[from the diaries by haystack]
We all recognize that an honest voting process is the foundation of representative government, and thus that electoral fraud denies our rights as citizens and is a rapid path to tyranny.
This year we see evidence accumulating of organized and concerted efforts on the part of the Democratic Party and their principal allies, labor unions (especially SEIU), to undermine the votes in multiple races at a scale unprecedented in modern election history that could significantly affect the outcome of these races and even substantially alter the composition of our next Congress and also influence state races that will decide the next decadal reapportionment.
This is a new game; old understandings are obsolete. Your race could be one of the targets of this national effort at fraud.
But resources are limited; a campaign probably cannot cover all basie.
Keeping that in mind, here is a five-point program to maintain electoral honesty and defeat fraud, such that the outcomes on November 2nd truly represent the choices of the voters.
1) Offense is better than defense
Do what you can in terms of GOTV to get the voters on your side to the polls, phone banking, driving folks to the polls on election day, updating precinct voting lists and contacting voters, etc.
If you get your supporters’ votes cast, then you are in a much stronger position to overcome the fraud, rather than having to rely on the courts after the fact, which is a frail reed to lean on.
2) Prioritize your defense strategy.
Start first with the areas for larger-scale fraud and work down, depending on your resources (keeping Item 1 firmly in mind).
a) One key area, if possible, is have someone watching the county Registrar of Voters (ROV) ofices from now until the final formation of the voting lists, to make sure that voter registrations are being subjected to strict scrutiny, especially if the ROVs are trying to catch up this weekend. Even more if there is any evidence of possible dumping of a horde of probably fraudulent registrations to overwhelm the ROVs, (Of course this will depend on what state law allows in terms of campaign watchers.)
b) A number of races have seen Democratic front groups gaining custody of absentee ballot requests under false pretenses (or at least questionable) and then presenting a spike of Democratic registrations.
These registrations are probably mostly valid in many cases; the problem is that there is a significant probability at that the Democratic recipients simply threw away the requests from Republican and Independent voters, thereby preventing these folks from receiving these ballots. Some reports have already come out about this, so be alert if this may be happening in your race.
Possible countermeasures could include:
(i) Do some advertising – or even sympathetic newspaper articles – alerting folks about this issue
(ii) Set up a hot-line for folks to call who haven’t received their absentee ballots yet, especially if they responded to the suspect group’s appeal
(iii) Remind voters that they can still vote at polls on Tuesday with a provisional ballot if they don’t get their absentee ballot (State laws may vary on this).
(iv) Consider driving people to ROV on Friday, (weekend – if open), or Monday who can’t vote on Tuesday.
(v) Collect affidavits to document the incidents
c) Determine areas/precincts that seem most susceptible to larger scale SEIU (or other unions) disruption or to ballot stuffing with fraudulent voters as priorities for assigning observers.
d) Also be prepared to oversee counting of absentee ballots for irregularities (see item 5).
3) Always do anti-fraud efforts involving video with at least two folks
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The idea is that one person films the interactions, and the second person films the firs1t person to document what happens if there is an altercation. This also may have a deterrent effect on would-be troublemakers – strength in numbers.
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If you take away nothing else, this step is crucial, based on multiple experiences across the county.
Even without video recordings, you may still want to have more than one witness around for similar reasons if you anticipate trouble so that you can provide supporting testimony from an observer rather than relying entirely on the victim, who may not know what happened very well. Again this may also provide a possible deterrent effect from having multiple people there.
Don’t ignore the power of iPhones or other inconspicuous cameras for still shots.
4) Set up rapid deployment teams
These teams should be prepared to respond to problem reports, as backup for your observers. It’s good to have at least one person on the team well-versed in election law.
Also, consider utilizing some of the voter fraud apps that have been brought on line this year. For instance, American Majority has developed this one:
Introducing the Voter Fraud App
App Download site
5) Prepare legal teams in advance in case the voting is so close that the match goes into overtime. Learn from Minnesota 2008 and Washington (multiple) that you need to fight immediately and with all weapons possible to prevent after-the-fact theft with the Democrats utilizing absentee ballots, “newly discovered” ballots, overvotes in convenient districts, perhaps even multiple signatures by the same person.
What level of inquiry to pursue will of course depend on funds and number of boots and the points of greatest danger. Which is why after-the-vote is the last line of defense, to use only if the above advance actions fail.