It Only Takes One Man To Steal an Election (And It's Not Who You Think)

It takes a village to raise a child, but it only takes one individual to steal a presidential election in the United States, and I will bet that it is not the person whom you are thinking about at this moment. Karl Rove can not do it single handedly. Scalia could not do it by himself. He needed four other Justices. Ken Melman, head of the RNC can not press a button labeled "Steal the presidential election" and make it so. Even Melon-Scaiffe, who engineered the impeachment of Clinton through a skillful use of his newspapers and money, can not single handedly thwart the will of the American people and disrupt the system of checks and balances that have been put in place to protect the sanctity of the vote.

There is only one person in the United States with the power to make it happen. Figured it out yet? That person is the Attorney General of the United States. The man who stole the 2004 presidential election is John Ashcroft. The man trying the steal the 2006 Congressional Elections is Al Gonzales.

How did John Ashcroft do it? It was easy. All he had to do was NOT enforce federal law. In Florida, 2000, Secretary of State Katherine Harris violated the Voting Right's Act in a very blatant, very aggrevated way when she commissioned Choicepoint/Database Technology to draw up a felons list and when, told that the list was highly innacurate and that it would deprive many entitled to vote of their lawful to right to vote, she said "We will enforce it anyway." This is a big no, no under the Voting Rights Act, which has as its number one priority making sure that everyone who is entitled to vote is allowed to vote and that every vote which can be counted is counted. Then, there was the bonus race issue since those who were disenfranchised were disproportionately Black.

Under normal circumstances, the next Attorney General would have been all over Ms. Harris and Choice Point-Database Technology like a hobo on a ham sandwich, to quote the Lee TV ad. However, John Ashcroft was selected to be Attorney General, because he was a politician before he was a jurist. He chose not to enforce the law.

Another infringement of federal law which did not get prosecuted in Florida involved the organized criminal activity of a group associated with Tom Delay which stormed a precint in order to threaten and intimidate election workers who were conducting a lawful vote recount. This is probably the most serious voting rights violation of the whole nasty election. Again, John Ashcroft chose not to enforce the law.

The message was clear. The Department of Justice has decreed that the clock had turned back to before August 6 1965, the day LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act. The Act would no longer be enforced in the United States. Local and state officials were free to do pretty much what they wanted, secure in the knowledge that they would get away with it, as long as no one in the press reported it.

In 2002, people involved in elections were still unsure of the climate. However, John Ashcroft continued his hand's off policy. When Diebold inserted an illegal patch called "rob.georgia.zip" into Georgia's new E-voting machines just before elections in which GOPers came from behind (double digit behind) to pull out stunning surprise wins over popular incumbents, the Department of Justice did not do a tbing. No election irregularities were investigated, unless they involved Democrats. This set the stage for 2004.

In 2004, Blackwell of Ohio was able to conduct a systematic campaign to disenfrachise poor and minority voters in Ohio (and Florida and some other states did the same, though they managed to avoid the nation's spotlight) secure in the knowledge that no one from the Department of Justice would investigate any complaints. When RNC workers from Texas came to Ohio and were observed on the telephone attempting to scare local Blacks into not voting with threats of criminal prosecution, the feds yawned. Ashcroft's policy was see no evil. With the cat away, the mice could play as they would. And if there was something in it for them, like more power within their party or money in the form of a bribe or a promise at a chance of running for governor of Ohio, they would play ball. There was no need for a coordinated conspiracy. Each local election could take care of itself, the way that it used to before the Voting Rights Act. Each state level government could look the other way as it chose, the way it used to. All that was needed was the removal of the federal factor.

Election 2004 showed us why the Voting Rights Act was passed in the first place. Without it, too many local and state election officials become corrupt. They use disenfranchisement tactics to fix the outcomes of elections to favor certain parties or candidates.

There is, of course, one other ingredient needed for the total dismantling of the Voting Rights Act. Congress has to be and remain in Republican control. Otherwise, Congress could start breathing down the neck of the attorney general who is not doing his job. In a worst case scenerio, it could even demand his resignation or start impeachment proceedings. Congress could also start passing laws to make it more difficult for local and state officials to disenfrachise voters. For this reason, the next task of the US Attorney General, now Al Gonzales, is to keep Congress in Republican control.

Al Gonzales continued John Ashcroft's work. He has not investigated any of the illegal acts that have occured in conjunction with Election 2004 or 2005. And do not be fooled. Almost everything that has been done to steal elections since 2000 is illegal. These people are not exploiting loopholes in the law. They are breaking the law. For instance, the lockout of reporters from an Ohio precint counting the vote was illegal. Blackwell's attempt to stop the news media from conducting exit polls in his state was illegal. Georgia's Voter ID/Poll Tax that Gonzales rubber stamped was illegal. The attempts to stop the recount in Ohio were so illegal that local charges were actualy filed in one case---but the feds were notable in derelect in their duty.

As more and more people get away with increasingly jaw droppimg criminal activity, it is not surprising to see that the stealth has now been removed from many of the voter disenfranchisement efforts. Now the legislatures of Ohio and Florida have passed laws to make it all but impossible to register voters and California is going to use a flawed voter list to decide who can vote. These are all clearly violations of the "every person entitled to vote should be assisted to vote" principle of the Voting Rights Act, but these state officials know that they will never be called upon by federal attorney general Al Gonzales to explain their new laws, so they believe they can get away with them--at least in the upcoming election.

As for the problems with electronic voting and security, in the recent election in Duke Cunnigham's district, the Republicans are crowing about their victory. What no one mentions is that an election worker illegally took the machines home the night before the election. This means that the election intregrity has been compromised the same way it would be if he took the ballot boxes home the night after the election. Why is no one in federal government investigating this criminal activity associated with an election? Why did John Ashcroft and then Al Gonzales decide to rescind the Voting Rights Act, which has been the law of this land since 1965, and why are the American people allowing them to get away with it?

Part of the trouble people concerned about election fraud have in convincing others in the left that it happens is that some people will say "YOu can not have a conspiracy that vast." As I have shown, you do not need a conspiracy that vast. All you need is one attorney general who is determined NOT to enforce federal voting laws. The rest will take care of itself. And it only needs to take care of itself in a few, corrupt states to have an impact on the whole United States.

What this means for the Voter's Rights Movement is that it needs to start identifying Al Gonzales (and John Ashcroft, whom I think the White House dumped because he was too easy a target to hate) as the Enemy of the Voter. Every infringement of the right to vote should ultimately be laid at his doorstep, as in "This would not be happening if you had enforced the law." A message like this is one that Democrats and Independents can understand, and you do not have to believe in a vast conspiracy. "It takes one man to steal an election" with a picture of Al Gonzales or John Ashcroft would be a simple way for people to understand an issue that the RNC would rather keep scary and complicated.

Laws are only used against other people. :grr:

Is there a (long) list of all these activities? I believe that many people hear of election fraud and leave it as an isolated incident. If there's a tally of the amount of times this has happened along with the number of voters effected I would love to see it, or create one.

I'm doing drive-by posting because I'm at work, but I'm sure someone can do a search and post a link.

any research and just as bad don't want to believe and like most of the democratic leadership, are hiding their heads in the sand - just hoping for the best against a truly ruthless, diabolical, vindictive lying republican fascist machine!!!

Not to mention the republican owned Diebold and ES&S machines ready to be manipulated & hacked & distorted as needed by the republicans, with no chance that a republican Attorney General will ever look at the obvious frauds concerning republicans.

So why not keep stealing? What do they have to lose...it apeears nothing, and EVERYTHING to gain!

could easily make every 30th or so vote default to Bush.

I like your analysis, but I think that Reno should have prosecuted Florida early on.