Re: The myth of fair elections in America


Khamsing wrote:
No kidding I know it's real, it's not a myth. In civilized country like US,
there are injustices among us. Some Lao's folks are having a hard time
coping with this. One Laotian apartment manager was turned down, he
couldn't evict the renter. The judge was in favor of the unpaid renter,
judge said wait until the renter gets a job, but the renter played game of
having no income, no job for 2 years. The Laotian manager was fat up and
said how about I pay you to get out of my apartment, he didn't want to
accept it.

There are a lot more unjust stories like this.

I think the problem is, We are Niger. Do not assume you are US citizen, you
will gain the same benefit as written.

-Khamsing


"vannasay" <VanSinh_2@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1157768058.029817.35700@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Well, the cheating in American election is no longer a myth, but
reality in everyday life and here to stay until one day, we all wake
up with a banana republic, where only monkeys dance, monkeys talk with
a lot of monkey businesses. Thanks to the dubya and his neo con party,
the invention of this new electoral monkeyshines starting with "we,
the monkey of new banana republic,,,.we can use any banana skin to slip
any polls in our favor, all we need is the typical duplicity of
abramoff and delay in charge of our monkeyish lies and cheats,
briberies and payoffs, and of course with fully cooperation of do
nothing congress and know nothing president. This is the newest
standard of democracy with American characteristics that we want the
world to follow,,,so we all can monkey around.


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The debacle surrounding the Republican victory in 2000 demonstrated to
the world that America's electoral process is wide open to abuse. But
as Paul Harris discovers, the system has actually worsened since then

Thursday September 7, 2006
Observer.co.uk

One person, one vote. Count the totals. The one with the most wins. The
beauty of democracy is its simplicity and its inherent fairness. It
equalises everyone, even as it empowers everyone. What could go wrong?
In America, it turns out, quite a lot.

Everyone remembers the debacle in Florida, 2000. The recounts, the law
suits and the eventual deciding of a presidential election - not by the
voters - but by the Supreme Court. The memory still causes a collective
shudder to America's body politic.

Which makes the fact that America's system of voting is now even more
suspect, more complicated, and more open to abuse than ever before so
utterly shocking. Across the country a bewildering series of scandals
or dubious practises are proliferating beyond control. The prospect of
a 'second Florida' is now more likely not less. There are many - and
not all of them are conspiracy theorists - who believed it may have
happened in Ohio in 2004.

This week the venerable New York Times was the latest of many
organisations and institutions to declare that America's democratic
system is simply starting to fail. Not in terms of its democratic
ideals, or some takeover by a Neocon cabal, but by a simple collapse in
its ability to count everyone's votes accurately and fairly. The Times
is editorialising on a shocking government report into electoral rules
in Ohio's biggest county, Cuyahoga, which contains the city of
Cleveland. It details a litany of errors and a large discrepancy
between the paper record of a ballot and the result recorded by the new
Diebold electronic voting machines the county has just installed. It
also worried that 31 per cent of black people were asked for
identification as they voted compared to 18 per cent of other voters.
'[The] report should be a wake-up call to states and counties
nationwide,' the paper thundered.

But Ohio is far from isolated. The problem is simply that America has
no national standard for tallying the votes in its elections. Apart
from a few federal mandates to safeguard broad constitutional rights,
it is left up to local officials to sort out the details on the ground.
This means in one state a machine might be used. In others a simple
paper ballot and a pen. Or it varies from county to county. In one
small town a touch screen machine might be on hand, a few miles away
other voters might use a punch ballot and in the next county after that
you might use a pen. Or pull a lever. Or countless other complex ways
to do what should be so, so simple. It also means in one place there is
a solid (paper) record of a vote that can be recounted, while in
others, it is all down to famously fallible machines and their
electronic memories.

In some places you can't vote if you have a prison record. In others,
you can. In some states you need identification to vote. In others you
don't. In some a drivers' licence will be enough, in others it won't.
All this is fundamentally a violation of the basic genius of democracy:
it should be simple and uniform. In America that is simply not true.

Then there is another layer of trouble. Because elections are organised
locally they are often run and controlled by state office holders or
county level election supervisors. Often these officials are nakedly
partisan and all too willing to use the power of that office to favour
one party over another. Their county or state is, after all, their
patch of turf and they seek to protect it for their side.

Then you add a large dose of dirty tricks that are again all too common
at a local level in US politics. Forget Ohio or Florida. Just look at
Milwaukee where mysterious fliers appeared in 2004 in a black
neighbourhood informing residents that all felons and their relatives -
even those guilty of traffic violations - could not vote. Or an
election in New Hampshire in 2002 where senior state Republicans hired
a firm to jam the Democrats phone bank system. Three people are now in
jail due to that little escapade. Similar examples of other abuses can
be found all over the country.

Now I am not a conspiracy theorist. I don't believe that there is a
cunning secret plan, set out in detail beforehand and then masterfully
carried out to deliberately steal presidential elections. In fact, you
don't actually need a shadowy plot to get much the same effect.

There is little doubt that at a grassroots level America's election is
in disarray and being abused. And at a time of narrow election
victories where presidential races come down to a single state (Florida
in 2000 and Ohio in 2004) a microscope is instantly cast on that
state's electoral practises. And lo, they are found wanting. Or open to
fraud. Or being abused. Or local groups (from both sides) are going
hell for leather to keep the other side from the polls. This is not
because this is being planned out of Washington and targeted into those
key states. It is because it is actually happening all over the
country. We just notice because it has come down to the wire at that
particular state.

You don't need to be a conspiracy theorist to be seriously worried
about this state of affairs. In many ways, it is more worrying that the
system is not being deliberately stolen from on high. It is actually
broken from the ground up.

Paul.harris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


It is all money and power, nothing like the Bushy is saying Democracy
country. Life is fucked up every where that is truth.

.