So things are heating up going into the 2010 midterm elections. Of course we already have the story of the
Rand Paul Campaign County Coordinator stomping on a woman's head,
then refusing to apologize, and now there are - of course -
watchdogs for the old canard of Voter Fraud™, which teabaggers view as the
largest threat to democracy since Adolf Stalinoullini Jong Il Pot III. In reality though, vote fraud scare tactics are in reality just voter suppression tactics:
Tea Party members have started challenging voter registration applications and have announced plans to question individual voters at the polls whom they suspect of being ineligible.
In response, liberal groups and voting rights advocates are sounding an alarm, claiming that such strategies are scare tactics intended to suppress minority and poor voters.
In St. Paul, organizers from the Tea Party and related groups announced this week that they were offering a $500 reward for anyone who turned in someone who was successfully prosecuted for voter fraud.
The group is also organizing volunteer “surveillance squads” to photograph and videotape what it suspects are irregularities, and in some cases to follow buses that take voters to the polls.
In Milwaukee last week, several community groups protested the posting of large billboards throughout the city that show pictures of people behind jail bars under the words “We Voted Illegally.” The protesters said the posters — it was not clear who paid for them — were intended to intimidate people from voting.
But that's a minor detail. In reality, nobody bothers with such at the polls fraud these days, as stuffing ballots is a hell of a lot of work. Instead, the quicker way is just to buy whichever candidate wins. Which is probably why the US Chamber of Commerce
has been opening the floodgates to
whatever foreign company wants a
crack at American democracy. It's like the old saying, "If you can't beat 'em, buy a majority share in their operation and force them to fulfill your wishes by any legality possible."
On the actual election front, the Democrat's
"Make the Vote Stay Home" initiative they've been running the past two years
is going about as well as planned, even if
their opponents have been trying desperately to throw the game. In reality though, the Tea Party success is varied, with
some doing better than
others.
So what's the news for the rest of you? Have you
stuffed a ballot with 5 or 6 votes done early voting yet?