In 2000 the Presidential Election was stolen in Florida by Katherine Harris and ChoicePoint/DBT and their deliberately flawed felons list which disenfranchised tens of thousands of African-american Deocratic voters. In 2004, the Presidential Election was stolen in Ohio by Repoublican Secretary of State and Bush campaign chairman Kenneth Blackwell who disenrolled many more voters than Harris did in Florida, as well as issuing nonesense rulings about registration, provisional ballots and denying voters in Democratic precintcs equal access to poling materials.
http://www.grandtheftelectionohio.com/051110.htmThis time around, the GOP is using another Secretary of State, a Republican who was selected. not elected, McPherson in California , to do their dirty work. He and the Congressional GOPers have found a way to keep the US House in Republican hands no matter what voters may want.
For those of you not familar with California, Bush allowed Enron to price gouge California, ignoring Gov. Davis (D) pleas for help. The GOP then lead a recall of Gov. Davis on the grounds that he could not get any federal help during the price gouging. This was how California got its Republican governor Arnold. He was supposed to have direct access to W. Then, the elected Democratic Secretary of State was the target of a smear campaign. Once driven from office, Gov. Arnold replaced him with a selected GOPer as documented here:
http://www.grandtheftelectionohio.com/060102.htmAs you can see from this illustrated history. McPherson is firmly in bed with Diebold. So, it is no wonder that when election workers in the run off for Duke Cunningham's old seat took their E-voting machine's home for illegal "sleep overs" before the election, McPherson saw nothing wrong with that. And when citizens in the district tried to protest the election, he sent the early, provisional results to Congress, where Dennis Hasturt and Co. decided that the Republican contender had won---even though the vote in California had not been certified, even though there were thousands of votes left to be counted, even though there were legal challenges pending.
Congress rushed to swear in the Republican.
Meanwhile, those challenging the election continued their court fight. They were arguing that the election had been compromised, because the workers had broken California election law by taking those machines home. They took their case to a Calfornia Court. Imagine their surprise when members of Congress sent letters to the California judge, Yuri Hoffmann telling him that he no longer had jurisdiction over a case involving California election law, because Congress had usurped Calfornia's job by choosing which candidate to swear in. Imagine their shock when Judge Yuri Hoffman accepted this argument from the GOP members of Congress and relinquished California's right to decide its own elections to the federal government, saying in effect "If a body of the federal government such as Congress decides the winner of a state election, then Calfornia no longer has the authority to count votes, question errors or prosecute fraud which may have been comitted in the election."
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0608/S00372.htmhttp://www.bradblog.com/?p=3353http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/8/30/53631/7715These are three excellent sources for news on the story. However, note that they are all internet sites. With the exception of one local TV news site in the south California area, I have been uanable to find any major newspaper or TV news network that has covered this story. And it is big. This is much more than Congress can seat whomever it wants in a California Congressional run-off election.
Picture this scenerio. Diebold machines give fishy results in a half dozen Calfornia Congressional races this November. GOPers come from behind, overcoming their Democratic opponents double digit leads to "win" the final count in 6 races that the Dems thought were safe. There are suspicious elements to each race.
Challenges are mounted to each result, however the RNC sends in big gun lawyers and lots of money and gets the cases stalled and pushed back and back. The press treats it like Florida 2000---makes a media circus out of it, but does nothing useful. Instead they repeat ridiculous Karl Rove stories about how Dems are to blame for E-voting errors and how the whole crisis was cooked up by the DNC to cover up their loss. January nears. Congress declares that it MUST have the 6 members seated. It is a matter of national security. The Calfornia Secretary of State McPherson declared the GOPers the winners and Hasturt swears them in. The Republicans hold on to their majority in the House by the slimmest of margins.
It could happen. There is now a court precedent in the state of California for the citizens of that state to have NO legal recourse should the federal government (i.e Congress and Al Gonzales) and SOS McPherson decide that they want to select the winners in any given Congressional election.
Why on earth is not the press in California hopping mad over this? Any other blue state would be screaming bloody murder.
:grr: :banghead: :nuke: