Claims increase of machines switching votes in Ohio, other battlegrounds | Fox News Maybe they're old people who don't know how to use technology. Maybe they have fat fingers. Maybe they are full of shit and just trying to cast doubt on the election if it doesn't go their way. Maybe the machine is Muslim. I don't know. I do know that some liberals are claiming in CO that ID's are being asked for from Hispanic people, which is illegal here. You just need your voter registration card. There are other similar claims of voter disenfranchisement. Gonna get ugly no matter what, kids.
Gotta offset the corpses and felons somehow. Yes, it will get ugly. I can see the outcome of this election being especially bitter. If Romney wins the popular vote and loses the electoral college, southern state loud-mouths will start the secession talk. If Obama loses I can see African Americans rioting and claiming disenfranchisement, etc. I think someone is going to be really mad a week from now. It would probably be worse if the GOP actually liked their candidate. Only way it doesn't get overly ugly is if Obama wins the EC and popular without recounts. Even then, there'll be a lot of bitterness and facebook full of people threatening to vacate America.
There will be more anger than is typical with an Obama loss. I live in Hampton Roads. AAs here are fired up!
I used to be a political activist when I was younger. Both parties assign "poll watchers", they're supposed to watch for irregularities in voting. I've seen selective enforcement of ID laws, and rules lawyering extreme applied in precincts where the voting tends to be one way or the other. I'm talking people raising a fuss when a black man doesn't have proper identification, trying to pressure the elderly poll worker not to let him or her vote, or submit an absentee ballot instead, but not mentioning anything when a poorer white man walks in. So what am I supposed to do? Push partisan the other way? I quit politics four years ago. It turns you into either an asshole or a cynic (or both).
"Trying" implies an attempt was made but not successful. If the black man voted then he was not disenfranchised was he?
Of course they are not 100% successful, but I have seen it happen. This is just with people who are actually registered by the way, and doesn't get into the entire separate issue of partisan election commissions, inequities in funding for voting locations, disinformation, and trying to purge people off the ballots with selective caging. You had people whose job it was to send mail with "do not forward" attached to registered Democrats in low-income or racially lopsided areas. I know this because we had the lists too. Both parties have all the addresses and contact information of the members of the other party. If the mail came back as return to sender, they would put it in a file and if the person tried to vote, they would challenge it at the polling place. Not try to correct the registration, they would literally sit on it for months and bring it up on election day at the 11th hour. Never mind the fact that people move, especially when you're not in a secure economic situation. You can assign blame to the voter as much as you like, but everyone knew what was happening. Deliberate attempts to suppress voting. For the record, I'm not going to assume that it was confined to one party. I've seen some bad machine politics within my own (former) party, too. But I've never seen one of our people do some of the things GOP activists do.
Up until your last sentence I did not get the sense you were blaming 1 party more than another. You have seen worse than this? [video=youtube;neGbKHyGuHU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neGbKHyGuHU[/video]
I can only speak from experience. I can't say it's not happening on the other side, but I never saw it. About the worst thing I ever saw when I was working for the Dems was the Harold Ford Jr. campaign in 06. He was a very charismatic speaker, but something about him really seemed off. There was definitely some machine politics involved there. But no suppression of likely republican voters. I remember obtaining a bunch of embarrassing materials about local GOP leadership, and there was a lengthy debate about whether or not to publish it. In the end, we decided not to, but there was a real debate. Bad stuff.
No, fortunately we don't have a problem with Panthers where I worked. We never saw anybody like that. We did see intimidation, but we never believed it to be organized by the GOP. More like the "good ol' boy" network. It was considered bad for your community reputation, local career, and family to come out as a liberal. But no one with clubs, god no.
I kind of grew to despise the GOP machine, and got fed up with the Dem's machine. GOP activists that I've met are willing to do whatever it takes to get their candidate elected, and the Dems I knew don't go as far. I still vote, but I can't find it in me to get into activism again. Hell I'll freely admit Obama has done plenty of bad shit that would lose my vote if I had a viable alternative. I'm not talking about economic policy either, what gets me is the extrajudicial killings and the fact that Guantanamo is still open. I kind of bought into the hype last time around. I don't regret my vote in 2008, but I'm certainly not been nearly half as enthusiastic this year. I've considered third parties plenty of times, but I know that they'll never work. The system is broken. There is too much money in politics, and the way the electoral college works fundamentally prevents third parties from getting off the ground. It doesn't matter if Gary Johnson or whoever gets 10% of the vote in Florida, it doesn't mean shit unless he actually beats both of the two major parties, which have thousands of times more money, resources, and workers than he will ever get. Think about that for a moment, he doesn't even have a chance of getting 25 electoral votes, let alone 200.
It is systemic. Neither party is clean, and I am not convinced one is really worse than the other on this stuff.
Point out a basic difference, either are controlled by the money within and outside of the country. Politicians serve special interests groups not the joe blow citizen. The best thing one can do in general is prevent one party control. At least bickering helps out joe blow citizen in the long run.
Tricksters Trying To Suppress Vote With Deceptive Phone Calls This is an example of some of the things we saw. Mostly we heard about stuff like this close to election day, confused voters would come up to the booth and ask if it was true that they had to bring their birth certificate or if drug tests were required for people who registered late.
Regardless, the drug test requirement is funny, you imagine how many people are terrified. *Really tickled me. Would be a great comedy skit
