that’ answer. It’s being met with ‘I’ve already got a bill started,’ ” the official said.
Overall, if the changes in question had been in place in all six states listed above, Romney probably would have won an additional 63 electoral votes. Add that to the 206 votes that he did win, and Romney has 269 votes, creating an electoral college tie with Obama.

That tie in turn would have thrown the race into the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a narrow majority thanks in part to their success at gerrymandering.

Which means that Romney, having lost the popular vote by almost four percentage points and 4.7 million votes, would today be President-elect Romney.
LINK
Boy, do you stuck pigs squeak loudly. Remember what Obama reminded everybody, "Elections have consequences". Squeal on.

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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

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OK, Super-S - if you want to take the position that it's all just politics as usual, with the party in power trying to screw the one out of power, I can understand that. But if you really think current Republican efforts to suppress opposition voting are reality based, I'd be interested in seeing any data you have on election fraud that could be affected by an ID requirement. Or specifically how cutting down voting days affects fraud. Or how making registration more difficult affects fraud. Rhetorical question - we both know there isn't any such data.

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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

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Vrede wrote:Supsalemgr has no principles, it's just about winning. ...
I don't necessarily disagree with that. But even in that context, it seems there is a difference in making it easier for people to vote if I expect them to vote for me, vs. denying people their vote if I expect them to vote for you. Besides, it could be argued that Republicans had the same opportunities that Dems had to attract the expanded voter population, but chose (and continued to choose) not to do so.

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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

Unread post by neoplacebo »

Yeah, I also noted those stories; got a laugh about what the judge said about people being able to vote in NC. I also think it goes to the Supremes eventually. We'll see, or as an old crackpot would say.....we'll wait.

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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

Unread post by neoplacebo »

Moffitt has a new ad talking about how his opponent Turner "was awarded" a big government contract. Nobody is awarded a government contract; you have to go through a mind numbing process to even be able to bid on one. Then he goes on about how at the same time, Turner fired workers. I doubt it; once the big contract is over, a reduction in labor is normal. I bet old Tim would have paid those folks from his own pocket. I have no doubt about it. He's our man.

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O Really
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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

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neoplacebo wrote:Moffitt has a new ad talking about how his opponent Turner "was awarded" a big government contract. Nobody is awarded a government contract; you have to go through a mind numbing process to even be able to bid on one. Then he goes on about how at the same time, Turner fired workers. I doubt it; once the big contract is over, a reduction in labor is normal. I bet old Tim would have paid those folks from his own pocket. I have no doubt about it. He's our man.
Worse - the ad said Turner "accepted" big government contracts. Like it's somehow a sleazy thing to do. Idiot.

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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

Unread post by neoplacebo »

I think it's hilarious that the self styled slayers of rampant voter fraud are sending voting info to nice kittys. There must be a reason for it. -0-?

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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

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The 4th circuit appeals court just threw out the NC voter suppression law that the wingnuts crowed and squawked over. Hilarious.

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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

Unread post by Vrede too »

Alabama to stop issuing driver’s licenses in counties with 75% black registered voters

The state of Alabama, which requires a photo ID to vote, announced this week that it would stop issuing driver’s licenses in counties where 75 percent of registered voters are black....

AL.com’s John Archibald asserted in a column on Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Justice should open an investigation into the closings.

“Because Alabama just took a giant step backward,” he wrote. “Take a look at the 10 Alabama counties with the highest percentage of non-white registered voters. That’s Macon, Greene, Sumter, Lowndes, Bullock, Perry, Wilcox, Dallas, Hale, and Montgomery, according to the Alabama Secretary of State’s office. Alabama, thanks to its budgetary insanity and inanity, just opted to close driver license bureaus in eight of them.”

“Every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters will see their driver license office closed. Every one,” Archibald explained. “But maybe it’s not racial at all, right? Maybe it’s just political. And let’s face it, it may not be either… But no matter the intent, the consequence is the same.” ...

“So roll out the welcome wagon to the Justice Department, and tell the world what it already so desperately wants to hear,” he concluded. “That Alabama is exactly what they always thought she was.”

“That Alabama refuses to pay for its own government, and used it as an excuse to keep black people from the polls. That Alabama hasn’t changed a bit.”
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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

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Having spent a very looooong week in Alabama a couple of years ago, I'm not even mildly surprised, much less shocked. :roll:

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Re: Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.

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Pubs work on plans to outright steal next election.
How in hell are republicans going to steal an election away from a rival political party that can't muster enough interest to get more than two viable candidates? Dems are so fed up with the likes of Obama and his party of yes men that they're defecting to the republicans or going non affiliated. Not that the republicans have a hell of a lot of favorable choices, but there are two that I would vote for over that other sea of circus clowns. "Steal the next election", another crock of horseshit the liberals dreamed up to blame on what will most likely be an embarrassing lopsided defeat.
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