Tag Archives: Polling place

Voters, Beware, Things May Not Be What They Seem

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Fox News is reporting today about a very unsettling early voter mishap. Early voting has already begun in Illinois, and on Monday Republican state representative candidate Jim Moynihan went to cast his vote in the Schaumburg Public Library. When he attempted to vote for himself, the machine cast a vote for his opponent.

The article reports:

The conservative website Illinois Review reported that “While using a touch screen voting machine in Schaumburg, Moynihan voted for several races on the ballot, only to find that whenever he voted for a Republican candidate, the machine registered the vote for a Democrat in the same race. He notified the election judge at his polling place and demonstrated that it continued to cast a vote for the opposing candidate’s party. Moynihan was eventually allowed to vote for Republican candidates, including his own race.

Moynihan offered this gracious lesson to his followers on Twitter: “Be careful when you vote in Illinois. Make sure you take the time to check your votes before submitting.”

Cook County Board of Elections Deputy Communications Director Jim Scalzitti, told Illinois Watchdog, the machine was taken out of service and tested.

“This was a calibration error of the touch-screen on the machine,” Scalzitti said. “When Mr. Moynihan used the touch-screen, it improperly assigned his votes due to improper calibration.”

I hate to be cynical, but I really do wonder if that is the only machine in Illinois that has a calibration error. This makes me very concerned about voting in America. I am ready to go back to paper and pencil if that’s what it takes to have an honest election. The fact that this happened in Cook County makes me even more suspicious.

Democracy As We Know It Has Ended In Egypt Before It Even Began

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Democracy in some countries means one election one time and no further voting. In Egypt it took three elections–one for the President and two for the constitution. The Australian reported today that the second vote on the constitution in Egypt will cement the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood issued a statement saying:

“The Egyptian people continue their march towards finalising the construction of a democratic modern state, after turning the page on oppression,” the Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, said in a statement.

This will mean the end of the Coptic Christians in Egypt. They will no longer have the freedom to worship that they previously enjoyed.

The article reports:

Rights groups say the charter limits the freedoms of religious minorities and women, while giving the military too much power.

Mr Morsi had to split the voting over two successive Saturdays after more than half of Egypt’s judges said they would not supervise the polling stations.

We will now be watching Egypt become an Islamist state similar to Iran. Sharia Law will eventually be instituted. This does not bode well for peace in the Middle East.

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It Really Is Hard To Tell What Is True When You Read The Newspaper

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On Friday Breitbart.com posted a fact-check on an Associated Press story that ran in various newspapers on July 10. The story gave examples of how voter identification requirements disenfranchise people.

Breitbart.com reports:

Baker started off with what seemed like a frustrating story about two elderly Indiana voters approaching 90 years old, Edward and Mary Weidenbener, who were unable to vote in Indiana’s May primary. Why? Supposedly because “they didn’t realize that state law required them to bring government photo IDs such as a driver’s license or passport.”

Then the reporter at Breitbart begins to look into the story. The Indiana law requiring identification had been in effect since 2006. Had they voted since then? It was also determined that both Weidenbeners had valid driver’s licenses and passports–either of which would have served as identification. The Weidenbeners also live within walking distance of their polling place–which means they could easily have gone home to get their identification.

For whatever reason, the Weidenbeners wound up casting a provisional ballot. They then claimed they weren’t told that they needed to show an ID to officials after the election in order for their provisional ballot to be counted.

The article further reports:

But the Indiana state form that is given to all provisional voters specifically informs them that they must appear before county election officials no later than noon on the second Friday after election day either with an ID or to sign an affidavit that they are exempt from the ID requirement because they are “indigent and unable to obtain proof of identification without the payment of a fee, or that you have a religious objection to being photographed.” The AP also neglected to mention that since the Weidenbeners are over 65, they could vote by absentee ballot without an ID.

It seems as if the Associated Press reporter either did not do his homework or chose to ignore the facts. Voter identification laws insure that every person’s vote counts once and that no person’s vote is cancelled out by an illegal vote. Voter identification laws do not prevent honest voters from voting–they prevent dishonest voters from voting.

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