There are compelling events and the data, the statistics, that give them credibility will not appear in any polls, will not be discussed by any of the Talking Lips on the never-ending cable channels… and they all point inexorably to a Barack Obama victory in November.
I am not talking about somebody’s opinion. I am talking about somebody’s fact; somebody’s proof; something that has no “fair and balanced” other side to consider.
You must first clear out, sweep away your preconceived notions. Stop with the “Yes, buts….” Followed closely by your reasons why the facts won’t hold up in this election. Just examine these facts for what they are – facts. And deal with it.
There are 42 million registered Democrats in America, and only 31 million registered Republicans – that was as of the 2006 US Census. You want to argue with the Census folks, go ahead, but these are the facts. So, if all the Democrats voted for Obama and all the Republicans voted for McCain… well, McCain would need to find 11 million votes somewhere, just to get back to even, wouldn’t he? Why won’t you find this in the polls? Because the polling companies set their samples with an equal number of Democrats and Republicans or a very slight sample weight in favor of the Democrats, but nothing that matches the statistics.
What about the growth of the so-called Independent vote, those voters who register to vote and list themselves as being “Independent” having no party affiliation? What about this “growth?” Talk of it is a hoax. It’s a myth. How can I say this? Because in 28 states, when someone registers to vote, they are asked to indicate their party affiliation, if they have one. Since 2006 has there been no growth among registered Independents. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Since the elections of 2006, there has been a decrease in voters listed as Independent. How big a decrease? How does 900,000 voters sound? That’s how many fewer registered Independents there are now than there were two years ago. Where did they go?
Since 2006, there have been more than 2,000,000 new voters registered in the Democratic Party. At the same time 900,000 Independents have taken their names from the rolls or changed their party designation. Perhaps, they’ve become Republicans? Don’t hold your breath. In these two years, the Republican Party has lost 344,000 registered voters. So, that’s minus almost a million Independents and nearly 350,000 Republicans… against a gain greater than 2 million for the Democrats. These are not opinions; these are facts.
Records are kept, you know. In every state except North Dakota, voters are legally required to register before voting. In North Dakota you just walk-up and vote. In 28 states, registered voters are asked to name their party.
Just where have the Democrats made these huge gains while the Republicans were losing registered voters? Because, if the Democrats have gained a lot of Californians or New Yorkers, well then – who cares? They already have those states. That won’t help them.
The facts show the Democratic Party’s biggest gains are in the very swing states they need to take to win in 2008. For example: Big gains have been registered in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Colorado and Florida. In a very important Red state that might go Democratic in 2008, North Carolina, the Democrats have gained 167,000 newly registered voters. The Republicans? In North Carolina, they gained 36,000 new voters. That’s a possible gain for Obama of 131,000 votes in a state Bush carried twice and McCain must win in order to win the Presidency.
In Pennsylvania, a state Obama needs to hold, Democrats have registered 375,000 new voters. And the Republicans? They’ve added 116,000 new voters. In the Keystone state, the Democrats have added to their winning margin a net total of 259,000 new voters.
In Virginia, a state that – if Obama wins there – means he will probably be the next President, they do not have party registration. But, of the 235,976 newly registered Virginia voters, as of August 1, 2008, the great majority of them live in the five northern Virginia counties in the Washington area, counties that are normally heavily Democratic. In 2004 Bush won Virginia by only 262,000 votes.
In Ohio, which decided the 2004 election, a new Democratic Governor and a Democratic Secretary of State have put together a new kind of election for 2008. Using the Supreme Court ruling that allows college students to register and vote where they attend college, this time Ohio will allow all of it’s 470,000 college students to register and actually cast their ballot at the same time, on Election Day. Pre-registration is unnecessary. Courts have already ruled that the Ohio officials are within their authority to do this and to officially count the votes as they are cast, and include these vote counts in the state totals, prior to any challenges, should there be any.
In 2004, Bush carried Ohio by a mere 118,000 votes.
In the key Southern state of Georgia, where voters also register without naming their party affiliation, there have already been 337,000 new voters registered since 2006.
There has been very little talk at all about Black voters in this election. In many states there are enormous numbers of unregistered blacks 18 years old and above. In Georgia alone, the figure has been put at 600,000. The Census shows that nationwide 39.1 of all eligible blacks are not yet registered to vote. That number gets smaller every day.
The number of potential new black voters is measured in the millions across the states. Even a moderately successful registration drive among these voters has the promise of turning a number of states to the Obama side and keeping many traditional Blue states from changing color.
The three states with highest percentage of unregistered voters – Ohio, New Mexico and Colorado - are all swing states and each has a substantial minority population.
Why won’t you see any of these data in the political polls? Because the polling companies draw their sample universe from registered voter lists as of the previous election. None of the newly registered are considered in any of these polls.
These are the facts. If you’re a Republican, how do get around them? If you’re a Democrat, you should be very happy.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
OUR QUESTIONABLE HISTORY OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
The results of American Presidential elections have never been as simple, straightforward, clean and uncluttered as many might believe. The media impression especially, of our history of elections, is overwrought with both certainty and patriotic zeal. Our first 4 elections were filled with confusion and desperation, partly because Electors were chosen by the states, without popular elections, and when they voted, they cast 2 votes – 1 for President and 1 for Vice President – but they didn’t vote twice! They just cast 2 ballots each. Thus, in 1800 the Electoral College ended in a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, each with 73 votes. The House of Representatives had to settle the matter, which they did by voting 10-4 in favor of Jefferson. But, even then, in the House vote, 2 states decided not to vote for either candidate. They abdicated their responsibility, letting the other 14 states make the decision.
Even in our very first Presidential election, in 1789, while George Washington did receive 69 votes, 18 other men also received Electoral Votes and – strange as it may be to believe – 24 Electors refrained from voting at all! For example, New York appointed its 8 Electors too late for them to be recognized as authorized voters. They were denied standing, refused certification, and not allowed to vote at all. So, in the very first Presidential election in our history, the State of New York, and therefore all its people, went unrepresented. If Washington was to be “The Father of His Country,” New York must have been raised by a single mother.
Again, in 1792, 6 Electors abstained from the vote for reasons left unrecorded. In the next election, in 1796, John Adams squeezed by Thomas Jefferson 71-68, but what’s largely been forgotten is – Thomas Pinckney got 59 votes; Aaron Burr got 30, Samuel Adams got 15; Oliver Ellsworth got 11; George Clinton (who got 50 Electoral Votes in 1792) got another 7 and 15 other men also got votes. Confusing? You bet. And then came the 1800 tie with Jefferson and Burr. After that, the Constitution was amended to choose the Vice president separately from the President and everyone thought things had been fixed.
There are no reports of the popular vote until the election of 1824. Many still think of that election as the most corrupt in our history. Andrew Jackson, the Hero of the War of 1812, won the popular vote with 41%. John Quincy Adams received only 30% of the popular vote, but the election went to the House of Representatives, just as it did in 1800, and Adams was named President over Jackson. Unlike Al Gore in 2000, who met the same fate with respect to the popular vote, Andrew Jackson spent the next 4 years telling anyone who would listen that the American people had been robbed of their vote. Jackson never conceded, never gave in to his “defeat.” In 1828, Jackson was redeemed, trouncing Adams in a rematch 56%-44%.
In the years preceding the Civil War, we had a series of minority Presidents – that is to say, Presidents who failed to capture a majority of the popular vote. Presidents Polk, Fillmore and Buchanan all won with less than 49% of the vote and then came the pivotal election of 1860. Abraham Lincoln emerged as President, in a contest among 4 candidates, but Lincoln scored an all-time low for any winner getting only 39% of the vote.
Following the reunion of The Union, and up to the turn of the century, we had a series of corrupt Presidential elections in which the “winner” of the popular vote was twice denied the Presidency – in 1876 and again in 1888 – and in the last 25 years of the 19th century we had 5 Presidents with a minority of the popular vote – Hayes in ’76; Garfield in ’80; Cleveland in ’84; Benjamin Harrison in ’88; and Cleveland again in ’92.
In the new century, the US went into a World War in Europe under a minority President. Woodrow Wilson barely won the 1912 election with 41% of the vote. Teddy Roosevelt had 27% and Wm. Howard Taft got 23%. The 1912 election was perhaps our most democratic ever. Even the Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs was able to garner 6% of the popular vote. Nevertheless, Wilson won and assumed the Presidency with a majority of the country against him. Running for reelection as a wartime Chief Executive, Wilson won a second term, but still failed to break the 49% barrier.
More recently, after World War II, we went through another half-dozen Presidents who failed to get a majority of Americans to actually vote for them. Harry Truman got 49% in 1948; JFK also got 49% in 1960; Richard Nixon got only 43% when he won in 1968; and both our most recent Presidents have been minority vote getters. Bill Clinton, although elected twice, got only 43% of the vote in 1992 and 49% in 1996. Of course, in the election of 2000 we saw – for the 4th time in our history! – a “winning” President who didn’t manage to beat his opponent in the popular vote. George W. Bush won in 2000 with 47%, but more than a half-million votes less than cast for Al Gore. Gore chose a different path from that taken by Andrew Jackson 176 years earlier. Instead of standing up for the many millions of Americans who voted for him, Gore went on to explore other interests. Quite rightly, he has vanished from electoral politics since.
What does this portend for the next Presidential election? Does it signify anything? Some believe the 2008 election will be a landslide – not even close – while others think it will end up with as narrow a victory as we have seen in 2000 and 2004. Whatever your prediction, it appears that the “loser” in 2008 may get as many as 60 million Americans to vote for them. No matter who wins, tens of millions of our fellow citizens will not be happy with the result.
If those who look for a very close contest turn out to be right, they will have guessed in accordance with our 219 years of a checkered history of Presidential election results, and therefore, another such questionable decision should not surprise anyone.
Even in our very first Presidential election, in 1789, while George Washington did receive 69 votes, 18 other men also received Electoral Votes and – strange as it may be to believe – 24 Electors refrained from voting at all! For example, New York appointed its 8 Electors too late for them to be recognized as authorized voters. They were denied standing, refused certification, and not allowed to vote at all. So, in the very first Presidential election in our history, the State of New York, and therefore all its people, went unrepresented. If Washington was to be “The Father of His Country,” New York must have been raised by a single mother.
Again, in 1792, 6 Electors abstained from the vote for reasons left unrecorded. In the next election, in 1796, John Adams squeezed by Thomas Jefferson 71-68, but what’s largely been forgotten is – Thomas Pinckney got 59 votes; Aaron Burr got 30, Samuel Adams got 15; Oliver Ellsworth got 11; George Clinton (who got 50 Electoral Votes in 1792) got another 7 and 15 other men also got votes. Confusing? You bet. And then came the 1800 tie with Jefferson and Burr. After that, the Constitution was amended to choose the Vice president separately from the President and everyone thought things had been fixed.
There are no reports of the popular vote until the election of 1824. Many still think of that election as the most corrupt in our history. Andrew Jackson, the Hero of the War of 1812, won the popular vote with 41%. John Quincy Adams received only 30% of the popular vote, but the election went to the House of Representatives, just as it did in 1800, and Adams was named President over Jackson. Unlike Al Gore in 2000, who met the same fate with respect to the popular vote, Andrew Jackson spent the next 4 years telling anyone who would listen that the American people had been robbed of their vote. Jackson never conceded, never gave in to his “defeat.” In 1828, Jackson was redeemed, trouncing Adams in a rematch 56%-44%.
In the years preceding the Civil War, we had a series of minority Presidents – that is to say, Presidents who failed to capture a majority of the popular vote. Presidents Polk, Fillmore and Buchanan all won with less than 49% of the vote and then came the pivotal election of 1860. Abraham Lincoln emerged as President, in a contest among 4 candidates, but Lincoln scored an all-time low for any winner getting only 39% of the vote.
Following the reunion of The Union, and up to the turn of the century, we had a series of corrupt Presidential elections in which the “winner” of the popular vote was twice denied the Presidency – in 1876 and again in 1888 – and in the last 25 years of the 19th century we had 5 Presidents with a minority of the popular vote – Hayes in ’76; Garfield in ’80; Cleveland in ’84; Benjamin Harrison in ’88; and Cleveland again in ’92.
In the new century, the US went into a World War in Europe under a minority President. Woodrow Wilson barely won the 1912 election with 41% of the vote. Teddy Roosevelt had 27% and Wm. Howard Taft got 23%. The 1912 election was perhaps our most democratic ever. Even the Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs was able to garner 6% of the popular vote. Nevertheless, Wilson won and assumed the Presidency with a majority of the country against him. Running for reelection as a wartime Chief Executive, Wilson won a second term, but still failed to break the 49% barrier.
More recently, after World War II, we went through another half-dozen Presidents who failed to get a majority of Americans to actually vote for them. Harry Truman got 49% in 1948; JFK also got 49% in 1960; Richard Nixon got only 43% when he won in 1968; and both our most recent Presidents have been minority vote getters. Bill Clinton, although elected twice, got only 43% of the vote in 1992 and 49% in 1996. Of course, in the election of 2000 we saw – for the 4th time in our history! – a “winning” President who didn’t manage to beat his opponent in the popular vote. George W. Bush won in 2000 with 47%, but more than a half-million votes less than cast for Al Gore. Gore chose a different path from that taken by Andrew Jackson 176 years earlier. Instead of standing up for the many millions of Americans who voted for him, Gore went on to explore other interests. Quite rightly, he has vanished from electoral politics since.
What does this portend for the next Presidential election? Does it signify anything? Some believe the 2008 election will be a landslide – not even close – while others think it will end up with as narrow a victory as we have seen in 2000 and 2004. Whatever your prediction, it appears that the “loser” in 2008 may get as many as 60 million Americans to vote for them. No matter who wins, tens of millions of our fellow citizens will not be happy with the result.
If those who look for a very close contest turn out to be right, they will have guessed in accordance with our 219 years of a checkered history of Presidential election results, and therefore, another such questionable decision should not surprise anyone.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
THE 2008 ELECTION IS THEFT-PROOF!
Many Americans believe, and always will, that George W. Bush, and/or those who represented him, stole the 2000 and 2004 elections. In the key states that decided those contests – Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 – the State Chairmen of the Bush For President Committees were also in charge of counting the votes! I know, that sounds… un-American. But, it’s true. The state Governor appoints or oversees the Secretary of State and it is that Office which is tasked with conducting the balloting, counting the votes, and certifying elections.
Imagine you were running for election, and imagine too, your opponent controlled the apparatus and organization that planned and carried out the election; and then that same opponent counted the votes and told you if you won or not. Sounds like it couldn’t possibly happen – not here in America. Well, it did. It happened just that way in Florida in 2000 and then again in Ohio in 2004. The Democrats played the role of the old Brooklyn Bums – “We wuz robbed!”
The most important lesson of those tainted elections – the American people accepted those vote counts as definitive, never raising a serious protest, never questioning how one contestant could operate the election machinery, then count the votes afterward, and then claim it was a fair and honest procedure. Bush may have “lost the vote” but he “won the count.”
Some are afraid Barack Obama’s campaign may meet a similar fate. They fear he might “win the vote” yet “lose the count.” Don’t worry. That can’t happen this time, not in 2008. Why? Because the Republican Party no longer controls the process in the key swing states.
To win in 2008, the Democrats must hold four states being targeted by the GOP. Each of them were previously won by Kerry and/or Gore and before them by Bill Clinton. Those states are:
MICHIGAN, NEW JERSEY, PENNSYLVANIA, WISCONSIN.
All the other states, plus the District of Columbia, that were carried by the Democrats in the 1990s and by Gore and/or Kerry too, appear safe for the Democratic ticket in 2008.
What makes these four key states theft-proof, besides the expectation that Obama will get more votes in each than McCain will? None of the four – Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin - have Republican Governors. Democrats are in charge of all four state governments which includes control of the vote counting apparatus. Bluntly speaking, the votes cast in Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin will be counted by Democrats.
While Obama/Biden must worry about these four, most analysts agree there are eleven Bush/Cheney states that are potentially vulnerable for McCain. In each, the 2008 Democratic ticket has a real chance to win. These eleven are:
FLORIDA, GEORGIA, NEVADA, COLORADO, KANSAS, MONTANA, NEW HAMSHIRE, NORTH CAROLINA, OHIO, VIRGINIA, NEW MEXICO
In order to win in the Electoral College, the McCain/Palin ticket must hold every one. They cannot afford to lose any of these states to the Democrats. Not a single one. Of course, the question is: Who will count the votes in these eleven states?
Only the first three – Florida, Georgia and Nevada – have Republican state administrations. All of the other eight states have Democrats as Governors and therefore, in all eight, the votes will be counted by Democrats this time, not by Republicans. And, look at that list – this time around it now includes Ohio, which no longer has a Republican Governor and a Republican Secretary of State. The Ohio election of 2008 will be run by Democrats and the votes cast will be counted by Democrats. The GOP cannot steal the state of Ohio in 2008.
How significant is this?
If Obama/Biden carry the 18 states and Washington DC - won by Kerry and Gore (who both lost, remember?) - and then add to that list of Electoral Votes ONLY ONE OF THE 11 TARGET STATES – any one of them! - the Democrats will win the 2008 election. Should Obama win Ohio – it’s over. Win Virginia? Over. Colorado? New Mexico? Any of them – its over.
No matter how you look at it; when the states needed to win are theft-proof; when the Republicans can no longer “lose the vote” and still “win the count,” this is a Democratic year.
Imagine you were running for election, and imagine too, your opponent controlled the apparatus and organization that planned and carried out the election; and then that same opponent counted the votes and told you if you won or not. Sounds like it couldn’t possibly happen – not here in America. Well, it did. It happened just that way in Florida in 2000 and then again in Ohio in 2004. The Democrats played the role of the old Brooklyn Bums – “We wuz robbed!”
The most important lesson of those tainted elections – the American people accepted those vote counts as definitive, never raising a serious protest, never questioning how one contestant could operate the election machinery, then count the votes afterward, and then claim it was a fair and honest procedure. Bush may have “lost the vote” but he “won the count.”
Some are afraid Barack Obama’s campaign may meet a similar fate. They fear he might “win the vote” yet “lose the count.” Don’t worry. That can’t happen this time, not in 2008. Why? Because the Republican Party no longer controls the process in the key swing states.
To win in 2008, the Democrats must hold four states being targeted by the GOP. Each of them were previously won by Kerry and/or Gore and before them by Bill Clinton. Those states are:
MICHIGAN, NEW JERSEY, PENNSYLVANIA, WISCONSIN.
All the other states, plus the District of Columbia, that were carried by the Democrats in the 1990s and by Gore and/or Kerry too, appear safe for the Democratic ticket in 2008.
What makes these four key states theft-proof, besides the expectation that Obama will get more votes in each than McCain will? None of the four – Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin - have Republican Governors. Democrats are in charge of all four state governments which includes control of the vote counting apparatus. Bluntly speaking, the votes cast in Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin will be counted by Democrats.
While Obama/Biden must worry about these four, most analysts agree there are eleven Bush/Cheney states that are potentially vulnerable for McCain. In each, the 2008 Democratic ticket has a real chance to win. These eleven are:
FLORIDA, GEORGIA, NEVADA, COLORADO, KANSAS, MONTANA, NEW HAMSHIRE, NORTH CAROLINA, OHIO, VIRGINIA, NEW MEXICO
In order to win in the Electoral College, the McCain/Palin ticket must hold every one. They cannot afford to lose any of these states to the Democrats. Not a single one. Of course, the question is: Who will count the votes in these eleven states?
Only the first three – Florida, Georgia and Nevada – have Republican state administrations. All of the other eight states have Democrats as Governors and therefore, in all eight, the votes will be counted by Democrats this time, not by Republicans. And, look at that list – this time around it now includes Ohio, which no longer has a Republican Governor and a Republican Secretary of State. The Ohio election of 2008 will be run by Democrats and the votes cast will be counted by Democrats. The GOP cannot steal the state of Ohio in 2008.
How significant is this?
If Obama/Biden carry the 18 states and Washington DC - won by Kerry and Gore (who both lost, remember?) - and then add to that list of Electoral Votes ONLY ONE OF THE 11 TARGET STATES – any one of them! - the Democrats will win the 2008 election. Should Obama win Ohio – it’s over. Win Virginia? Over. Colorado? New Mexico? Any of them – its over.
No matter how you look at it; when the states needed to win are theft-proof; when the Republicans can no longer “lose the vote” and still “win the count,” this is a Democratic year.
Monday, September 1, 2008
ANOTHER FIXED ELECTION IN 2008?
We have a long history of vote counting corruption in American elections. We’re hardly the only ones. Every place that holds elections shares our history. For as long as there have been elections, there have been fixed ones. And the gold standard for stealing an election? Vote fraud. Vote switching; stuffing the ballot box; throwing away votes without counting them.
Supposedly, it was Comrade Joseph Stalin who said:
“It’s not who votes that counts, it’s who counts the votes.”
That aphorism’s authorship may be in question, but whether or not it was Stalin, or somebody else, the truth of it is both certain and certainly accepted. Another example is the quote of an as yet unknown and uncredited winning candidate who is said to have told his losing competitor:
“You won the vote, but I won the count.”
We’ve had our problems especially with Presidential elections. The most famous, or infamous considering the notoriety of the corruption, are the elections of 1800, 1824, 1876, 1960, 2000 and 2004. It does not speak well for the fundamental honesty of the electoral process if a country with only 43 Presidents has had a-half dozen questionable Presidential elections. A margin of error that high - 14% - seems unacceptable for a serious democracy.
Naturally, many of us remember best 2000 and 2004. Some of us recall vividly the massive numbers of “Chicago cemetery votes” that mysteriously appeared about two o’clock in the morning on Election Night 1960. It was those “votes” that made John F. Kennedy President, not Richard Nixon. For us, who do remember JFK’s victory, now almost a half-century ago, Florida 2000 was no surprise. Isn’t it interesting that, with that tainted election, George W. Bush joined another son of a former President, John Quincy Adams, each equaling their father via a questionable election. And, while Ohio 2004 was indeed an outrage, it too was to be expected when viewed through the looking glass of American electoral history. Wouldn’t Chicago’s Mayor Daley or New York’s Carmine DeSapio have been proud of Ohio’s Republicans in 2004?
After any election, how do we know who won? In every election, somebody counts the vote, and some media outlet reports it to you and me – as fact. Have you ever seen a TV announcer report a vote total, in any election, and then say something along the lines of:
“We need to be careful about accepting these vote counts because they may be subject to corruption, machine error, or even simple incompetence.”
Of course you haven’t, and you never will. When you watch your TV screen and you see, for example:
“NBC is calling the state of Florida for George W. Bush.”
Have you wondered why? Have you asked yourself, based on what? Has it occurred to you that neither NBC, nor any media company, has actually counted a single ballot? Have you ever pondered the added question:
“Who is telling them that this is the accurate vote count?”
If we take a moment to listen, Stalin tells how elections are stolen. The vote count is a fake. It’s a lie. So, the question, in an American Presidential election, must be:
“Who exactly is counting the vote?”
The answer is different in every state, yet the key to that answer is the same everywhere. Who is the Governor of the state – a Democrat or a Republican? It is the Governor who either appoints or oversees the Secretary of State, and it is the Office of the Secretary of State that is responsible for counting the votes.
Simply put – the key to stealing an election is the party affiliation of the state’s Governor.
Many Democrats believe that both Al Gore and John Kerry won their elections, but each was denied the Presidency because a key state had its vote “counted” corruptly in favor of the Republican. And many who think that, fear this may happen again in 2008 – they are afraid Barack Obama may “win the vote” but “lose the count.” The Governors of Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 were both Republicans. The Secretary of State in both states was a Republican – and each also happened to serve as the state Chairman of the George W. Bush campaign. It was these same Secretaries of State who supervised the vote counting. Yes, the head of the BUSH FOR PRESIDENT COMMITTEE counted the votes in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004. Bush wins! Bush wins! Wow, what a surprise.
Can this happen – again - in 2008?
No, it can’t!
Read the very next papadablogger for the details that will show you that the Republican Party no longer has the capacity to steal the Presidency in 2008.
Supposedly, it was Comrade Joseph Stalin who said:
“It’s not who votes that counts, it’s who counts the votes.”
That aphorism’s authorship may be in question, but whether or not it was Stalin, or somebody else, the truth of it is both certain and certainly accepted. Another example is the quote of an as yet unknown and uncredited winning candidate who is said to have told his losing competitor:
“You won the vote, but I won the count.”
We’ve had our problems especially with Presidential elections. The most famous, or infamous considering the notoriety of the corruption, are the elections of 1800, 1824, 1876, 1960, 2000 and 2004. It does not speak well for the fundamental honesty of the electoral process if a country with only 43 Presidents has had a-half dozen questionable Presidential elections. A margin of error that high - 14% - seems unacceptable for a serious democracy.
Naturally, many of us remember best 2000 and 2004. Some of us recall vividly the massive numbers of “Chicago cemetery votes” that mysteriously appeared about two o’clock in the morning on Election Night 1960. It was those “votes” that made John F. Kennedy President, not Richard Nixon. For us, who do remember JFK’s victory, now almost a half-century ago, Florida 2000 was no surprise. Isn’t it interesting that, with that tainted election, George W. Bush joined another son of a former President, John Quincy Adams, each equaling their father via a questionable election. And, while Ohio 2004 was indeed an outrage, it too was to be expected when viewed through the looking glass of American electoral history. Wouldn’t Chicago’s Mayor Daley or New York’s Carmine DeSapio have been proud of Ohio’s Republicans in 2004?
After any election, how do we know who won? In every election, somebody counts the vote, and some media outlet reports it to you and me – as fact. Have you ever seen a TV announcer report a vote total, in any election, and then say something along the lines of:
“We need to be careful about accepting these vote counts because they may be subject to corruption, machine error, or even simple incompetence.”
Of course you haven’t, and you never will. When you watch your TV screen and you see, for example:
“NBC is calling the state of Florida for George W. Bush.”
Have you wondered why? Have you asked yourself, based on what? Has it occurred to you that neither NBC, nor any media company, has actually counted a single ballot? Have you ever pondered the added question:
“Who is telling them that this is the accurate vote count?”
If we take a moment to listen, Stalin tells how elections are stolen. The vote count is a fake. It’s a lie. So, the question, in an American Presidential election, must be:
“Who exactly is counting the vote?”
The answer is different in every state, yet the key to that answer is the same everywhere. Who is the Governor of the state – a Democrat or a Republican? It is the Governor who either appoints or oversees the Secretary of State, and it is the Office of the Secretary of State that is responsible for counting the votes.
Simply put – the key to stealing an election is the party affiliation of the state’s Governor.
Many Democrats believe that both Al Gore and John Kerry won their elections, but each was denied the Presidency because a key state had its vote “counted” corruptly in favor of the Republican. And many who think that, fear this may happen again in 2008 – they are afraid Barack Obama may “win the vote” but “lose the count.” The Governors of Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 were both Republicans. The Secretary of State in both states was a Republican – and each also happened to serve as the state Chairman of the George W. Bush campaign. It was these same Secretaries of State who supervised the vote counting. Yes, the head of the BUSH FOR PRESIDENT COMMITTEE counted the votes in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004. Bush wins! Bush wins! Wow, what a surprise.
Can this happen – again - in 2008?
No, it can’t!
Read the very next papadablogger for the details that will show you that the Republican Party no longer has the capacity to steal the Presidency in 2008.
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