Election Fraud Blog

FREE and open to the public
Organization: WPU Young Democratic Socialists
Host Organization:  Brothers For Awareness, Feminist Collective, Organization of Latin American Students, Young Democratic Socialists,
Contact person: Mike McCabe.
Phone: 201-704-3494, mccabem9@student.wpunj.edu
Website: http://www.ydsusa.org
Start date: November 22, 2008
Location: Shea Auditorium
300 Pompton Rd, Wayne, New Jersey, 07006, United States
Panel start time:
Doors at 2, panel begins at 3.

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The Pits: Georgia’s GOP Swipes the Peach State

by Greg Palast

for SuicideGirls.com - November 5, 2008

The evil little &*%$’s are doing it again.

Even as they drown in the anger of platoons of pissed-off voters, Republican operatives are swiping ballots with both hands.

Ground zero is Georgia.  It’s here where the sick little vulture named Saxby Chambliss won the US Senate seat six years ago by calling his Democratic opponent, a guy who’d lost three limbs in Vietnam, a friend of Osama bin Laden.

There’s no way in hell that Chambliss can slime his way back into the Senate in the face of over half a million newly registered voters (Black and young - 69% for Obama) without jacking them out of their votes.  That’s what the Republicans are up to.  Right now.  As we speak.

Over 50,000 the new voters in Georgia have been blocked from voting by using a nasty little new law, the Help America Vote Act signed by George Bush.  (Bush is helping us vote - look out!)

I just got this from Christina Rush in the Peach Pit state:

“They really have stolen my vote and I don’t know what to do about it at this late stage. I just found out 2 days ago that I do not exist on the voters rolls in Georgia. I have disappeared. After calling 866-OUR VOTE and the Secretary of State (for GA), it has been determined that the last vote I was accounted for was the 1996 General Election. That’s awfully strange to me, considering that I voted in the recent Primaries and that last two General Elections (2000 and 2004).”

“Everyone is ‘very sorry’ this is happening, but no one can tell what I can do to make my vote count for THIS election. The only advice I’ve been given is to fill out a new voters registration form and I’ll be eligible for any future elections, just not THIS one.”

“So, what can I do except tell anyone and everyone who will listen?”

And no one is going to listen to you or the other 50,000 dumped voters in Georgia.

But here’s the good news:  it won’t save them.  The GOP is toast. Paint the White House black and blue and Congress the same hue.

But the steal in Senate races may allow the GOP to savage, obstruct, sabotage President Obama’s ability to repair the damage of eight years of looting by the unelected junta of the Bush regime.  They begin with the theft of the Georgia Senate seat, now heading into a run-off.

* * *

I’ve been studying the purge of voters and the blockade of new registrants all year with my co-investigator, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  Here’s what we know is happening: While Obama is brushing his tux for his Inaugural, several million votes are getting disappeared.  We’re awaiting the count on provisional ballots, those bouncing baloney ballots they give to the purge, The raw data is ill-making.  We predicted a six-million vote heist and we’re looking grimly accurate.  Visit our site, www.GregPalast.com, to get the full report as the numbers come in - the totals of the UNcounted you won’t see on the CNN website.

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Sign up to receive the Greg Palast’s investigative reports for BBC Television and Rolling Stone Magazine at www.GregPalast.com Palast is a Nation Institute/Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow in investigative reporting.

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by Greg Palast

No question, Mr. Bruce was my favorite teacher in junior high.

I went to this Loser-ville school in the San Fernando Valley.  It was all Chicano kids and working class white losers like me.  Everyone had to take ‘metal shop’ so we could work the bottom-end jobs in the Chevy plant.

My brain was dying - until Mr. Bruce showed up, the new science teacher.  DOCTOR Bruce, actually - the only Ph.d teacher in the place.

At lunch hour, instead of hanging out in the teachers’ lunchroom, Mr. Bruce would invite me and my friends into his classroom.  Over coffee made on a Bunsen burner, he would talk about topics from Einstein to Buddha while munching on this strange stuff called “organic” food.

He was simply like no adult I’d ever met - an exceptional guy who could make us dull-brained students sizzle.

My parents had him over for Sunday brunch and he talked about his work as a ‘honey-dipper’ in the Deep South where he grew up.  The honey-dipper was the guy who hunted for lost glasses and whatever else was dropped in outhouse cesspools.  Dr. Bruce said he enjoyed the work because it taught him pleasures of quiet grace, of dignified acceptance.

The kids were crazy about him, but not all the parents.  Some called to complain about the school hiring him.

So he left.   Months later, Mr. Bruce mailed me a letter from Japan where he’d taken a university post.
It’s odd, but it was only this year that I put it all together:  his exclusion by the other teachers, his job as a honey-dipper, his need to escape America.

Dr. Bruce, of course, is Black.

So, I’m going to do something that Dr. Bruce would think little of.  I’m going to vote for the Black man.

Because he’s Black.

The truth is, I’m wary of Barack Obama.  His cozy relations with the sub-prime loan sharks who funded his early campaign; his vote, at the behest of his big donor ADM corporation, for the horrific Bush energy bill.

But there’s one thing that overshadows policy positions, one thing he cannot change once in office:  the color of his skin.  The same as Mr. Bruce’s.

I’m going to say something that I know the Obama campaign will just hate; but that many others are feeling but won’t say out loud.  We must vote for Barack Obama because he’s Black.

For four centuries, our nation has poisoned itself with the corrosive venom of racism.  From the slave trade, to our still-segregated schools, to the Bush family stealing the White House by cynically, and sinfully, calling Florida Black voters felons; to the exile of a brilliant science teacher four decades ago.

The time has come to cleanse the wound that will not heal.

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Greg Palast’s investigative reports appear on BBC Television and in Rolling Stone Magazine.  Palast is the co-author, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., of “Steal Back Your Vote,” the investigative comic book available for no charge at StealBackYourVote.org and www.GregPalast.com

Palast is a Nation Institute/Puffin Foundation Fellow for investigative reporting.

Zach Roberts the Palast office’s producer is not voting for Obama. You can go to his blog, www.ZDRoberts.com to find out why.

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Do you think your vote’s going to count this year? Think again. Unless you take action now, your vote may already be lost. Award-winning investigative journalist Greg Palast, who uncovered exactly how the election was “won” in 2000, teamed up with activist, attorney, broadcaster and writer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to find out if democracy was in a better state eight years on. In their report, which was published this month in Rolling Stone, they concluded that the 2008 Election had already been stolen. They are now challenging you to steal it back.

“If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat John McCain at the polls — they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering,” Palast and Kennedy summarized. But all is not lost — yet. To this end, the dynamic duo prepared an adult comic, Steal Back Your Vote, which outlines the six ways these thieves (who would call themselves “patriots”) are trying to deprive you of your vote, and empowers you with seven ways you can snatch it back.

We checked in with Palast, a self-styled Sam Spade-like detective turned writer (he started out as a corporate investigator), to get the skinny on this 2008 election crime wave (and, no, the criminals aren’t members of ACORN).

Read the interview at SuicideGirls.com

See the rest of the (SFW) photos at our Flickr page

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From Greg Palast’s and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s investigative comic Steal Back Your Vote!

Copy it, print it out, spread it everywhere - and download the complete 24-page comic for free at www.StealBackYourVote.org. Hope isn’t enough.  Rove-proof your ballot.

And get a stack of print copies before we run out. Hand’m out on the voting line - non-partisan, so it’s OK. We’ll send them out via priority mail in time for the election. (Donate $100 and get a free copy of The Election Files DVD)

1. Don’t don’t don’t Mail In Your Ballotâ€"unless…

For those of you who mailed in your ballot, please tell me, what happened to it?  You don’t know, do you?  I can tell you that officially, three-fourths of a million absentee ballots were never counted last time, on the weakest of technical excuses. And you won’t even know it. Furthermore, tens of thousands of ballots are not mailed out to voters in time to return them - in which case you’re out of luck.  Most states won’t let you vote in-precinct once you’ve applied to vote absentee. Every time I hear of a voter going “absentee” to avoid computer screens, I want to “go postal” myself.

But for gosh sakesâ€"don’t throw out  your ballot if you have a mail-in. Either mail it in, making sure to include ID if required (you first-time voters) or, better, WALK it into your county clerk’s office.

2. Vote Early…very early

Every state now lets voters cast ballots in designated polling stations and at county offices in the weeks before Election Day.  Do it.  Don’t wait until Election Day to find out you have the wrong ID, your registration’s “inactive,” or you’re on a challenge list. By Election Day, there’s little to do but hold up the line.

3. Register and Register and Register

Think you’re registered to vote?  Think again. With all this purg’n going on, you could be x’d out and you won’t know it.  Check online with your Secretary of State’s office or call your County Board of Elections. Then register your girlfriend, your wife, your mailman and your mommy.  Contact the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the League of Women Voters, and your local party organization, and commit to a couple of days of door-to-door registration, especially in minority neighborhoods or at social service agency offices. And if you’ve served the time, you can sign: in almost every state, ex-cons can vote.

4. Vote Unconditionally, Not Provisionally

In 2008, they’ll be handing out provisional ballots like candy, especially to Hispanic voters.  If your right to vote is challenged, don’t accept a provisional ballot that will likely not get counted no matter what the sweet little lady at the table tells you. She won’t decide; partisan sharks will. Demand adjudication from poll judges on the spot; demand a call to the supervisor of elections; or return with acceptable ID if possible. And be a champ: defend the rights of others.

If you’ve taken Step 1 above and voted early, you have Election Day free to be a poll watcher. Run into trouble­â€"you’ve been caged or purged or challengedâ€"call  Election Protection at 1-(866) OUR-VOTE. Then challenge the challengers, the weird guys with Blackberrys containing lists of “suspect” voters. Be firm, but  no biting.

5. Occupy Ohio, Invade Nevada

The revolution will not be podcast. Let go of that mouse, get out of your PJs and take the resistance door-to-doorâ€"to register the vote, to canvass the voters, to get out the vote.  Donate time to your union (if you’re not in a union, why not?) or to the troublemakers I’ve already listed here and on our site. This may seem a stupendously unoriginal suggestion, but I know of no other method more effective for confronting the armed and dangerous junta that has seized the White House.

6. Date a Voter

Voting, like bowling and love, should never be done alone. As our sponsor, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, says, make a date to ‘Arrive with Five.’ And keep this comic book in your holster - with our 800 numbers and your photo ID in your hand. And Bobby, make sure your ID says, “Robert Kennedy JUNIOR” or your vote is toast.

7. Make the Democracy Demand: No Vote Left Behind!

I have this crazy fantasy in my head. In it, an election is stolen and the guy who’s wrongly declared the loser stands up in front of the White House and says three magic words: “Count the votes.” You can have all the paper ballots in the world, but if you don’t demand to look at them, publicly, in a recount, you might as well mark them with invisible ink. Democracy requires vigilance The Day After. That’s when you check in at www.stealbackyourvote.org one more time.

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Fired US Prosecutor levels new charges against GOP operatives.

Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Huffington Post

Virtually the entire mainstream electronic media drank ACORN Kool-Aid this month brewed up by the Republican National Committee. Almost no one seriously challenged John McCain’s comical assertions that ACORN, a grassroots voter registration group, “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.”

While the Republicans had the distracted media searching for links between Obama and ACORN, RNC operatives were busily completing one of the most massive voter suppression and purging efforts in American history, stealing hundreds of thousands of Democratic votes across the embattled swing states and striving to arrange chaos and endless lines at the voting booths next week.

First the facts about ACORN. Months ago, we obtained, as part of our investigation for Rolling Stone magazine, the Republican’s list the GOP alleged were the very worst cases of vote and registration fraud by ACORN and similar groups. We went through the names the GOP asserted were “obviously, undeniably and clearly fraudulent” voter registrations.

First, there was Melissa Tais, a dubious ACORN registrant. Her two voter registration forms show, admittedly, suspiciously different signatures. Republicans suggested Melissa was part of a massive fraud to allow Democrats to vote twice.

They were wrong. Ms. Tais, a Cerrillos, New Mexico, waitress, told us she had signed one form on a table and one form holding the paper in her hand. Hence, a second, wobbly signature.

Then there was Patricia White, who Republicans claimed was a fictitious voter. When we filmed her at home in Albuquerque, she seemed real enough.

And so on, through the entire GOP list — not one fraud. And these were their best cases out of the five million “illegal voters” who Republican leaders claim have infiltrated America’s voting rolls.

The overblown histrionics about ACORN do not surprise those of us who have been watching the RNC’s election manipulation antics. For eight years White House operatives have been trying to gin up press stories about voter fraud. David Iglesias of New Mexico was one of seven U.S. Attorneys fired by the White House for their refusal to bring voter fraud prosecutions. “We took over 100 complaints,” from the GOP, he told us, “We investigated for almost 2 years, I didn’t find one prosecutable voter fraud case in the entire state of New Mexico.”

Iglesias, a McCain supporter, has, for the first time, leveled a new and serious charge: Despite finding none of the 200 voters guilty, he says the White House nevertheless ordered him to illegally prosecute baseless cases against innocent citizens, just to gin up voter fraud publicity. His refusal, he says, cost him his job. “They were looking for politicized — for improperly politicized US attorneys to file bogus voter fraud cases.”

Read the rest of the article at HuffingtonPost.com

Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are authors of an investigation of vote suppression in the current Rolling Stone, and a comic book voter guide, “Steal Back Your Vote,” both available for download at StealBackYourVote.org.

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Excerpted from Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Steal Back Your Vote” investigative comic. You can download all 24 pages at www.StealBackYourVote.org.

Odd thing about the 207 voters of precinct 999 in Dona Ana County, New Mexico.

Not a single one could choose between George Bush and John Kerry in 2004.

Or at least that’s what their ballots said.

The Secretary of State at the time told me, “Some of those people just can’t make up their minds.” Dirt-poor Dona Ana is 63% Hispanic and the precinct is made up entirely of overseas voters, mostly the Chicano soldiers in Iraq or on duty. The machines say that Hispanic soldiers don’t care who becomes their commander-in-chief.

Or maybe, the machines failed to register their votes.

Few Americans realize that in 2004, 1,389,231 ballots were never counted because they were “spoiled.” How do ballots spoil? They get left out of the ‘fridge? No, they’re supposedly unreadable, blank, or just somehow lost in the machines.

Here’s an unfun fact: not everyone’s vote spoils the same.

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission found that the chances of an African-American voter losing their vote is 900% higher than a white voter. Hispanic votes vanished at a rate 500% higher than Anglo votes.

Something’s rotten.

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Go to www.StealBackYourVote.org to download the guide for free or pick up print copies of the investigative comic book by Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  Every donation you make for copies of the comic allows us to send more out to low income groups in states like Ohio, New Mexico and Colorado.

Get the guide now - all copies will be sent out via priority mail. If your group would like to distribute the Steal Back Your Vote guide please contact keri (at) gregpalast.com for special rates.

After you’ve picked up the comic book get the t-shirt. Wear it into the polling place and tell them that they can’t steal your vote! Support the fund by picking up the Steal Back Your Vote t-shirt by the cool people over at Clothing for the American Mind. A portion of every purchase goes to support the Palast Investigative Fund.

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So, these ten nuns walk into a polling station and… Oh, you’ve heard that one?

What you didn’t hear is that, besides the Sistersof the Holy Cross who lost their vote because their drivers licenses expired, 144,896 other legal voters were told to scram in this year’s primary â€"all caught attempting to vote without a license. The rejected were, disproportionately, African-American,according to data from the University of Washington.

Apparently, the idea for this racially rancid rule came to Karl Rove while he was buying his Pampers: “If I try to cash a check at a grocery store, I have to show an ID. Why not for voting?”

The answer, Karl, is that for a century, Indiana folks have voted without photo ID with not a single known case of voter identity theft. It’s true the law nabbed Shirley Preiss, a 98-year old Democrat whose driver’s license expired. Drop that ballot, Shirl, and no one gets hurt.

Santiago Juarez sees some truth in Rove’s remarks. We met with Santiago in Espanola, New Mexico, where he was running a registration drive among low-riders, the young Mexican-Americans who cruise the street in hopping, bopping, neon-outlined Chevys. He says, “The same poverty and racism that keeps these kids from getting credit cards keeps them from getting ID.” A young Mexicana he escorted to the polls was turned away from her first-ever attempt to vote for failure to produce an ID to the white pollworker’s satisfaction, despite Santiago’s protest.

“She said, well, something you can’t print, and refused to try again. She said, ‘They don’t want me to vote, anyway.’”

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