The Republicans’ next tactic to delegitimize the election

And so it begins.

If they can’t get their way with Voter ID laws designed to suppress Democratic votes, Republicans are setting the stage to blame what is shaping up to be Mitt Romney’s loss on the voting machines.  And as is usually the case when the Republicans start screaming about vote fraud, there is no there there.

The Republican National Committee alleges voting machines in Nevada and five other states are flawed and improperly showing votes for President Obama instead of GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

In a letter sent Thursday to state election officials, the RNC’s chief counsel says a “significant number” of cases have been reported of votes being placed for Obama when a voter cast a ballot for Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

Here’s the thing: Even if this were true – glitches do happen sometimes – this isn’t a problem in Nevada. We use voter-verifiable, paper-trail voting machines. In fact, the machines provide a two-step double-check, the first being where the voter reviews their ballot on the large touchscreen, and again, a second time by viewing the print-out that scrolls under the plastic window to the left of the touchscreen.  At both of these verification points the voter has the opportunity to go back and change or correct any of their votes before officially casting it.  If any person casts a vote for the wrong candidate after being given TWO chances to correct it, well, I’m sorry, but that’s on them.

And it appears, that hasn’t happened at all.

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said his department has had about four complaints of the 400,000 ballots cast this election. In every instance, the issue was corrected before the voter cast his or her ballot, he said.

Four out of 400,000.

Hardly the “significant number” the RNC letter alleges.  And each vote was corrected before it was cast.

The Republicans are also trying to imply that the machines are not well-maintained and glitchy.

The RNC asks that machines be recalibrated and voters be reminded to double-check their choices before their votes are recorded.

Lomax said it is possible for the machines to fall out of sync, but the county recalibrates the voting machines at least once a day.

As far as demanding that “voters be reminded to double-check their choices before casting their votes,”  as I mentioned above, that process is already built into the voting process.

Did they run this by Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) before going down this road?

In 2003, when the state decided to go completely to the touchscreen voting machines, there was a hue and cry from all sides of the political spectrum about the need for voter-verifiable machines and that meant a paper trail. I remember going to town halls and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, and Non-Partisans who were determined that the integrity of their votes would be protected.  It was so loud and so bipartisan (poli-partisan?) that county clerks and registrars across the state were set back on their heels by the people of Nevada.

From an article in the Reno Gazette-Journal in December 2003:

“A paper trail is an intrinsic component of voter confidence, ” Heller said in explaining why he insisted that Sequoia–which already has nearly 3,000 machines installed in Clark County– include the receipt printers on new machines for the upcoming elections. The printers must be added on existing machines by 2006.

Heller mentioned the Florida elections in 2000, saying, “The Florida debacle and the chaos created by the’hanging and pregnant chad’controversy clearly demonstrate the need to move forward with advanced technology.”

While the printers add to the cost of the voting systems, Heller said “money takes a back seat to accuracy, security and voter confidence.” The printers let voters see their ballot choices before finalizing their votes.

The decision to go with Sequoia machines was based in part on a review by the state Gaming Control Board’s slot machine experts who issued a report saying the Diebold machine that was analyzed “represented a legitimate threat to the integrity of the election process.”

Marc McDermott, the GCB’s electronic services division chief, said the Sequoia machine”represents a much more secure option.”

From USA Today in 2004:

[Secretary of State Dean] Heller purchased the equipment in December, after his staff conducted town hall meetings and solicited comments from voters. The feedback came after voting activists discovered security breaches and conflicts of interest among executives at voting equipment companies, particularly Ohio-based Diebold Inc.

“Voters were very vocal in their concerns about paperless electronic voting,” Heller said at a Carson City community center where voters received red, white and blue “I voted touchscreen” stickers as they left the polls. “Diebold’s controversies were on the leading edge of voters’ minds.”

Voter advocates praised Nevada’s system, in which paper records will be kept in county election offices for 22 months and used in case of a recount.

For the RNC to come in now and try to pull this shit just shows how desperate they are.

We don’t need no stinking vote

Jeebus on a triscuit (H/T lambert)

House plan to pass health care raises constitutional questions

As the battle over health care legislation built Monday toward a weekend crescendo, congressional Democrats considered trying to pass the controversial Senate version without voting for it, a tactic that Republicans and independent analysts warned could be politically treacherous and perhaps unconstitutional.

Look Dems, you either have the votes, or you don’t. Don’t pull this shit. As always, the “cry wolf” Republicans are ready to jump and scream, so I’m not listening to them, but I find it incredible that House Democrats are too chicken-shit to stand up and be counted. I mean, really, if this bill is All That, what’s the problem? Obviously, the Democratic leadership has done a vote count and come up short, and as happened about twenty-two months ago, they’re not going to let a little thing like the will of the voters stop them. There is a principle here, and like the Republicans before them,  the Democrats have shown principles are disposable in pursuit of their ultimate goal.

Under the plan, the House of Representatives would approve the Senate bill by “deeming” it to have passed as part of a separate measure governing the rules of a House debate on a follow-up health care measure. That follow-up legislation will be designed to change certain controversial portions of the Senate-passed version, a path more palatable to House Democrats who fear that voting for the Senate bill could backfire against them in elections this fall.

The maneuver would enable House members to avoid casting a politically risky vote on the Senate package, and to say they voted only for the more popular follow-up measure.

“Many of our members would prefer not to have voted for the Senate bill,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson of Connecticut. Once the Senate legislation is “deemed” to have passed as part of the rule governing debate, the House would vote only on the follow-up health care measure, known as a budget “reconciliation” bill.

You know, that “reconciliation” bill also known as Lucy’s football. 

“This sort of thing does happen all the time. But in the health care debate, Republicans have been effectively arguing Democrats are using exotic procedures to pass important legislation,” said Ross Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. “That’s a tough argument to refute.”

Legal experts also raised concerns.

Michael McConnell, a professor of law at Stanford University, wrote Monday in The Wall Street Journal that such procedures are unconstitutional. He cited a 1998 Supreme Court ruling that once one house of Congress approves an “exact text,” the other house must pass “precisely the same text” before the president can sign it into law. That’s been the generally understood principle of how a bill becomes a law for centuries.

However, Pamela Karlan, a professor of public interest law at Stanford, wasn’t so sure. “It’s kind of complicated,” she said, because, she and others said, it’s not entirely clear what “same text” or “exact text” means.

Well, I may not be sure of the exact meaning of “same text” or “exact text” but I do know that the two bills are not identical, not even in spirit. If it were a matter of punctuation or different words saying the same thing, I could understand using this process. But the Senate bill and the House bill are Not The Same Bill. The difference? For starters, the House bill has a public option, watered down though it may be. The Senate bill does not.  The Senate and House bills have different rules on how much insurance companies can charge different age groups. There are many other differences that escape me now, but to “deem” that the Senate bill has already passed is a con of massive proportions.

But I guess, when your party has already indicated that votes don’t matter, and gotten away with it, what’s to stop Dems from doing it over and over again?

No Ed, that’s not how it’s done.

Anniversary

A year ago today I was sitting in my mother-in-law’s home in the upper reaches of Pacific Heights on the lovely island of Oahu watching the charade otherwise known as the meeting of the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee. That day I lost my political identity.

A year ago today I emailed the DNC:

To think that the party I’ve stood by for 35 years really didn’t mean it when it comes to voting rights makes my blood run cold. I can no longer continue in good conscience as a Democrat and will be re-registering as an Independent at the county clerk’s office this week.

What dakinikat said:

We will be paying for this most undemocratic of decisions for years to come.   We could have had a President that supports Abortion Rights and Universal Health Care.  We could have had a President that refused to vote for FISA.  We could have had a President that wasn’t controlled by lobbyists, Wall Street Fat Cats, and was a policy wonk extraordinaire.

What are they so afraid of?

Why will they not allow an honest-to-goodness roll-call vote and maybe, just maybe, settle this once-and-for-all? Nope, they’d rather have forced “unity.”  From the AP:

Barack Obama campaigned in Iowa just days before claiming the party’s presidential nomination, while his representatives worked with former rival Hillary Rodham Clinton’s camp on a deal to give her some votes in the roll call for the nomination — but to then quickly end the process in a show of unanimous acclamation for Obama.

Just a reminder, even in 2004, with John Kerry effectively the party’s nominee from March on, there was still a state by state roll-call vote. Throwing a few crumbs to Hillary, rather than honoring her historic achievement, is not going to win over her supporters. 

This is bullshit.

Edited Post – On principles, emails and Obama

I am editing this post as I violated a trust in posting a portion of a private email. That was wrong of me, and I publicly apologize. What follows is a condensed version of my original post. I think it important to keep this part, because the arguments I heard from my friend are ones that I have heard over and over again, and I’d like my words to stand.

My answer below is to those who are encouraging me to support Obama in the General Election and who think that those of us who are struggling with whom to support in the general, or who have made their decision not to support Obama, to leave the Democratic Party, or what ever other road they have taken are doing it merely out of spite or anger about our loss. What follows is my opinion, and again, I apologize for the trust I violated.

Dear Obama supporters:

This isn’t about Hillary. It is about something much larger. It is about the Democratic Party. And it is about principle. I have been a member of the Democratic Party since I was eighteen years old and first registered to vote. That would be 1974, right at the end of the Vietnam War. We fought to get 18-year-olds the vote, because, gee, if one was old enough to die in a war, shouldn’t they be old enough to vote?

I joined the Democratic Party because it was as close to my hippy/social justice/progressive ideals as I could find: Civil rights, women’s rights, environmental care, workers rights, equal opportunity, education, fair play, etc.

Yes, My Party is supposed to stand for certain key issues, chief amongst them: women’s rights and voting rights. This primary has shown me that the Democratic Party, while full of real people down here on the ground who genuinely care about these issues, has leaders that will stand silently by while one of their own is slandered in the media and by surrogates of the Obama campaign. The sexism and outright misogyny of the MSM, and the willingness of the Obama campaign to paint two of the most devoted civil rights activists in the Democratic Party, Bill and Hillary Clinton, as racists was beyond the pale. The inference also that anyone who supported her was either racist, uneducated or a dried up old feminist, didn’t win any brownie points either. I’ve been through a lot of contentious primaries, but I’ve never been on the receiving end of such vitriol from members of my own party.

However, the final straw that broke my Democratic back was the RBC meeting in which the committee met behind closed doors, came up with their own solution, held a sham of a public hearing and then awarded delegates to Barack Obama that were not his, even as defined by the “RULES” that the Obama people, and a personal note from Howard Dean to me, kept telling me HAD to be followed. From the moment when the DNC RBC made the decision back in 2007 to slash the Florida and Michigan delegations I have opposed the move. What happened on May 31st was just the final nail in the coffin. To blatantly disregard their own rules about “uncommitted” delegates and award them to a candidate who removed himself the ballot. Barack Obama was not “left off” or “removed” by some subterfuge of some demonic “other” but by his own choosing, even though he was under no obligation to do so. It was a bad campaign strategy, but the RBC chose to reward him for it. You do know that the highly vaunted “rules” allow for uncommitted delegates to attend the convention if they reach a certain threshold of support, usually 15%, which was more than met in Michigan with 40% of the votes going to “uncommitted.” The rules do not allow the DNC, the RBC, to allocate those delegates to a candidate. Nor do the rules allow the RBC to use some arbitrary finger in the air method to divine voter intent and take legitimately earned delegates from one candidate and award them to another.

This is the heart of the matter. It matters not to me that Obama may eventually have won. The finger the RBC put on the scale to shove Obama over the finish line is unforgivable (pardon the mixed metaphor) and goes against everything our democracy stands for. In 2000 when the Supreme Court stopped the counting and awarded the presidency to Bush, I was physically ill for weeks. But I thought it was just “them” – the evil Republicans. Until now. Now I see that the Democratic Party is not above thwarting the will of the voter either.

Worse yet, the Democratic Party no longer has the moral authority to lecture the Republicans about election fraud because the actions of the DNC and the Rules and Bylaws committee. This is the bigger picture. Not a Democrat in the White House.

You all keep reminding me of what’s “at stake.” My thoughts:

Iraq: Obama claims he was against the war from the beginning based on ONE speech he gave in a very liberal district in Illinois. What peace marches did he lead? What editorials did he write? More importantly, what has he done since being in the U.S. Senate to give anyone the idea that he is vehemently opposed to the war?

The Environment: He voted FOR Cheney’s oil bill. Clinton and McCain opposed it. He supports nuclear and clean coal.

Economy: He voted against the 30% cap on credit card interest rates. He said it was because it was too high. Really? At least it would have been something rather than the NOTHING we have now. Clinton supported it. I have no confidence in his ability to turn the economy around.

Women’s Rights: Obama says that woman should have “some” control over their bodies. WHAA? He voted “present” on key choice bills in Illinois. Frankly, I am not sure where he stands. And the fact that he stood silently by while the MSM savaged Hillary speaks volumes.

Choice: Though I am past the point personally of needing to worry about this issue, however, in many parts of our country the right to choose has been severely crippled, and for all intents and purposes, Roe-v-Wade does not exist for many women. Yet Roe-v-Wade still “stands.” For too long this issue has been used as a club by the left AND the right to keep their respective constituencies in line and coming out to vote. You all just can’t hold that over our heads any more.

Gay rights – You do know who Donny McClurkin and Rev. James Meeks are don’t you? You do know that Obama would not get his picture taken with Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco. I hardly think Obama is a friend of the gay community. Yes, I know he’s given some anti-homophobia lip service, but again, words vs action. It’s very important to me.

Respect around the world: It is Bush and his neocons that have destroyed it. I do not think that John McCain, should he be elected, will be the bellicose child that GW is.

Health Care for all – Hillary’s passion is health care and she promises universal health care. Obama says we can’t do it and he’s not even going to try. John Kerry, the last Democratic nominee I campaigned for (even though he was my fourth choice) says Hillary’s plan was DOA in the Senate. Say what? A core Democratic ideal is DOA? One that’s been in our party platform since 1948? DOA? Are you kidding me?

Barack Obama will not get my vote, not just for the sort of campaign he ran, but for many of the reasons you bring up. He can put anything he wants on his web site, but they really are “just words” because I have not seen anything in his actions that tell me he is nothing more than an opportunist, with a paper thin resume, who is willing to throw key Democratic constituencies as well as his own family and life-long friends under the bus in order to win. When I began to examine the candidates, and though I opposed the AUMF vote and was deeply disappointed at the time with Hillary’s vote, I took a look at the bigger picture and found Hillary’s commitment to core Democratic issues compelling.

Furthermore, what is Obama’s signature issue? I can’t figure that out either. What is his “baby?” What is the issue he is most at home with, knows details no one else does? Has taken fire for?

I wanted to be able to support Obama, and in fact, did not begin this primary season feeling as I do now. His 2004 speech at the Democratic Convention thrilled me and I thought that he would be a rising star and followed him closely, but once he got to the Senate, he continually disappointed me as just another go-along-to-get along Democrat. A year after he began in the Senate, he already had his eye on the next prize, so much so that he couldn’t be bothered to call any meetings of the NATO sub-committee he was given chairmanship in January 2007 because, as he ADMITS, he was too busy running for President. Hillary, on the other hand, managed to call several hearings of her sub-committee during the same time when she also was running for President. You see? She’s the wonk. She’s the work horse. She honored her New York constituents by continuing to do the job they sent her to Washington to do, even while running for higher office. I don’t support her because she is a woman. I support her because she is the most qualified, most issue-oriented, most willing to put in the hours needed for the American people. Next in line of experience? John McCain.

Finally, if John McCain is elected, it is the duty of a Democratic-controlled Congress to keep the President in check, but based on the actions of the Democratic majority these past two years, I see little hope of that happening. However, hope springs eternal and to that end I will be supporting Democrats down-ticket and hope that a larger majority might help them to locate their spines. That’s the best I can do.

And in the meantime, I’m saying what I’ve heard many say before me and never understood before: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, it left me.” Man, I owe those people an apology.

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Illegitimate

Anglachel nails it. Again.

Think about this. Really think about this. A committee of people, behind closed doors and under pressure from a specific candidate to shore up his crumbling support, has functionally declared Michigan’s votes null and void and has reallocated the delegates to suit themsleves. The will of the people was considered advisory, not definitive, and the will of the committee was substituted. As for the argument that “the state wanted this outcome,” it doesn’t hold water. This outcome was not on the ballot. Obama did not put himself up for a vote at the time of the initial primary, nor would he agree to doing so when there was time to organize a second primary. His solution was simply hand him half the delegation and fuck the voters of Michigan. It is no consolation that he didn’t get all of the delegates he wanted to steal, just most of them.

Again, the RBC handed out delegates to a candidate who removed himself from the ballot and who will not accept the penalties of his campaign choice. They have removed delegates earned by one candidate and handed those delegates to the other person because they want him to be the winner. They did this to prevent the popular vote winner from earning her fair share of delegates and to force her out of the race.

I myself made the mistake of focusing on the four hand-over delegates yesterday, when the fact is Obama did not deserve a single delegate from Michigan. He removed himself from the ballot to game the system, which removed any legitimate claim he had to the votes, but his fixers in the DNC gave him more delegates than he would have won had he competed. I have said before that I think Obama could have won a revote outright, but why bother with all that campaigning and earning votes crap if your buddies will just hand you delegates?

If the DNC is claiming the authority to reallocate delegates based on what they believe voters would have wanted had things been different, then what is the point of the delegations? Why not, as Hartina Flournoy someone (Ickes, I think) scathingly said in the meeting, just decide the votes for 2012 while you’re at it?* Why bother with primaries at all if certified votes are merely advisory and you can decide what the people really want?

How is this any different than the Supreme Court declaring that Florida went for Bush no matter if a ballot recount showed it going for Gore?

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Yes, she does

Lead in the popular vote count, that is. Now that Michigan and Florida have been recognized (cough) by the DNC, we can now add in the popular vote from those two primaries into the popular vote count. I pulled my data from RealClear Politics, but corrected the final PR total to the total after 100% of Puerto Rico’s votes were counted per CNN.

Popular Vote Clinton	11,129,044
Popular Vote Obama w/o MI	10,684,839
Difference	Clinton +444,205

Okay, but what if we add in Michigan’s 238,168 uncommitted votes to Barack’s column? Now, since he removed himself from the ballot, the Michigan Secretary of State didn’t award them to him, but let’s pretend we’re the DNC and give him the votes he forfeited. What do we get?

Popular Vote Clinton	11,129,044
Popular Vote Obama w/ MI	10,923,007
Difference	Clinton +206,037

Whoops! Looks like she wins all that one too.

ETA: Even if you add in Obama’s estimated gain of 110,224 votes from the IA, NV, WA and ME caucuses (per RealClearPolitics*, he is still down 95,813+ votes.

*The estimate from these four Caucus states where there are not official popular vote numbers increases Senator Obama’s popular vote margin by 110,224. This number would be about 50,000 less if the Washington primary results from February 19th were used instead of the Washington Caucus results.

My email to the DNC

Sent just a few minutes ago…

I am appalled at the ruling by the Rules and Bylaws Committee today in which both the Florida and Michigan delegations were regulated to ½ vote status (gosh, the US Constitution at least gave blacks 3/5 status), and unearned and uncommitted votes were awarded to a candidate in direct violation of the Democratic Party charter and delegate selection rules, not to mention the fact that said candidate voluntarily walked away from the election and therefore forfeited any right to receive any delegates. To make matters worse, the RBC stole the legitimately earned votes of one candidate and awarded them to the candidate that chose to remove his name from the ballot.

To think that the party I’ve stood by for 35 years really didn’t mean it when it comes to voting rights makes my blood run cold. I can no longer continue in good conscience as a Democrat and will be re-registering as an Independent at the county clerk’s office this week.

In addition, I would like every penny back from the Democratic National Committee that I have donated over the past years. I will be reviewing my back accounts, and I hope you will be doing the same thing so that we can expedite my refund.

If by some miracle Hillary gets the nomination, I can support her as an independent. But I’m done with the Party.

Roolz vs Roolz

Those who wish to disenfranchise the 2.5 million Democrats who came out and voted in their Presidential Primaries in Michigan and Florida keep screaming “but they broke the rules!”

Except the DNC’s own Delegate Selection Rules for the 2008 Democratic National Convention (Section 2.H) also says that the state parties, in states where the election will be on government-run voting machines, are supposed to have a plan for and pursue legislation that would provide all voters with voting machines with verifiable paper trails, preferably optical scan machines. This is what the Florida legislation provided for.

The bill Crist signed also requires a verifiable paper trail for all voting machines throughout Florida. Currently, 15 of Florida’s 67 counties use paperless touch-screen voting machines. The remaining counties use optical scan machines where a voter marks a paper ballot with a pencil and it is electronically scanned.

So, you have to ask, which “rule” takes precedence? The primary date or the voting machines with voter verifiable paper trails? As Uppity over at No Quarter remarked:

Basically, Florida chose not to drown so the party gave them a hanging sentence instead.