[Maybe] we won't be fooled [or ripped off] again…

posted by Bill Arnett @ 11:24 AM Permalink

…as it is now perfectly clear that Barack Obama, who has more money than even King Midas could have dreamed of, will win on November 4th by a landslide.

The rethugs are already starting to yell, "Voter fraud!" at the top of their lungs, but at least this time around Mr. Obama has a staff of excellent attorneys on-hand to immediately challenge rethug operators attempting to disenfranchise democratic voters by using false allegations of fraud based upon information gleaned from unknown databases of dubious origin and accusations that ACORN is falsely registering persons either unqualified to vote or that don't appear in a state database as eligible to vote.

These specious arguments fail on several levels: ACORN marks suspicious ballots before turning them into the state and the simply act of submitting bogus names does not automatically register the voter, whose information must still be verified by the state's registrar [that's what we call 'em in California but I'm certain each state has it's own entity that serves the same purpose. Bill]; in the Ohio case, which I believe will be the seminal case for those that follow, the Supreme Court sided with the Secretary of State and ruled that absent any actual proof of VOTER fraud that the challenges made by rethug entities could not stand and act to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters based upon rethug suspicions only; and this time, as stated above, the Democratic Party has already hired some incredibly talented attorneys to go into each state where these bogus rethug claims are being made who will not hesitate to fight these battles before the elections are held, and with Barack Obama's war chest, bigger than any before in the history of presidential elections, he can afford to fight spurious allegations such as are being made before the elections are held and, if need be, after the elections as well.

Obviously the ruling of one states Supreme Court is not necessarily binding on any other states courts but, again, the Democratic party attorneys can cite it as guidance for another courts consideration, which carries significant weight in the eyes of other the law, as the presumption is that a states Supreme Court is the final authority for that state and their decision is deemed to be correctly decided.

Also, the sheer numbers of prominent GOP members endorsing Mr. Obama is unprecedented, with the NYT, WaPo, and even Esquire magazine, over 100 years old and that has never endorsed any candidate for president, has endorsed Mr. Obama along with dozens and dozens of newspapers across this nation.

It also strikes me as curious that when bush called the candidates to the White House for the standard pre-election briefing to prepare the winner to be better able to hit the ground running next January 20th, Sarah Palin was not invited to attend. This indicates to me, and this is my opinion only, that since Joe Biden was invited along with Mr. Obama while Palin was specifically NOT invited to attend with McSame that even the bush maladministration does not expect a McCain victory and out of an abundance of caution chose not to share vital state secrets with an airhead Alaskan governor under investigation in her home state for corruption, the illegal acceptance of gifts, cronyism that makes bush look like a piker in comparison, and why the town of which she was mayor was only $1 million dollars in debt when she was elected, but that is now for the first time in multimillions of dollars in debt (over $20 million).

This is the GOPs definition of a fiscal conservative.

Much to my own despair and failing memory, I cannot remember which entity, rethug or democratic, that ran an ad stating clearly that in the 2004 elections it was proven that 28 fraudulent ballots were found to have been cast. Obviously this is an infinitesimally insignificant number of the millions and millions of votes that were cast, and should stand to point out just how spurious, specious, perfidious, odorous, and thoroughly bogus are the allegations of voter fraud being pushed by the Republican Party and their sycophants and partners in crime.

With Mr. Obama taking on these allegations of voter fraud and the disenfranchisement of millions of democratic voters NOW, before the elections, the numbers of voters the rethugs can get tossed from voter rolls will not be in sufficient numbers to swing the election to a McPalin win. They certainly have the will to try, but with a war chest the size of Mr. Obamas and the large numbers of trial attorneys that are undoubtedly on stand-by, the rethugs will find their "dirty tricks" will be washed away as easily as would a coffee stain on Mr. Obama's shirt.

And deservedly so.

CORRECTION: It was the Supreme Court of the United States that stymied the efforts of the GOP to disenfranchise voters, NOT the Ohio Supreme Court.

This means that this is the law of the land and will make it infinitely harder for the GOP to continue their dirty tricks through surrogates in other states. Here are some excerpts from the court as stated in the NYT:

The United States Supreme Court on Friday overturned a lower court’s order requiring state officials in Ohio to supply information that would have made it easier to challenge prospective voters. The decision was a setback for Ohio Republicans, who had sued to force the Ohio secretary of state, a Democrat, to provide information about database mismatches to county officials.

But Republicans vowed to fight on and quickly filed a similar lawsuit in the State Supreme Court.[Good luck on that. The Ohio Supremes are not going to refuse to follow the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Bill][…]

A 2002 federal law, the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, requires states to check voter registration applications against government databases like those for driver’s license records. Names that do not match are flagged. Ohio Republicans sought to require Ms. Brunner to provide information about mismatches to local officials.

Those officials could use information to require voters to cast provisional ballots rather than regular ones. They could also allow partisan poll workers to challenge people on the lists. Given the success by Democrats in registering new voters this year, those actions would probably affect that party’s supporters disproportionately.

The court said it expressed “no opinion on the question whether HAVA is being properly implemented.” But it said that Congress had probably not intended to allow private litigants like political parties to sue to enforce the part of the law concerning databases.[…]

Having lost before the United States Supreme Court, Republicans turned Friday to the Ohio Supreme Court.

David Myhal, a Republican from New Albany, filed a lawsuit asking the court to issue an order so that local election officials separate any ballots from voters whose registration information does not match records in state or federal databases.

The lawsuit seeks to require Ms. Brunner to order county elections boards not to count any absentee ballot from voters registered after Jan. 1 without first checking the statewide voter registration database to ensure there is no mismatch.

If there is a mismatch, the boards would be required to determine whether the person is an eligible voter.

The Ohio court gave Ms. Brunner until Monday to file her response, and said both parties must file briefs by next Friday.

I would be absolutley amazed if the Ohio Supreme Court even attempts to overturn a decision made by the highest court of the land.

Labels: Barack Obama, elections, GOP, McCain, palin, presidential candidates