Of course the [November] elections will not be
rigged. What does that mean? The federal
government doesn't run the election process.
States and cities and communities all across
the country they are the ones who set up the
voting systems and the voting booths.
-- President Barack Obama, August 4, 2016 --
A rigged election is impossible in America because elections are locally operated. You just saw Obama´s reply to Donald Trump who said he feared the November election would be stolen by Obama´s heir apparent, Hillary Clinton.
Obama´s response is a textbook display of Ganser syndrome (Question: "What time is it?" Answer: "Wednesday.") Also known as balderdash syndrome and prison psychosis, Washington is undergoing an epidemic of it. There is no known cure. Somebody might want to check the water supply.
Sorry, President Obama and all his happy-face followers: local control does not preclude fraudulent national elections. This post will demonstrate not only how a presidential election can be stolen by corrupt locals but also why we believe they in fact stole one.
There is an alternative explanation of Obama´s smile-button effusion. He knows better and is running a Chicago-machine politico, shyster backdoor-man scam. If that is the case, Trump and the Republicans are right to be worried about November.
O.K., which is it? Is Obama naive or crooked?
Incompetent or corrupt? -- the eternal question. We will supply the answer in a moment.
Obama made his assertion knowing full good and well that lawsuits have been filed against Hillary for rigging this year´s Democrat primary elections against Bernie Sanders. There is no need to await judgment day in court, however, to refute Obama´s claim.
* * *
I know of no nation where there reigns,
in general, less independence of spirit
and true liberty of discussion than
in the United States … The Inquisition
never could stop numerous anti-religion
books from circulating in Spain. In
the United States, the tyranny of the
majority has taken away even the thought
of publishing them.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in
America,* 1835 --
The day after the 2000 election, I wrote an article about how George Bush could have stolen the election in Florida. No newspaper in America, among them the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times, would print it even as a letter to the editor.
The reason why a serious look at even the possibility of rigging American presidential elections is taboo takes us to the celebrated British author George Orwell.
In contrast to the central premise of his novels Animal Farm and 1984, Orwell eventually came to conclude that the most dangerous censor is not governmental.
He wrote the
“chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of…any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution ... intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves …
The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news - things which on their own merits would get the big headlines - being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralized, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics."
Intellectual cowardice. What Orwell said about England in the 1940s is right on target for today´s America. You just saw his explanation of why censorship of my article on the 2000 election was the only possible outcome:
(i) The conclusion that the United States President might be a thief wouldn`t do.
(ii) The media are owned by the oligarchy. George Bush was their pick for president.
You will find below the censored article. We posted it on this blog on May 17, 2012 ("Freedom House: Pay It Again, Sam"). The article demonstrates how a presidential election can be rigged thanks entirely to the local control Obama so glibly touts.
I should note that I am an accredited expert witness on politics in federal court. If I were testifying in a lawsuit, I would say what you are about to read. I would also prepare the pertinent statistical exhibits.
How To Steal An Election And Not Get Caught – Until Now
Did George W. Bush steal the 2000 election in Florida?
12 years later, the question is still hanging in the air. There may be a way to answer it.
To my knowledge, the election scam I will present here has never been revealed.** Insider stuff.
First, three facts were known before the 2000 election took place:
(1) The closeness of the election. One election eve headline said it all:
"Race for White House Is Seen by the Polls As Closest in 40 years." ***
(2) The same article noted that George Bush
"remained behind in some polls in Florida, a populous state where his brother, Jeb, is governor."
(3) Florida held the key to the White House. A report published election morning noted that Al Gore
"had waged an all-night blitz in Florida, which he told supporters, 'may very well be the state that decides the outcome of this election.'" ****
Close election; Bush in trouble in Florida; Florida the key. Clearly, there was a motive to cheat. But was there opportunity?
Election night, the Florida vote count dribbled in. There was
"a double turnaround by television networks which, using computer projections, reported that Mr. Gore had won Florida before deciding that that was premature, and then gave the state and the presidency to Mr. Bush before deciding again that they had drawn a hasty conclusion." *****
What on earth (or elsewhere) was happening?
Forget the butterfly ballot; forget hanging chad. Or rather, do not forget them, but look past them. They may have been diversions.
Starting in 1974, I directed many candidates' get-out-the-vote drives on Election Day. I saw many strange things. Among them: dead people voting.
The usual explanation: somebody collects names in cemeteries and registers those names to vote. Live people then appear at the polls using the dead people's names.
Frankly, I doubt that scam occurs to a significant degree:
First, it is too risky. All it takes is one flabbergasted precinct worker confronted with a would-be voter posing as the worker's dearly departed husband and the whole scheme is torn to shreds.
Second, the cemetery ploy relies on the live person to be honest and vote the way he is told. Well, we know about his honesty. Once the curtain closes, who knows what happens? Simply put: buying a person is one thing; will he stay bought is another.
And third, there is another way for dead people to vote without either of the disadvantages just mentioned
I am not excluding the cemetery ploy -- just discounting it. How, then, do dead people vote?
Here is the scam I mentioned. So far, it has been 100% safe; otherwise, you would know about it and would not be reading these words. 100% reliable, too.
Being unmentionable, the scam has no name. I will call it "The Long Count" in honor of the 1927 heavyweight championship fight between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney.
To wit:
Election night. Their civic duty ended, the voters go home. The precinct officials search the building, lock the doors.
Alone at last, the officials change hats. An uncivic duty begins. They open voter rosters along with a bottle or two (optional). Forget upstream brew -- this is a Gatorade and bourbon crowd.
The roster is the document with names of registered voters that you sign immediately before you vote.
The night crew no longer cares about voters. Their attention is fixed on non-voters -- the names with no signatures.
Roster in hand, Crew Member 1 signs the name of a person who did not vote. He signals to Crew Member 2 standing in a voting machine. Crew Member 2 pushes the button for straight Democrat, straight Republican, George Bush, Al Gore -- whatever. More sophisticated election night crews pass the rosters around; otherwise, the similarity of signatures might attract attention.
Of course, when Crew Member 1 sees a blank space beside a name on a roster, he does not know if the person is alive. When he signs a name, guess what can happen?
Now you know how dead people vote. Lots of them. In the "right" way, too -- always.
Dead people who vote are Democrats and Republicans, men and women, old and young. The Long Count is an equal opportunity employer.
The signing of rosters and button pushing takes time. That is why delayed reporting of election returns is the telltale heart of The Long Count.
How many votes are enough? In Florida 2000, Bush's margin was less than 600 votes. That question brings us to the second cause of The Long Count:
The final vote total is the topic of a fast and furious communications. The election crew boss passes the word up the line: we want this...we want that... He has every reason to drag out the talks, unlike the candidate. This leads to interesting -- if not always civil -- dialogue.
Theoretically, The Long Count is possible anywhere. However, the county clerk must be in on it, or at least be willing to look the other way. I know, I know: you think the clerk would not let candidates of his or her own party crash and burn. I hate to tell you, but I have known public officials who would sell out for a baked potato at the palace.
The Long Count leaves traces. They are so obvious they are overlooked.
To find them, go hunting where the ducks are.
Start with precincts in isolated, rural areas. Those are the easiest ones to control physically. In Florida that means the northern counties. Two facts about them: (i) Most of them voted for Bush in 2000. (ii) I spent six years there.
The traces:
(1) Precincts with unusually high turnouts. Look not only at 2000, but also prior elections. Either those precincts are full of good citizens or they are full of something else.
(2) Among the group of precincts with abnormally high turnouts, look for precincts with abnormally high percentages for Bush. If Republican candidates usually get 70% of the vote in a precinct but Bush got 90%, a red flag should go up.
(3) The clincher: dead people voted.
When all 3 traces are present, something was -- as we say in the political trade -- "wired up." Put The Long Count at the top of the list. A handwriting expert should be called in to examine signatures in any dubious precinct roster.
I must emphasize that even if the Bushes used The Long Count, that fact does preclude the possibility that Democrats, too, exercised it. Look at both sides, and not just in Florida.
The three-point Florida study outlined above would make an excellent political science master's thesis. And it might solve once and for all the mystery of did-he-or-didn't-he.
* * *
To date, no political science professor or student has dared conduct the statistical study outlined above. They know on which side of the bread their tenure and scholarships is buttered.
We promised an answer to a timeless question: incompetence or corruption?
Enter incomcruption.
Those who insist on separating incompetence and corruption will increasingly find themselves fighting a losing battle. The Source of Terrorism: Middle Class Rebellion (pp. 402-5) gave dramatic case studies of governmental and private sector incomcruption. We concluded that
the general distinction of incompetence from corruption is becoming less possible as they become more confounded and more widely spread.
Incompetence or corruption? The billions and billions of bailout dollars handed out by the Bush and Obama governments to major corporations has finally created, by sheer volume alone, a definitive answer:
incompetence or corruption, it makes no difference.
The mixing of incompetence and corruption is part of the greater confounding of productive and nonproductive labor; of the service and manufacturing sectors; of labor and capital; of victims and victimizers that characterizes the oligarchic political system put in place in 2008-9 under Obama-Bush. For more on this subject see The Source of Terrorism, chapter 9, "Where Are We Going?"
The greater the margin of votes separating two candidates, the harder it is to steal an election. As of today August 25, national polls show Clinton is ahead; however, those same polls show her margin is shrinking.
Remember Bush-Kerry in 2004? As with Florida in 2000, the entire election hinged on one toss-up state, Ohio. If the Trump-Clinton race ends up being too close to call, beware of incomcruption in the fall.
We issue this watchword for November:
If they can, they will.
_______________
*"Je ne connais pas de pays où il règne, en général, moins d'indépendance d'esprit et de véritable liberté de discussion qu'en Amérique ... L'Inquisition n'a jamais pu empêcher qu'il ne circulât en Espagne des livres contraires à la religion du plus grand nombre. L'empire de la majorité fait mieux aux États-Unis: elle a ôté jusqu'à la pensée d'en publier.” Alexis de Tocqueville (1835), De la démocratie en Amérique I (deuxième partie), in Œuvres, Volume II, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Gallimard, Paris, 1992, pp. 84-5. (“Du pouvoir qu´exerce la majorité en Amérique sur la pensée”). My translation.
**A similar scam was run in the 1988 presidential election in Mexico. The defrauded candidate, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, and three researchers, José Barberán, Adriana Lopez Monjardín, and Jorge Zavala wrote an outstanding study of what happened -- Radiografía del fraude (Editorial Nuestro Tiempo, Mexico, 1988). I interviewed three of the authors, including Cárdenas. When I informed him I was looking all over Mexico City for Radiografia, he laughed -- “and you couldn’t find it anywhere.” He called the publisher who set aside a copy.
José Barberán noted in a letter to me that the truth “will eventually come out.” It did. Today, nobody disputes that the reigning PRI party stole the 1988 election.
Given the continuing deterioration of American academia and journalism, Bush need not fear the Barberán outcome regarding Florida.
***Brian Knowlton, International Herald Tribune, November 7, 2000.
****Brian Knowlton, "Exhausted Candidates in a Photo Finish," International Herald Tribune, November 8, 2000.
*****Florida has a history of prolonged ballot counts; hence the title of the article by John Vanocur, "Election may Seem Unusual, but in Some Ways It's Déjà vu All Over Again," International Herald Tribune, November 9, 2000.