patrick.net

DO you want to claim that you understand what they did exactly and what potential impact it had on elections ?

(that is other than the actual impact of registering democratic voters (the evil bastards)).

Thomas, what ever you do, don't read any stories on this from legitimate sources. You might learn exactly what crime was committed and what crime wasn't.

We are talking voter registration fraud. Basically extremely small time cheating.

IT was wrong (at the level of individual small time cheaters). But luckily (or coincidentally) it allowed them to shut down an organization that was registering a lot of democratic voters (ie voters in poor neighborhoods).

I know, I know. You aren't going to get it. You can't get it. I do feel sorry for you.

Yes, Virginia, There Really Is Voter Fraud

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/286557/yes-virginia-there-really-voter-fraud-hans-von-spakovsky

Eric Shawn at FOX News reports that two Troy city officials, the city clerk and a councilman, along with two Democratic political operatives, have pled guilty to forging absentee-ballot signatures and casting fraudulent ballots in the 2009 Working Families Party primary. The WFP is the political party associated with ACORN.

One of the citizens whose votes were stolen was stunned at what happened. She said that she was “sure this goes on a lot in politics, but it’s very rare that they do get caught.” This voter was right on the money with that observation — fraud is so easy to commit in our election system that it is rare that fraudsters get caught and even rarer that they get prosecuted.

As for the constant liberal claims that voter fraud does not occur, one of the Democratic operatives who pled guilty, Anthony DeFiglio, told New York State police investigators “that faking absentee ballots was a commonplace and accepted practice in political circles, all intended to swing an election.” And whose votes do they steal? DeFiglio was very plain about that: “The people who are targeted live in low-income housing, and there is a sense that they are a lot less likely to ask any questions.”

That is exactly what former Alabama congressman Artur Davis said recently when he admitted that he was wrong to oppose voter-ID requirements. Davis says the “most aggressive” voter suppression “is the wholesale manufacture of ballots, at the polls and absentee, in parts of the Black Belt” of Alabama, which is an area of very poor black communities. These are the very areas where the NAACP claims voter fraud does not happen. The NAACP opposes all reasonable measures to safeguard the voting process for its own constituents, even going to the extent of defending vote stealers, as the NAACP did in Greene County, Ala., in the mid-1990s. Small wonder one of its local officials was recently sentenced to five years in prison for voter fraud in Tunica County, Mississippi.

http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/is-voter-fraud-a-real-problem/voter-fraud-is-a-proven-election-manipulation-tactic

Voter Fraud Is a Proven Election Manipulation Tactic

The Supreme Court answered this question in 2008 when it upheld Indiana's voter ID law. "Flagrant examples of such fraud … have been documented throughout this Nation's history by respected historians and journalists," the court said, "[and] not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election." But ask voters in Troy, N.Y., Lincoln County, W.Va., and Florida whether voter fraud is a real problem.

Four local officials and party activists were convicted in 2011 of voter fraud in Troy for forging enough absentee ballots to "likely have tipped the city council and county elections" in 2009. Two veteran Democratic political operatives said voter fraud is an accepted way of winning elections. One of them who pled guilty, Anthony DeFiglio, told police that such fraud was a "normal political tactic."

Changing the subject I see, since the whole acorn thing didn't pan out ?

thomaswong.1986 says

Four local officials and party activists were convicted in 2011 of voter fraud in Troy for forging enough absentee ballots to

Was that something that voter ID laws would have prevented ?

What is it ? Are you now arguing that voter ID laws instituted weeks before an election aren't about voter suppression ?

I know it's not becasue you're embarrassed by the behavior of republicans.

marcus says

Changing the subject I see, since the whole acorn thing didn't pan out ?

where is Acorn today ? Gone! all due to their culture of corruption.

marcus says

Was that something that voter ID laws would have prevented ?

that should be obvious "the bigger picture" what the benefits of ID laws for its citizens would provide

.... real documented citizens given proper access to voting, fast tax refunds, proper distribution of the SS benefits and medicare not to mention access to other benefits when needed. Certainly we would have saved $ 3.4B fraudulent tax refunds and $12B in false Medicare claims. That kind of money could better serve the poor who really need it. All you need is an Citizen ID system. We have the means and it wouldnt cost the govt a dime!

It all makes sense... if the private sector has controls which work, it certainly wouldnt pain the government to adopt equal measures to ensure proper govt operations.

It fucking petrifies the Left that American business can do it cheaper and more efficiently.

Yes, American Industry did that ! That is why the Left is so afraid of Romney....

marcus says

voter suppression

no.. its just good business and best practices in operations....

The Supreme Court has upheld such laws, ruling in 2008 that "the inconvenience of making a trip to the DMV, gather the required documents, and posing for a photograph surely does not qualify as a substantial burden on the right to vote, or even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting."

Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito concurred with the plurality opinion, and noted "The burden of acquiring, possessing, and showing a free photo identification is simply not severe, because it does not 'even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting.'"

Recent studies have shown little to no evidence that voter integrity efforts hurt minorities. In fact, new photo ID laws in Georgia, Indiana and Mississippi resulted in higher black voter turnout in subsequent elections.

thomaswong.1986 says

the inconvenience of making a trip to the DMV, gather the required documents, and posing for a photograph surely does not qualify as a substantial burden on the right to vote, or even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting

Nonsense. This is why reasonable people question last minute proposals of ID laws. In Los Angeles, you have to schedule an appointment over the phone 3-4 weeks ahead just to get in a 4 hour line at the DMV, usually requiring you to take a day off from work.

It's instructive that these voter ID laws never get time on the floor until September/October every election year.

thomaswong.1986 says

Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito concurred

Laws have been repealed. Prohibition was overturned. Judges can be jesters.

Philistine says

Laws have been repealed. Prohibition was overturned. Judges can be jesters.

And many stay on the books for a long long time ... because they make sense.

Philistine says

In Los Angeles, you have to schedule an appointment over the phone 3-4 weeks ahead just to get in a 4 hour line at the DMV, usually requiring you to take a day off from work.

Thats LA..dysfunctional as hell and thankfully LA does not represent rest of the USA..

AverageBear,

Jumping in... where has this Thomas PROVEN voter fraud at the retail level to be a huge problem requiring measures?

I have relatives in North Carolina where just about every election there's some vague allegations of fraud. Which never pan out. It must be painful to be GOP in that situation. Sad really, I'd think they'd want mandatory IQ testing of GOP politicians by now or lie detectors on a regular basis to explain why their people are such miserable failures at catching the rampant long-term voter-fraud machine they think exists.

But it's enough to MISDIRECT PEOPLE and make them run in circles doing ineffective things isn't it. Best to keep the peasants busy. That explains the TSA and lots of other GOP handiwork.

To more directly answer the original post, which is why the GOP might disintegrate is that unless they decide to switch gears and start appealing to a wider demographic, they will simply lose relevance. The plan they've used for decades is to appeal mainly to one single demographic. That demographic could almost always be counted on to vote for them and since at one time were the most significant as a percentage meant they would usually stand a good chance of winning on that alone.

The problem for them is that by the nature of the country's changing demographics, the groups that the GOP tends to not appeal to are growing in size and significance. A quick glance at any video or image of a GOP event clearly shows an almost exclusively singular demographic. Democratic events on the other hand are very mixed and diverse. So with the shift in population, this means that unless the GOP changes the appeal they have- which as mentioned is only to one specific group- then they will simply lose relevance.

Those in the GOP aren't dumb. I would wager that this will be the last election that the GOP will continue on with business as usual and there will likely be a significant change in their tactics the next cycle.

edvard2 says

Those in the GOP aren't dumb. I would wager that this will be the last election that the GOP will continue on with business as usual and there will likely be a significant change in their tactics the next cycle.

Disagree. A chunk of GOP will have to DIE or be forcibly deposed, before a significant change will occur. The "deport all wetbacks" crowd to name just one, isn't going to change their rhetoric one bit. They expend a LOT of effort on purity testing in the primary process to see to it, that no candidate with truly liberal views on immigration gets near the nomination.

I had respect for the 'old school' Republicans, even though I disagreed with them on policy issues. This new crowd is just off the rails insane.

thomaswong.1986 says

And many stay on the books for a long long time ... because they make sense

Deliberately missing the point. The reason laws can be repealed is that they are not the infallible word of God. Just because something is illegal does not make it necessarily wrong. Just because something is not illegal, does not necessarily make it right.

But the plutocrats that write Grover checks put a lot more zeros on them than the bottom economic and low-information voters of the right wing.

Remember: The 2 people that are running as republicans for the president and vice-president are.......

(president)Mitt Romney, cult member AND leader, and who was passed over by John McCain and the republican party in favor of SARAH PALIN in 2008!!!!

And,(vice-president)Paul Ryan, whose only big-boy job was driving the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile around and handing out free samples of their Lunchables. But hey, sucking up to the Koch brothers pays better than placating the extremists.

It kind of makes Obama and Biden look like a shoe-in.

upisdown says

It kind of makes Obama and Biden look like a shoe-in.

They would be, except for ObamneyCare. The irony of that is, the Republicans nominated the only other person in the country who ever signed the same thing. So, while most people don't support it, they're caught between the candidate who supports it currently and the candidate who alternates between supporting it, promising to repeal all of it, promising to keep parts of it, promising to repeal it again...

When one major party goes totally bonkers, you might expect the other to win easily, but in practice the entire two-party system loses.

thomaswong.1986 says

Acorn worker WAS convicted of voter fraud.

No, he was convicted of voter registration fraud. Very different.

How many illicit votes were cast as a result of this fraud...

...zero.

Vicente says

The "deport all wetbacks" crowd to name just one, isn't going to change their rhetoric one bit. They expend a LOT of effort on purity testing in the primary process to see to it, that no candidate with truly liberal views on immigration gets near the nomination.

The term 'wetbacks' often spoken by native Californian born Mexican-Americans back in the 70s. The same native Californians who been here for several generations.

Anyway, its common sense to deport since illegals are legal citizens of a foreign govt.

As for immigration, we have legal process in place which allows plenty of Asian, Europeans, and Latin Americans to come to our nation... LEGALLY!

AverageBear says

But basically, we all agree that as one of "heads" of the househould, that when we pay our bills on time, live within our means, have no debt (or no crushing debt) we are considered smart. When we try and expect this same quality/trait from our gov't, we are considered 'extreme' or 'cultish'. WTF? Not being owned by China is 'cultish'?

Did you vote for Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. then? Let's review things.
The past 50 years to 2010
repulican democrat
yrs as president 28 22
tot jobs created 24 m 42 m
st market return 109% 992%
return p/yr 2.7% 11%
GDP growth p/yr 2.7% 4.1%
income growth p/yr 0.6% 2.2%

sourcs: Dept. of Labor, and Bloomberg

Reagan debt increase: 1st term-49%, 2nd-40%
Bush Sr debt increase: 33%
Bush Jr debt increase: 1st term-23%, 2nd-19%

87% of interest paid was on debt incurred by Reagan, Bush Sr, and Bush Jr., or $8400 Billion.

AverageBear says

No, I think the fiscal conservative that DID exist in the Democrat party has been lynched, so to speak.

Why do or did you vote for ANY of those three republican preidents above if you are even remotely worried about the national debt???

AverageBear says

I love it when liberals equate fiscal responsibility with 'cult'. I mentioned the following in a thread here on Patrick.net over the summer, and i don't think many liberals had much to say (I'll have to go over my comments to confirm this)... But basically, we all agree that as one of "heads" of the househould, that when we pay our bills on time, live within our means, have no debt (or no crushing debt) we are considered smart.

The problem with that sort of assumption is that for some reason a lot of Republicans automatically assume that their party somehow is the party that's all about fiscal responsibility when in fact their party spends like drunken sailors and often on pointless programs and efforts. Their party is no angel when it comes to fiscal responsibility. Yet they continually complain whenever a Democratic Presidents is in power and say nothing when a Republican gets elected and spends like mad.

thomaswong.1986 says

Anyway, its common sense to deport since illegals are legal citizens of a foreign govt.

Why GOP so harsh in jabber about seriousness, and PURITY of approach, but unwilling to attack it that way?

Anytime GOP'er talks about drugs, they like the idea of taking down kingpins. Maximum bang for buck, locking up scumbags, etc. etc. Would you let dealers skate free and only with users "throw away the key"? No.

Talk about HUGE FINES & JAIL TIME for employers of illegals and suddenly GOP'ers want to change subject. It's not hard, walk into any chicken-processing plant in Georgia or Alabama and ask why nearly all the employees speak only Spanish and have fake papers and who hired them. Arrest that person, because there's no frickin' way they were TOTALLY FOOLED several hundred times. Repeat that in public examples and your "problem" will vanish in a few years.

They should "self-deport" that's the most lily-livered hypocrite line I've heard recently from RMoney.

AverageBear says

I love it when liberals equate fiscal responsibility with 'cult'.

Norquist runs a BS CULT, because "fiscal responsibility" would mean a balanced budget and that returning taxes to Reagan-levels ALONG WITH budget cuts would be acceptable to get there. His hardline "cut taxes always" stance is lunacy of the sort like "let's balance our household budget by cutting our income, THAT'LL solve things". Norquist cult detached from reality wants to implement only the easy popular part and we'll get around to the real meat after we're all dead right? Likes to cut taxes & blab about deficits, doesn't want to make hard choices and do anything about it. Name me a major cut in a large budget category the GOP has carried out in the last couple decades. GOP should "die by it's sword" and actually try to implement it's alleged hardline position by cutting SS & Medicare & defense, then they'll get my respect back and I'll remove the cult label.

Vicente says

Anytime GOP'er talks about drugs, they like the idea of taking down kingpins. Maximum bang for buck, locking up scumbags, etc. etc. Would you let dealers skate free and only with users "throw away the key"? No.

Drugs... you could start by napalming the Heroin fields in Afghanistan and the Coca fields in Columbia and Bolivia... after all who would complain ?

I would call that maximum bang for the buck...

Barlowe says

Nice, and now the Dems got caught red-handed admitting to forging utility bills to get around Virginia's Voter ID law:

Where's the mug shot, arrest info, and police report......if that really happened?

Barlowe says

Hmm...seems to be that the onus on disproving such things rests with those who make the accusations.
So, in that light: please prove that the Dem Field Operations guy caught red-handed isn't really a Dem Field Operations guy and prove that he was lying.
Good luck with that.

You posted the video and are making the claim that it is real, true and valid. So, not only do I not have to prove anythng, but what was supposedly done on the video is a felony, and yet...........no arrest, police report or even a major media story about the incident since the election is less than 2 weeks away. Huh, none of those things are available or provided, just some hack putting a video on youtube.

Or are you trying to claim that if the video is actually real, what was alledged is NOT illegal?

AverageBear says

it's clear Thomas is clearly showing you TONS of evidence of voter fraud. Your attempt to label voter fraud as "criminial in a misdeameor kind of way" is hilarious.

Okay, so what I hear is that you also don't want to understand what the registration fraud (not voter fraud) was, that some acorn people were guilty of.

This means that you didn't read my comment any further, so I will do the same with you. Not reading any further. Good luck with your closed minded emotion filled point of view.

Poor saps want to justify introducing voter ID rules right before an election when the expected result is obvioius to all.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/9BovRXWemws

And then they want to remind us of the heinous crime of registration fraud perpetrated by acorn back in 2008 (good thing ACORN was stopped !!!).

And they want to tell us that type of voter fraud, the kind where individuals actually go in and represent a fraudulent voter on election day is real and significant.

What, all of this because you know you are a member of the the party that has ablolutely no moral compass. The party that could care less about real American vaues ? When you kill voting and fair elections, it's over.

And about voting machines. I don't know who is at fault or which side benefits, but how is it that there is even any question about technology used in tabulating vote counts ??

Really !!??

2012, and we are insecure about the integrity of our elections more than ever because we can't figure out a 100% safe way to count votes ?

WTF ?

MAybe part of the plan, in a post 1984 world is that if you are going to rig elections you have to hire dozens of dimbulbs to hit the various blogs and forums with claims that

"Oohhh it's the dems that want to cheat, they are the ones that rig elections. Acorn 2008. Chicago 1960,....etc...."

Barlowe says

After the O'Keefe video exposing the Dems s

Anything O'Keefe says is as best a half truth and grossly distorted. He made is own bed on that one...

And we pride ourselves on being the model for the world and what, we supposedly set the standard for how democratic elections should be done ?

I looked it up.

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/12/james_okeefe_violates_election_law_to_prove_liberals_violate_election_law/

O’Keefe has pretty clearly violated the law and TPM reports that a federal prosecutor is reviewing his video. But at least he finally proved that voter fraud is a very real threat, and one that could lead to upward of a couple of phony ballots being cast in a statewide primary election, depending on how many registered voters died quite recently. As we all know, once you prove that something is hypothetically possible, it is a factual certainty that ACORN has done it.

And that new voter ID laws right before a PResidential election that is sure to skew the election by at least 10s of thousands of votes, is justified.

Barlowe, you are only proving one thing...and it's about your intelligence.

Okay, so it was a later pathetic attempt by Okeefe you were referring to . I don't need to watch the video to know how stupid it is. Here is a summary.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-okeefe-patrick-moran-voter-fraud-20121024,0,1553017.story

The younger Moran doesn't tell the man that what he's planning is illegal, immoral or wrong. Instead, he tells him it would be "tough" and that he'd be better off spending his time and energy getting those 100 voters to the polls. He also encourages him to help Obama's get-out-the-vote efforts in Northern Virginia, which his father represents.

But as the man persists, Moran gets drawn in and tells him that he'd need to forge utility bills or bank statements in the names of the would-be voters. He also tells him to call them to make sure they haven't voted already and weren't planning to.

I get it, that one idiot he found, was an idiot. But it looks like even after he gets sucked in, the underlying message is that it wouldn't be worth it.

"Moran gets drawn in and tells him that he'd need to forge utility bills or bank statements in the names of the would-be voters. He also tells him to call them to make sure they haven't voted already and weren't planning to."

later in that article...

In short, the video makes the case that, when measured in terms of risk versus reward, in-person voter fraud makes no sense. But then, if people like the younger Moran are stupid enough to entertain the idea of committing voter fraud at the prompting of someone they meet in a cafe, then maybe they'd miss that point too.

Lets compare shall we? Disenfranchisement at the hands of Republicans vs Voter Fraud (all reported cases of fraud, whether they were found to be valid or not, and assuming 100% of the fraud is by Democrats) Note that I took the low estimate of disenfranchisement and the high estimate of fraud...

AverageBear says

I love it when liberals equate fiscal responsibility with 'cult'.

Yeah, wasn't Clinton the one who umm... actually balanced the budget and ran a surplus for a bit?

Please don't think I am berating your tea toting comrades, but I feel like those beating the drum of austerity simply don't get how economies work, particularly the US one. The US is, and has nearly always been, a demand based economy. Every attempt at supply side economics has been a spectacular flop with the CBO recently putting the final nail in that coffin.

The best indicator of what the economy will do (this goes for the housing market too IMHO) is consumer sentiment. So when the economy tanks, your number one priority should be to get as many people as you can back in a position to buy more stuff.

Now given that the US budget measures discretionary spending (the stuff presidents actually can control) in fractions of a percent, you simply can't get there through austerity. You just can't cut enough stuff, because too much of the budget has become 'untouchable' (ie defense). Even the evil muslim Obama dares not touch defense spending and it has increased modestly each year.

So your only alternative is to improve wages and lower unemployment, both of those require the govt to kick in something in the way of spending or stimulus.

And for what its worth, this liberals house is as fiscally responsible as it gets. We buy everything (including our rental properties) in cash.

Vicente says

AverageBear,

Jumping in... where has this Thomas PROVEN voter fraud at the retail level to be a huge problem requiring measures?

I have relatives in North Carolina where just about every election there's some vague allegations of fraud. Which never pan out. It must be painful to be GOP in that situation. Sad really, I'd think they'd want mandatory IQ testing of GOP politicians by now or lie detectors on a regular basis to explain why their people are such miserable failures at catching the rampant long-term voter-fraud machine they think exists.

But it's enough to MISDIRECT PEOPLE and make them run in circles doing ineffective things isn't it. Best to keep the peasants busy. That explains the TSA and lots of other GOP handiwork.

--------------------------------
Well Vicente,

it didn't take long for me to find you some more proof of voter fraud. The link below confims voter fraud in my own back yard, so to speak. Keep in mind that the link doesn't point to Fox News; it points to the local Boston Fox affiliate, which is far from right-leaning. I didn't even have to look for voter fraud; it found me. But God forbid the Boston (-Democrat) Globe picked up the story, which it spiked instead. The silence is deafening...Why are liberals afraid to prove identity when it comes to voting? The link below give you the answer...

http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/20001618/2012/11/05/non-citizens-registered-to-vote-in-lawrence-but-officials-shrug

The GOP won't disintegrate, they'll simply say, like every time they lose an election, that they should have ran a "Real Conservative" for President.

Specifically, Romney was a Health Care Reformist, thus a RINO, and a Heretic Mormon to boot. They'll probably say that Ryan should have been the candidate.

thunderlips11 says

The GOP won't disintegrate, they'll simply say, like every time they lose an election, that they should have ran a "Real Conservative" for President.

Specifically, Romney was a Health Care Reformist, thus a RINO, and a Heretic Mormon to boot. They'll probably say that Ryan should have been the candidate.

I'm sure you are right, but why are they so quite now? If they think the hard-right message is the winner, why aren't they pushing Romney to deliver it? If that's what they REALLY believed the would be RIGHT NOW demanding that he denounce Obama as a Marxist Muslim, no? Why aren't they demanding that he loudly declare global warming a fraud? Why did they stay quiet, or even cheer, when Romney madly dashed to the center at the first debate?

Here's David frum on the same page as me:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/02/a-pre-election-challenge-for-real-conservatives.html

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Shostakovich says

The only way the GOP can win is if Ryan leads the ticket and replaces the platform with a paperback copy of The Fountainhead and eats a black baby on ESPN2.

I'm encouraged to see that there is at least one true believer with the courage of his convictions :-)