Now we need to impliment them before the election is held. We have already had two previous fraudelent elections. Can we stop a third one?

by nightgaunt (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 448 comments [27 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Aug 16, 2008 at 2:10:56 PM

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However if we can stick to progressives and a new congress we might have a shot at reform next year. Remember many of these have to take place at the state level in each state because the federal government does not manage the actual elections. 

That is mostly a state function.  Most of the people you elect except for the president are elected in the states.

 The hope would be for a federal law that mandates certain minimum standards for all elections requiring the states to implement them.

On the subject, I think the states should pay their senators and representatives in DC, not the federal treasury. And prohibit any but cost-of-living index raises while any rep. is in Congress.

by Paul Kruger (39 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 304 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Aug 16, 2008 at 3:14:04 PM

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....good ways to attempt to avoid election manipulation, but they do not address the problem of election theft.

For example, retaining the ballots does nothing more than allow us to prove afterwards that an election was stolen and that a candidate was fraudulently installed in office.

It does not provide us with any way to remove them during their term of office, regardless of malfeasance, violations of the oath of office, high crimes and misdemeanors, war crimes, treason, or kicking little old ladies in the teeth. That would require extensive Constitutional amendments or perhaps even a new Constitution, as our Constitution does not allow us to remove or recall a President, Vice-President, or Member of Congress from office. Only Congress itself can do that. You could compare it to an employer hiring somebody on the basis of a contract that says that no matter what they do, the employer cannot fire them, that only they have the power to terminate their own enployment regardless of their job performance or lack thereof. No sane employer would hire anyone on that basis.

Our only recourse in the event of stolen elections is to wait until the thief's term of office expires and then try to oust them by voting in yet another election where the same conditions apply. We may be able to prove the theft after the fact, but we have no means of preventing the theft or of getting our property back.

I've compared this to our credit card laws. If a thief steals your identity and runs up huge bills on your credit cards, all you have to do is report it and the cards are canceled immediately and you are responsible for no more than $50 of the debts you didn't authorize.  But when a thief steals an election they can continue running up debts on the national treasury at taxpayer expense for their entire term of office and the taxpayer is responsible for those debts. It is as if you reported the theft of the national identity and running up trillions of dollars in unauthorized debt on the national treasury, only to be told that the law says that you may not cancel those credit cards, that the thief must be allowed to continue running up debts in your name for their entire term of office, and that you must be responsible for those debts. Imagine if you reported your credit cards stolen and were told that the law said that you may not cancel the cards, that the thief has to be allowed to continue to run up unauthorized debts on your credit cards for four to eight years, and that you will be personally responsible for those debts. Nobody would use credit cards if the credit card laws were the same as our election theft situation.

That's why in Consensual Political Intercourse, I advocate that people not vote in November.  Since we have no recourse once the theft occurs, our only option is to prevent the theft, and no amount of election observation or documentation can accomplish that.

The only thing we can accomplish by voting in November is to allow another election to be stolen. And the only possible way we can prevent that theft is by not voting. If we boycott the election, the government cannot claim to have been democratically elected or to have the support of the American people. As long as we continue to allow elections to be stolen, they will be.

Trillions of dollars, millions of lives, the future of our country, and probably the future of the world is at stake. We simply cannot afford to allow another election to be stolen.

If we are successful in boycotting the election, the government will still install the candidates in office, but they will not be able to claim that we granted them our mandate and authorized them to continue running up debts in our name. Until and unless the Constitution is changed so as to limit our liability in the event of election theft, we have no other viable options.

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Saturday, Aug 16, 2008 at 4:42:32 PM

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It is not just OK to use paper ballots, it should be required. But those ballots must be counted by hand, slowly and carefully and if it takes a week, so what!  Computers must not be used at all in any part of the voting or counting. The emotion of the moment and pressure by the press to announce a result is overwhelming and a major dispute would result if the decision were debated about whether to do a manual count following what SOME would regard as a dubious automatic (computer) count. There is no such thing as a paper trail. What is recorded on the paper may not be the same as that which is recorded in the computer and the rush to provide results will absolutely overwhelm any attempt to make an honest count by counting the paper ballots. This is a psychological fall-back position by those who have thoroughly rigged the voting process in addition to dozens of other brilliant maneuvers.

by JAMES MCGHEE (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 16 comments) on Saturday, Aug 16, 2008 at 5:52:43 PM

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