Sorry about the length of this post. It's something I won't spend a lot of time doing in the future, but on July 2, 2012, a "fellow" from the New York University School of Law, named Nicolas Riley, published the very first formal hit piece we have seen that attacks the great work (by our volunteers) to remove self-confess non-US citizens from the voter roll in Wake County, NC. I'm sure it won't be the last hit we ever take; but even though he ran off half-cocked, Mr. Riley deserves the recognition for being the quickest to shoot at us.
But before I start, there are some "Forward" remarks to be made: Not to call anybody names or anything; but I was torn by the principles expressed in Proverbs 26:4-5, so it took a while to decide how to address this young ideologue's slanted screed. With apologies to Dr. Michael Graves, for my breaking convention (by editorializing too much), here goes an attempt at something he might call "a close reading"....
Mr. Riley's hit piece began with a history lesson on the ugly, Democratically controlled history of the South. Note that he suppressed mentioning the Dems by name, but he discussed how a bunch of bigoted racists challenged the voting rights of 150 "colored people." Of course, he failed to mention the Republican Party affiliation of those former slaves. After all, such inconvenient truth might obfuscate his race-baiting rhetoric. So, he agitated the emotions of his Southern-hating colleagues and closed the paragraph with the obligatory reference to the "Jim Crow era."
Mr. Riley's second paragraph bridges to the modern-day activities of some patriots who are "disenfranchised" by the relative ease with which organized criminal groups can steal an election. Those people are fed up with parties stealing victories through Franken-style recounts or uncounted ballots suddenly "found" in the trunk of a car in a Washington State Governor's race. Those people are worried about the activities of ACORN-type groups in the "battleground state" we call "home." And those people are my colleagues in an organization I established called, Voter Integrity Project of North Carolina. Okay...now that we know the biases of both sides...back to the contextual reading.
In classic guilt-by-association propaganda fashion, his second paragraph actually began with this glittering jewel: "Last month, it looked like this troubling chapter from North Carolina’s history was about to repeat itself." He then reported some of the facts with a link to the current status of our challenges and then passed another so-called "fact" without providing any reference to their source.
The alleged fact, "most of whom were voters of color..." was news to our research volunteers. It surprised us because one of the first steps we used in the process was to strip away irrelevant data like sex, race and party affiliation. We are a non-partisan organization and do not want to give anybody the chance to misuse our research methods for their own pet biases. We would rather report the findings without pressure from either political party and let the chips fall where ever they may. Besides, a data base of six million (plus) voters is big enough without any unnecessary data fields. But before leaving this so-called "fact," we would like for Mr. Riley to explain how he conducted HIS research into that bombshell finding. If he actually performed the analysis, we would like to see his work. We would also like him to quantify his term, "most" as he abused it.
He then reported the dismal (from our perspective) results of our preliminary hearing: Almost all of our original challenges were dismissed for "lack of evidence." I won't bore the reader with the details of the hearing when scrolling down this blog page would be adequate. The bottom line is that we flew a paper airplane into a dogfight. In other words, we were out-maneuvered by a Board of Election that seems less interested in voter integrity than they are in destroying anybody who dares question their practices. We are appealing, whether or not we can locate a lawyer willing to work for the good of the cause (in lieu of money)...and speaking of legal counsel.
It might be relevant to point out that Mr. Riley is a bright political hack with all of the WASP credentials that our ruling elite require of its participants. Yes... he even went to Bill Clinton's old law school: Yale. Oh, but apparently he couldn't pass his Bar Exam! His bio includes a footnote beside his title, "Counsel/Fellow," that says, "*Not admitted to practice law." While not a fan of personal attacks, this point is relevant to the next part of his hit piece.
He uses his "lawerly cred" in the next three paragraphs to recite and summarize NC election law as it relates to voter challenges. While not an exhaustive list, it manipulates our complex law to make it look simple. With all due respect to both Mr. Riley and to the late Andy Griffith, these laws are designed for the Griffith era, when everybody knew anybody who was attempting to vote. Our state's simple-minded challenge process even allows for challenges on election day, right at the polling station--while it studiously prevents citizens from challenging voters who are flooding the system with fictional names and addresses and then voting by absentee ballot. It also prevents citizens from challenging anyone who registers on election day with nothing more than a facsimile of a utility bill to prove residence. (As Ann Coulter might ask, "How hard are THOSE to fabricate?!")
North Carolina is only one of 13 states stupid enough to allow that practice (called "same-day voting"), but our electoral system is so broken that the criminal organization formerly known as "ACORN" sniffed weakness and moved in to register 5,000 voters in 2008. I should point out that anybody who has ever stood in front of a big-box store, trying to register voters on a Saturday knows how hard it is to register even 20 new voters, so registering 5,000 suggest some rather... innovative... techniques.
One of my personal heroes, Susan Myrick, is no stranger to the electoral process after working several years at the Wake County Board of Elections before getting replaced in an apparent Leftist putsch. In one of her many articles and blog postings on the fraud-friendly NC election laws, Ms. Myrick said our state's election officials have "succeeded in creating a system that makes it virtually impossible to detect fraud." She made that statement in answer to yet another vote-fraud denier who uttered their mantra: "There is no vote fraud in NC." That lie goes right up there with, "these are not the droids you are looking for." So don't fall for their silly "Jedi mind tricks." None??!! Really??!! Well, if that's true, I only need to bring one to disprove their claim. Cool! Here is one now!
Back to the text, Mr. Riley ends his article on a high note, calling for "modernization" that amounts to a North Korean style electoral process where everyone gets registered to vote, even if they have no clue what the issues are.
Looking at the entirety of Mr. Riley's article, it fits into a tired story line that accuses anybody concerned about our fragile, fraud-friendly electoral system as being somehow racist or bigoted. Another recent post at a left-wing site called NC Blue, provided a hotlink (to our website) on the word, "whitebread." Their meme is that anybody wanting to work the polls with a goal of preventing voter fraud is secretly a racist, bent on voter intimidation. We're not talking about the billy-club wielding kind of violent intimidation favored by the New Black Panthers and condoned by the Eric Holder Justice Department either. We're talking about extreme stuff like taking a picture of the guy who showed up at one early voting site three times in a single day, using a different utility bill to prove his (new) identity each time he voted. Note to citizens: Poll workers were prevented by-law from asking that creep for photo ID.
But the Leftists in media and government will scoff, "where is the proof of that wild claim?" Well, the truth is that it's a he-said, she-said situation until you have more than a few witnesses. In the past, Republicans have only mustered a smattering of helpers. But this is a call out to those who care more about our Constitution than they care about any particular political party. If you have read this far, you might be interested in helping us gather the "proof" this time around! To be done right, we will need as many as 50,000 North Carolina citizens who are willing to help guard our electoral process this November. The time is long gone when we could go vote and then trust the governing class to serve their office with integrity. If you want to help with this last-ditch effort to save America from a stolen election, please visit our website and give us some contact information...or even some cash!
Warning: If you join us, you will be called names. But please remember two things: First, we outnumber the Left on this issue no matter how hard their media allies twist the truth. Both Civitas and an April 2011 Elon University polls show wide public support for REAL voter ID. Second, anybody who suggest you are racist for supporting voter integrity (and real ID) needs to explain with their superior reasoning why they would be okay flying on an airliner that accepted utility bills as a proper form of ID. Join us!
We're the land of the free BECAUSE of the brave--so we owe the children of these fallen heroes the hope of free and fair elections.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
"Pieces of Paper"
The Wake County Board of Elections (WBOE) couldn't resist more belittling rhetoric as they refused to call our 553 signed and notarized "challenge forms" by that name. Instead, Board President, Aida Havel, rationalized that since some of our challenges were apparently duplicates, that she (and Gary Sims) would repeatedly refer to the signed, notarized challenge forms as "pieces of paper." If the ploy was designed to anger me, it failed on me, but John Pizzo was peeved enough for the both of us. I viewed it as more indicative of their true attitudes than anything else. In any event, the tone was set for a meeting that went better than expected, but not without some harsh lessons learned.
First, the big headline: Of the 553 challenges submitted, the WBOE decided that only 18 were worthy of further investigation. This means they will notify the voters in question and hold a "formal hearing" where they must verify their citizenship in order to vote.
Admin Note...before we peel the onion on this discourse, let's do some public math. Some of our submissions were deemed "duplicates," which we cannot (yet) dispute. For the sake of brevity, I will skip using "approximately" and "like" (as a means to avoiding a warranty on the exact number) and instead will work in round numbers from here on. That said, if the number is exact, I will let you know.
Now...there are several key headlines here that make this PUBLIC exercise wonderfully productive.
First, if the NC Department of Motor Vehicles (NCDMV) decides that a person is a citizen, then that's it! Since NCDMV was not at the hearing to defend their declaration that 510 of our challenges were citizens, I must comment on their practices as described through an NCBOE Investigator with some questionable past practices, named Veronica Degraffenreid.
In today's hearing, Ms D explained that the DMV matched the records of the challenged non-citizen voters and found 41 to have something called a "Legal Presence" (LP) driver's license. Fern Shubert, a CPA who has won and lost many elections for office was critical of the LP laws, citing the fuzzy documentation required for LP designation . . . but I digress. According to Ms D, if the DMV did not find the code "LP" beside the driver's name, then they assumed the driver is a US citizen! (We found this to be a vast leap of faith and were stunned to learn that no DMV representatives were at the hearing.) Based on this assumption, the board dismissed the 510-ish registered voters.
Of course, nobody could explain what would happen if those 510 drivers had applied for a license before the "Legal Presence" laws came onto the books ( possibly in 2003, but I'm not sure). All I remember was that it happened during the corrupt Mike Easley's control over the NC government. I remember some sort of announcement like, "NC drivers must confirm their immigration status, starting February 1." At the time, one commentator said it was like announcing on the radio, "the BB&T on Six Forks Road has a broken ATM machine that spits out money. It will be fixed this Friday." My point? People who got an earlier NC driver's license had no requirement for proof of citizenship and no LP designation, so their assumption fails the sniff test.
Add to this the damaging testimony of Wake County Clerk of Courts, Lorrin Freeman, and we have a real mess! Ms. Freeman oversaw the process of jury selection and disqualifications. In order for someone to be excused from Wake County jury duty as a non-citizen, she said they had to provide a copy of their Green Card (or other such generally acceptable documentation). So... unless the Clerk's office made a keyboard error, the potential juror had to jump through hoops to confirm that they were NOT a citizen! She testified that in virtually all cases, the prospective jurors were eager to provide the documentation because they were motivated to stay out of trouble. But the DMV disagrees.
One other gem discovered in this process (that would never have been learned in some back-alley phone call to get rid of these registered voters) was that the Honorable Ms. Freeman, in following NC record-keeping laws, destroyed all of the evidence. I'm tempted to go all John Stewart here and rant about these newfangled inventions called "scanners" that can save any document on a computer for something like...ever. But hey! We're talking about the NC Court system. Note to jury prospects: There is zero chance that you will ever get in trouble if you lie on your jury summons in Wake County because the Clerk's office destroys any physical evidence of your perjury! Note to Cate Edwards: Whew! You get to keep your law license since the evidence of your non-citizenship lie to the court (in Orange County) was destroyed. Anyway, the only actual "proof" the citizens of NC have that 510 prospective jurors are not citizens is a spreadsheet! Really??!! This discovery sparked a lively discussion among the BOE Board over the feasibility of even bothering to turn these names over the Wake County DA, Colon Willoughby, to investigate perjury charges against all 510 prospective jurors.
To recap this madness...
1. 510 people proved to a court of law that they were not US citizens, sometime in the last 4 years.
2. Same 510 people were found to have registered to vote.
3. NC DMV said those people ARE now assumed to be US citizens.
4. We have no idea exactly when these people magically became citizens.
5. Wake BOE "dismissed" 510 people of any sort of election fraud.
6. WBOE turns over names to be investigated for perjury.
7. The NC Court system needs to move into the 1990s and change their record-keeping policies.
Conclusions and Hanging Chads
First, there is no need to hold out hope that the Wake County DA will enforce the law against these non-citizens lying on a jury summons, because they didn't lie. If Ms Freeman is correct, these 510 people told the truth to the courts when they proved their non-citizen status in accordance with the law...but they didn't bother to keep any of the evidence.
Second, NC DMV laws need to be examined. There are too many loopholes in this shoddy dismissal by Wake BOE of the 510 people ("assumed" to be citizens) first by the DMV, then by the NC BOE and then by the Wake BOE. We would rather the WBOE have held these names open until a second hearing would bring in a DMV official who could defend their assumptions. Instead, none from DMV were present and their cases were dismissed. We were out lawyered, but learned a harsh lesson.
Third, our labor (apparently) netted 18 people who are not US citizens and thus, really do appear to be illegally registered to vote! This may be good news, but given the presence at the hearing of a known extreme Leftist, I imagine someone will be able to generate any necessary documents to dismiss all 18 of these cases quicker than you can wave your hand in front of my face (in true Jedi fashion) and monotone drone... "There is no voter fraud in NC!"
The Way Ahead
We will investigate further on this matter to learn the laws guiding DMV's practices in the area of "Legal Presence" designations. If any laywers (or legislators) are watching, here are a few questions we have:
1. When did the LP laws take effect?
2. What documentation is required for a driver to get an LP on his/her license?
3. What happens if a driver has no documentation but asserts that s/he is a US citizen?
4. What is the legal status of anybody who obtained a NCDL before the LP laws took effect?
5. Does the absence of an "LP" designation "prove" the driver is a US citizen?
I mentioned this to Board Chair, and will tell my readers too. Depending on the answers we get from the DMV, we reserve the right to challenge these same voters again. My promise to the public is that we will do it better next time. We will summon a DMV official, because, in the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo, "they have some 'splainin' to do."
First, the big headline: Of the 553 challenges submitted, the WBOE decided that only 18 were worthy of further investigation. This means they will notify the voters in question and hold a "formal hearing" where they must verify their citizenship in order to vote.
Admin Note...before we peel the onion on this discourse, let's do some public math. Some of our submissions were deemed "duplicates," which we cannot (yet) dispute. For the sake of brevity, I will skip using "approximately" and "like" (as a means to avoiding a warranty on the exact number) and instead will work in round numbers from here on. That said, if the number is exact, I will let you know.
Now...there are several key headlines here that make this PUBLIC exercise wonderfully productive.
First, if the NC Department of Motor Vehicles (NCDMV) decides that a person is a citizen, then that's it! Since NCDMV was not at the hearing to defend their declaration that 510 of our challenges were citizens, I must comment on their practices as described through an NCBOE Investigator with some questionable past practices, named Veronica Degraffenreid.
In today's hearing, Ms D explained that the DMV matched the records of the challenged non-citizen voters and found 41 to have something called a "Legal Presence" (LP) driver's license. Fern Shubert, a CPA who has won and lost many elections for office was critical of the LP laws, citing the fuzzy documentation required for LP designation . . . but I digress. According to Ms D, if the DMV did not find the code "LP" beside the driver's name, then they assumed the driver is a US citizen! (We found this to be a vast leap of faith and were stunned to learn that no DMV representatives were at the hearing.) Based on this assumption, the board dismissed the 510-ish registered voters.
Of course, nobody could explain what would happen if those 510 drivers had applied for a license before the "Legal Presence" laws came onto the books ( possibly in 2003, but I'm not sure). All I remember was that it happened during the corrupt Mike Easley's control over the NC government. I remember some sort of announcement like, "NC drivers must confirm their immigration status, starting February 1." At the time, one commentator said it was like announcing on the radio, "the BB&T on Six Forks Road has a broken ATM machine that spits out money. It will be fixed this Friday." My point? People who got an earlier NC driver's license had no requirement for proof of citizenship and no LP designation, so their assumption fails the sniff test.
Add to this the damaging testimony of Wake County Clerk of Courts, Lorrin Freeman, and we have a real mess! Ms. Freeman oversaw the process of jury selection and disqualifications. In order for someone to be excused from Wake County jury duty as a non-citizen, she said they had to provide a copy of their Green Card (or other such generally acceptable documentation). So... unless the Clerk's office made a keyboard error, the potential juror had to jump through hoops to confirm that they were NOT a citizen! She testified that in virtually all cases, the prospective jurors were eager to provide the documentation because they were motivated to stay out of trouble. But the DMV disagrees.
One other gem discovered in this process (that would never have been learned in some back-alley phone call to get rid of these registered voters) was that the Honorable Ms. Freeman, in following NC record-keeping laws, destroyed all of the evidence. I'm tempted to go all John Stewart here and rant about these newfangled inventions called "scanners" that can save any document on a computer for something like...ever. But hey! We're talking about the NC Court system. Note to jury prospects: There is zero chance that you will ever get in trouble if you lie on your jury summons in Wake County because the Clerk's office destroys any physical evidence of your perjury! Note to Cate Edwards: Whew! You get to keep your law license since the evidence of your non-citizenship lie to the court (in Orange County) was destroyed. Anyway, the only actual "proof" the citizens of NC have that 510 prospective jurors are not citizens is a spreadsheet! Really??!! This discovery sparked a lively discussion among the BOE Board over the feasibility of even bothering to turn these names over the Wake County DA, Colon Willoughby, to investigate perjury charges against all 510 prospective jurors.
To recap this madness...
1. 510 people proved to a court of law that they were not US citizens, sometime in the last 4 years.
2. Same 510 people were found to have registered to vote.
3. NC DMV said those people ARE now assumed to be US citizens.
4. We have no idea exactly when these people magically became citizens.
5. Wake BOE "dismissed" 510 people of any sort of election fraud.
6. WBOE turns over names to be investigated for perjury.
7. The NC Court system needs to move into the 1990s and change their record-keeping policies.
Conclusions and Hanging Chads
First, there is no need to hold out hope that the Wake County DA will enforce the law against these non-citizens lying on a jury summons, because they didn't lie. If Ms Freeman is correct, these 510 people told the truth to the courts when they proved their non-citizen status in accordance with the law...but they didn't bother to keep any of the evidence.
Second, NC DMV laws need to be examined. There are too many loopholes in this shoddy dismissal by Wake BOE of the 510 people ("assumed" to be citizens) first by the DMV, then by the NC BOE and then by the Wake BOE. We would rather the WBOE have held these names open until a second hearing would bring in a DMV official who could defend their assumptions. Instead, none from DMV were present and their cases were dismissed. We were out lawyered, but learned a harsh lesson.
Third, our labor (apparently) netted 18 people who are not US citizens and thus, really do appear to be illegally registered to vote! This may be good news, but given the presence at the hearing of a known extreme Leftist, I imagine someone will be able to generate any necessary documents to dismiss all 18 of these cases quicker than you can wave your hand in front of my face (in true Jedi fashion) and monotone drone... "There is no voter fraud in NC!"
The Way Ahead
We will investigate further on this matter to learn the laws guiding DMV's practices in the area of "Legal Presence" designations. If any laywers (or legislators) are watching, here are a few questions we have:
1. When did the LP laws take effect?
2. What documentation is required for a driver to get an LP on his/her license?
3. What happens if a driver has no documentation but asserts that s/he is a US citizen?
4. What is the legal status of anybody who obtained a NCDL before the LP laws took effect?
5. Does the absence of an "LP" designation "prove" the driver is a US citizen?
I mentioned this to Board Chair, and will tell my readers too. Depending on the answers we get from the DMV, we reserve the right to challenge these same voters again. My promise to the public is that we will do it better next time. We will summon a DMV official, because, in the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo, "they have some 'splainin' to do."
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Don't drink the kool aid but the TEA is find.
Why is Speaker Tillis selling out the Constitution?
Some say that voter photo ID is a political issue, but it doesn't take an advanced degree in government to know the defense of our nation's borders is already a tragedy and the final wall preventing a complete takeover of our government is the protecting the ballot box.In other words, voter photo ID isn't a partisan issue--it's a constitutional issue. It is bedrock to our national survival and some want to play politics with it.
Just when I thought the Republicans in the NC Legislature understood this principle, their caucus leader, Speaker Thom Tillis, appears to be ready for "a compromise" on photo ID for voters! Or should we say, "capitulation"?
Just imagine..."Lose the photo part and we have a deal Mister Speaker." Never mind that it means getting rid of the single element to the bill that unified all of the NC Legislature's Democrats in a mafia-like solidarity. And never mind that patriotic Americans with half a brain can see that the bill does nothing to improve ballot security. Yup, the Dems stood thick as thieves on this baby and now they have a new friend: Speaker Tillis.
Let's see...one side wants to open the vote up to any dead guy or non-citizen who still has his name on the voter roll and one side doesn't.
"Hey everybody! Let's compromise! We will let the people wanting to destroy our nation have their way this time, but they have to promise to be our friend when we go out to the playground."
According to the compromise bill, government-issued ID cards would be out of the question. Instead, people would be able to walk into the polling station with a bank statement or a utility bill and use that as ID. Now, if that's an acceptable form of ID, one must wonder why they are not being used at airports, banks and the NC Governor's mansion.
It doesn't take a poly-sci major to imagine what may be motivating Speaker Tillis. He was politically weakened when two of his staffers were forced to resign after having...uh..."inappropriate relations" with some hotties of the opposite sex whose daytime jobs involved lobbying the NC Legislature on matters important to their clients.So we do the math and realize that the only way Tillis will retain his cushy job (assuming Republicans retain control of the Legislature) is to join the Democrats. I think they call this "deja vu all over again" in NC, but I digress.
Tillis will need Democrat votes in his next bid for the speaker position, because a lot of Republicans have lost confidence in him. If this theory is correct, it would follow the time-honored Republican tradition in North Carolina: when the going gets tough, betray your party. Let's hope Tillis doesn't go so far as the last two traitors in the NCGOP, Mike Decker...but I double digress.
They say that power is a sweet elixir (and apparently a pretty good aphrodisiac too) but the book of Proverbs (23:1) warns us that if a man is given to gluttony over the food at a kings table he should "put a knife to his throat" (NIV).
So here is the bottom line: Don't go there, Thom. Any Republicans who agrees to remove the word "photo" from a voter photo ID bill had better start looking for some new friends...because he just abandoned his old ones.
Like the announcer at Woodstock might have said, "we have a warning on the kool aid. People are reporting some bad trips on that stuff... but the TEA is safe!
Some say that voter photo ID is a political issue, but it doesn't take an advanced degree in government to know the defense of our nation's borders is already a tragedy and the final wall preventing a complete takeover of our government is the protecting the ballot box.In other words, voter photo ID isn't a partisan issue--it's a constitutional issue. It is bedrock to our national survival and some want to play politics with it.
Just when I thought the Republicans in the NC Legislature understood this principle, their caucus leader, Speaker Thom Tillis, appears to be ready for "a compromise" on photo ID for voters! Or should we say, "capitulation"?
Just imagine..."Lose the photo part and we have a deal Mister Speaker." Never mind that it means getting rid of the single element to the bill that unified all of the NC Legislature's Democrats in a mafia-like solidarity. And never mind that patriotic Americans with half a brain can see that the bill does nothing to improve ballot security. Yup, the Dems stood thick as thieves on this baby and now they have a new friend: Speaker Tillis.
Let's see...one side wants to open the vote up to any dead guy or non-citizen who still has his name on the voter roll and one side doesn't.
"Hey everybody! Let's compromise! We will let the people wanting to destroy our nation have their way this time, but they have to promise to be our friend when we go out to the playground."
According to the compromise bill, government-issued ID cards would be out of the question. Instead, people would be able to walk into the polling station with a bank statement or a utility bill and use that as ID. Now, if that's an acceptable form of ID, one must wonder why they are not being used at airports, banks and the NC Governor's mansion.
It doesn't take a poly-sci major to imagine what may be motivating Speaker Tillis. He was politically weakened when two of his staffers were forced to resign after having...uh..."inappropriate relations" with some hotties of the opposite sex whose daytime jobs involved lobbying the NC Legislature on matters important to their clients.So we do the math and realize that the only way Tillis will retain his cushy job (assuming Republicans retain control of the Legislature) is to join the Democrats. I think they call this "deja vu all over again" in NC, but I digress.
Tillis will need Democrat votes in his next bid for the speaker position, because a lot of Republicans have lost confidence in him. If this theory is correct, it would follow the time-honored Republican tradition in North Carolina: when the going gets tough, betray your party. Let's hope Tillis doesn't go so far as the last two traitors in the NCGOP, Mike Decker...but I double digress.
They say that power is a sweet elixir (and apparently a pretty good aphrodisiac too) but the book of Proverbs (23:1) warns us that if a man is given to gluttony over the food at a kings table he should "put a knife to his throat" (NIV).
So here is the bottom line: Don't go there, Thom. Any Republicans who agrees to remove the word "photo" from a voter photo ID bill had better start looking for some new friends...because he just abandoned his old ones.
Like the announcer at Woodstock might have said, "we have a warning on the kool aid. People are reporting some bad trips on that stuff... but the TEA is safe!
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Gary said "no."
Well... you heard the man. The single most partisan non-elected employee in the entire NC government said a lot of things. For one thing, he said that Bev Perdue was cleared of any wrongdoing, when evidence suggested that Gov Bev had done the same thing that had gained her predecessor, Mike Easley, a conviction. In the words of the Charlotte Observer, "the board's executive director, Gary Bartlett, also cleared the Perdue campaign of wrongdoing before the investigation was completed."
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I raise this point not because of Perdue, but because of Bartlett. While he is in charge of the entire election system for this crucial battleground state, he is not accountable to the citizens of NC: He is appointed by the party in power and serves at the whim of the Governor. I don't mean to sound partisan, but it only makes sense that the person who gave him that cushy job would like him to behave like a good lap dog for the party in power.
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Two thoughts before I sign off....
1. I sure hope that the Chairman of the Board of Elections--at both the county and the state levels--one day becomes an elected position. The voters deserve the opportunity to remind those "public servants" who actually writes their paycheck.
2. Gary Bartlett said that "Our laws are based on honesty and self-policing," but I have a hard time believing him when he acts in such a clearly self-serving way. Next thing we know, he will be telling the public that every single one of the 553 Wake County registered voters who evaded jury duty by claiming they were not citizens actually WERE citizens! Really? All of them?
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I would have a hard time buying that bag of Kool-Aid from him.
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I raise this point not because of Perdue, but because of Bartlett. While he is in charge of the entire election system for this crucial battleground state, he is not accountable to the citizens of NC: He is appointed by the party in power and serves at the whim of the Governor. I don't mean to sound partisan, but it only makes sense that the person who gave him that cushy job would like him to behave like a good lap dog for the party in power.
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Two thoughts before I sign off....
1. I sure hope that the Chairman of the Board of Elections--at both the county and the state levels--one day becomes an elected position. The voters deserve the opportunity to remind those "public servants" who actually writes their paycheck.
2. Gary Bartlett said that "Our laws are based on honesty and self-policing," but I have a hard time believing him when he acts in such a clearly self-serving way. Next thing we know, he will be telling the public that every single one of the 553 Wake County registered voters who evaded jury duty by claiming they were not citizens actually WERE citizens! Really? All of them?
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I would have a hard time buying that bag of Kool-Aid from him.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Spankin' Time!!
-We knew there would be push back from the Statists all around, but were still taken aback when the Chair of the Wake County Board of Elections lectured us for our 553 voter challenges (of people who opted out of jury duty by claiming to be non-citizens), charging that our public act served to "undermine people's confidence in the system. She (Aida Doss Havel) scolded us to make the quiet phone call next time, so they could fix the problem without... paraphrasing here: arousing public suspicion that there is something deeply wrong with North Carolina's record of registered voters. After all, we don't want to encourage the stupid masses to demand things like...oh...voter ID or anything crazy like that.
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I reminded the Board and Ms. Havel that a public debate actually strengthens the system as people realize that citizens are maintaining the system by means of testing it's security. In the military, we call it "Red Team" when a band of aggressors work against the installation Commander's security measures to see if they can find the vulnerabilities. In the end, the Commander is usually humbled a bit but (s)he is also glad to get the evaluation...in the name of better security...which is exactly what I want for our electoral system. I explained to the room that I lay awake at night, fearing an Iranian-style election with angry citizens marching in the streets, knowing their election was stolen. The majority of powerful people in the front of the room disagreed with my position, but I had to think about their motives in order to figure out why.
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Reasoning never works with people who view you as an existential threat. While my "subtext" is that I want to help make the system more secure, protecting the public from those who would have no qualms about stealing an election and that I mean them no harm personally, they aren't hearing my underlying theme. Instead, a tape is running in their head that says something like, "this guy is threatening my ability to keep this position of power." When that meme is playing in the background, it's hard to hear any reasoned arguments. Instead, one will try to smack down the person making the arguments. In the immortal words of Saul Alinsky, "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." To our side, this is an exercise in civics. To many on the Left (but not necessarily to Ms Doss) we are attempting some sort of power grab.
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What next?
Many are asking that question, so here is the run-down. The State Board of Elections (SBOE) has taken our challenges for action, but not as official "challenges" until we individually can supply signed and notarized copies of each page (553 in all). We are working to comply with their demand and should have it this week. Meanwhile, Gary Bartlett (SBOE's Chairman) has already dismissed all but 41 of our challenges, claiming that the people challenged are actually US citizens. I hope he is able to prove that claim at the hearings.
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Which brings us to the next step: Hearings may be held on the 41 questionable voters. No idea what "may" means in this context, but we are pressing ahead toward that eventual outcome. A previous test of the vote list (by a WRAL reporter) found of the 83 names investigated, ALL were exonerated! All of them? Really? I asked him if that seemed a little suspicious.... He said "no."
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With skeptics like that in the dominant media, it's no wonder that NC's voter ID law is facing stiff, unified, opposition in our Legislature. After all, everyone on the Left has their mantra memorized: "There is no voter fraud in North Carolina."
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Right! That goes right up there with "these are not the droids you are looking for."
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...coveting your prayers,
jd
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Well...it was the best of times and the worst....
Our rag-tag bunch of fraud-sniffing conscripts got "a mention" in the famously left-wing Raleigh News & Observer AND their sister paper, the Kansas City Star, and we weren't even being trashed! But the bad news is that fellow Patriot, James O'Keefe got sliced and diced because of his great work in North Carolina. It turns out that Brother OK didn't have access to the super secret immigration registry; but apparently McClatchy News Service has inside info and is able to report that the two non-citizens featured in O'K's film actually WERE citizens when they voted. The dominant media failed to mention that "Ziggy," one of the "non-ers" had to lie about something according to his own timeline. If he actually was a citizen back in 2003, as was reported at one leftist news site (and picked up by sycophantic state-controlled media), then why did he tell the Wake County Courts that he wasn't a citizen within the past four years? Lying on that jury form is some sort of crime, but not if our DA, Colin Willoughby, refuses to prosecute. Meanwhile, the other non-er, has a better set of facts on his side; but I still want to see the proof that these guys are citizens. Or do I have to take the word of the NC BOE top dog, Gary Bartlett? I don't know Gary, but I sure do hate all the secrecy. If we don't spread a little sunshine on this process pretty soon, NC will be in the same mess as is California: Their voter registration lists are kept away from the little people and their government is about as left-wing as they get. And hardly anyone knows anybody else who votes for the Dems and Reps who gleefully look the other way while thousands of business owners (and tax payers) flee their state every day.
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But, rest assured.... VIP will get slapped around by the same usual media suspects if Gary Bartlett announces that all 553 challenges were found to be unwarranted. Hopefully, that will not be the case, but such a finding would allow him to repeat the leftist mantra heard often in North Carolina: Go back to sleep. There is no vote fraud in North Carolina.
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Our (VIP's) underlying assumption is that there are too many loopholes in the NC election laws for some unethical miscreants to ignore. I assume the bad guys have beta tested their tactics, techniques and procedures in some small county; but in November, every loophole will be exploited and thousands of NC voters will take to the streets in an Iranian style protest, screaming that their election was stolen. Thankfully, that future is not set.
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BUT, that is why we need as many volunteers as possible to join our efforts to scrub out as many dead and non-existent voters now...before the early September cut-off for 2012 election challenges. If you feel the urge to help us clean up this non-partisan mess, please surf over to www.VoterIntegrityProject.com and sign up!
Our rag-tag bunch of fraud-sniffing conscripts got "a mention" in the famously left-wing Raleigh News & Observer AND their sister paper, the Kansas City Star, and we weren't even being trashed! But the bad news is that fellow Patriot, James O'Keefe got sliced and diced because of his great work in North Carolina. It turns out that Brother OK didn't have access to the super secret immigration registry; but apparently McClatchy News Service has inside info and is able to report that the two non-citizens featured in O'K's film actually WERE citizens when they voted. The dominant media failed to mention that "Ziggy," one of the "non-ers" had to lie about something according to his own timeline. If he actually was a citizen back in 2003, as was reported at one leftist news site (and picked up by sycophantic state-controlled media), then why did he tell the Wake County Courts that he wasn't a citizen within the past four years? Lying on that jury form is some sort of crime, but not if our DA, Colin Willoughby, refuses to prosecute. Meanwhile, the other non-er, has a better set of facts on his side; but I still want to see the proof that these guys are citizens. Or do I have to take the word of the NC BOE top dog, Gary Bartlett? I don't know Gary, but I sure do hate all the secrecy. If we don't spread a little sunshine on this process pretty soon, NC will be in the same mess as is California: Their voter registration lists are kept away from the little people and their government is about as left-wing as they get. And hardly anyone knows anybody else who votes for the Dems and Reps who gleefully look the other way while thousands of business owners (and tax payers) flee their state every day.
-
But, rest assured.... VIP will get slapped around by the same usual media suspects if Gary Bartlett announces that all 553 challenges were found to be unwarranted. Hopefully, that will not be the case, but such a finding would allow him to repeat the leftist mantra heard often in North Carolina: Go back to sleep. There is no vote fraud in North Carolina.
-
Our (VIP's) underlying assumption is that there are too many loopholes in the NC election laws for some unethical miscreants to ignore. I assume the bad guys have beta tested their tactics, techniques and procedures in some small county; but in November, every loophole will be exploited and thousands of NC voters will take to the streets in an Iranian style protest, screaming that their election was stolen. Thankfully, that future is not set.
-
BUT, that is why we need as many volunteers as possible to join our efforts to scrub out as many dead and non-existent voters now...before the early September cut-off for 2012 election challenges. If you feel the urge to help us clean up this non-partisan mess, please surf over to www.VoterIntegrityProject.com and sign up!
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Game On!!!
It all comes down to November.-
This is what motivates me to fight vote fraud: Unless we get these voter rolls cleaned up, the hard work that ACORN and "Action NC" (the criminal enterprise formerly known as ACORN) have done over the last 5-6 years will result in a stolen election in the "battleground" state of NC. There is a reason that Eric Holder is blocking photo ID (in SC and Texas), even though the Supreme Court has already affirmed almost the exact same laws in Georgia and Indiana. Also, there was a reason that Bill Clinton's very first bill signed into law was the motor voter act. When you connect the dots, it gets ugly.
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The Left knows what they are doing and some on our side are beginning to wake up . The fact that they have tried everything they can to derail this issue (and the people supporting it) tells me that Voter Integrity Project is on the right track.
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All the Left is doing in NC is trying to freeze out the clock on photo ID. Granted, an ID wouldn't solve every type of election fraud that is possible, but it would help.
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Time is not on our side and we are late to the fight. The convoluted challenge process in NC election law means that if we cannot finish all of our challenges no later than 60 days before any given election, the fraudulent voter will be allowed to vote in that election.If these thoughts stir you to action, please surf over to VoterIntegrityProject.com, fill in the "contact" form and "follow" us on Twitter.
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