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Election Dirty Tricks About To Begin
An anonymous reader writes "ABC is warning that dirty election tricks are about to start. In the past, they've ranged from late-night robo-calls to voter intimidation. ABC has a pretty good list of what to watch out for as told by Allen Raymond, a former Republican operative, who was reformed after spending three months in prison in 2006 for pulling some of the stunts he now helps to prevent." To make this story timely, last week someone broke into a McCain campaign office in Missouri and stole a laptop computer containing "strategic information" about the local campaign.
Clean tricks?
Funny how often "Country First" seems to involve stealing, lying, and trampling all over democracy, law, equality, justice and the Constitution...
A-Bomb
Where have you guys been? The ads have been on TV for a couple of weeks. The economy is going down the tubes, so distraction is the key.
Yeah. Because the homeless folks are jumping from state to state to get multiple votes.
Why shouldn't a homeless person have the same right to vote as me?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
And computers have been voting in republican for the last 8 years your point?
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Strange that, you'd nearly think it was a popularity contest... oh wait
Dictatorships are run by dictators. Monarchies are run by monarchs. Democracies are run by demagogues. What did you expect? for the people to vote for the best candidate? no way. They'll vote what appears to be better for them. It's not like you can vote based on what you don't know... :)
What is your source for them being illegal aliens? or just making up facts as you go?
I'm willing to bet it's the later.
They are simply guilty of the greatest crime in America, being poor. Regardless they are still human and if citizens just as worthy of a vote as you are.
The VP debate was funny until I checked the news the next day and everything was about how well Palin did, saying that she even 'won' (politically). Then it was just very sad.
electronic voting. no better device for dirty tricks has ever been invented
paper ballots. ocr. end of debate
anything else, including traditional mechanical voting machines, are ripe for abuse. not because you can't do dirty tricks with paper ballots, but because electronic voting (and to a lesser degree tradtional mechanical voting machines) increases the number of attack vectors by an order of magnitude, and increases the damage a lone operative can do, exponentially
fox news? plutocrat neocons? liberal media? america hating moonbats? corporate lobbyists? christian dominionists? uninformed apathetic voters?
make a list of what you consider the greatest threat to american democracy
nope, wrong
it's electronic voting. electronic voting removes transparency and introduces distrust into the voting process. electronic voting will prove to be the biggest mistake and the greatest threat to american democracy
democracy's greatest strength is that it creates legitimacy, no other form of government renews legitimacy in the eyes of its people. it gives the people a real voice in their own government. remove that trust with black box voting, and you remove legitimacy and stability and faith in the government. lose that, and you lose everything
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
As others have said, underhanded, yes, but not fraud. Kindof like the primarily Democrat regions in Ohio and Florida had a shortage of voting machines, while the Republican areas had more than enough to keep the wait short. Or how the polls allowed late comers in Rep. but not Dem areas. Well the latter might be borderline.
Gerrymandering anyone?
Fraud is when the Deceased in Chicago all seem to vote on the same party line.
Fraud is when "you"'ve and "everyone else" voted twice or more for West Virginia, again, all on the same party line, before you've (or anyone else) even entered the polling station.
Fraud is voting machines that change votes.
There's plenty of examples of all these happening, and it doesn't follow party lines. And it's not limited to the locations mentioned either. Each party has their areas that they keep by their underhanded tricks, or their frauds.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Man, I wish more Americans realized the emptiness of their "political" debates. The pointlessness of a two-party system based on false antagonisms and dichotomies.
Sadly, there seems to be no hope in sight. At least they will apparently not continue to dominate the world, if we go by recent events.
The companies that sell armored vehicles and bullets to the military would have to admit there are benefits to Muslim extremism when they look at their profits report.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
i'm glad i'm not the only one who noticed that.. while she did very well compared to early interviews.. saying she "won" is complete crap.. all she did was add drama to things and put in little fear remarks when no one had the chance to question her on them.. such as the closing .. i wonder where she gets off saying we are all going to lose our jobs if democrats are elected..
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
The pointlessness of a two-party system based on false antagonisms and dichotomies.
Sadly, when you look to countries which have more workable multi-party systems you often see far more political instability. Look at Japan, many European countries and so on - weak coalitions that are easily toppled as political allegiances change.
I'm not advocating a two-party system as perfect. I just can't see anything better in practice today.
...But she changed the subject of the questions when she didn't know the answer! That's what a good debater does, right?
Perhaps that's your problem; there are ways to learn about candidates other than what's on TV. While obviously none are perfect, some of them are better at conveying what a candidate is actually like.
We need to continue drilling the McCain campaign on economic issues. Neither McCain nor Palin has addressed the economy in an intelligent, organized manner.
We need to continue drilling Obama on the constitutionality of the things he wants to do. Social healthcare is prominent unconstitutional issue and it must be drilled.
We need to continue drilling the media to get more focus on the third party candidates and the up to 10% of the vote they have in some states, especially swing states like Ohio.
Our dirty tricks--we the geeks--can be to FLOOD iReport, Digg, Reddit, and such with third party coverage. They need to be inundated with it.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Darn tootin' right she won! Of course, it's a Pyrrhic victory when the criteria for "winning" is that you don't make yourself look like too much of a moron on international issues AND you have to study for a week to pull that off.
Say it ain't so Joe.
At least Putin didn't rear his head into the debate.
I'm not advocating a two-party system as perfect. I just can't see anything better in practice today.
Australian system, compulsory preferential voting and proportional representation in the upper house.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_electoral_system
Yes there's mostly two parties, but its much easier for smaller parties to actually win some seats and make a real difference and we've had a mostly stable system.
What a lot of those crypto/security people don't about their fancy fool proof electronic voting schemes is:
Elections don't just have to be fair, they have to be _seen_ to be fair.
A typical Joe Sixpack has got to be able to look at the elections and grudgingly admit - "Darnit, my party lost and there wasn't that much cheating".
Rather than "What's this complicated bullshit? They're cheating big time I know it".
And the funny thing is - it doesn't really have to be that complicated. Hand counting scales.
Well as long as we all sit here and watch the Reps and Dems destroy our country then yes we all lose. And we only have ourselves to blame. Is it the republicans fault that they have spent the last 8 years ruining America or is it our fault for letting it happen?
Perhaps because: ...and so on...
A) They don't pay taxes
B) They don't own land
C) They don't have families
D) They don't have any interaction with most laws (from cars to copyright)
Maybe we need a country and people that believe in statements like: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
As others have said, underhanded
Sorry, but what?!?!?!?!
How on earth is it "underhanded" to help underprivileged people exercise their right to vote?
Perhaps because: ...and so on...
A) They don't pay taxes
B) They don't own land
C) They don't have families
D) They don't have any interaction with most laws (from cars to copyright)
You do realize that in the United States, the minimum age to register to vote is 18, right?
And a lot of 18-year-olds are still living at home, may not have jobs and are therefore not paying taxes (BTW, poll taxes were eliminated in the U.S. by 1966.), and probably don't have dependents of their own?
Wow... by your qualifications, they shouldn't be allowed to vote either, huh?
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Man, I wish more people realized the irrelevance of countries. The pointlessness of systems based on false antagonisms and dichotomies.
Actually, I think there's some hope.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's even more empty than you realize.
the candidates REFUSE to attend the debate if they dont get to review the questions first. they also will refuse to answer some questions.
The hard questions that people want answered they refuse to deal with. That's how fricking empty it is.
I want them to answer the hard ones.
"when are you going to end this war on the middle east?"
"What are you personally going to do to fix healthcare?"
"How are you going to help address corruption in Capitol hill?"
"What is your position on Medical Marijuana? Why?"
"What are you going to do to restore the constitution and amercian rights?"
They REFUSE to answer the above questions or the other hard ones I cant think of.
They also refuse to debate with the other candidates that are willing to answer those questions. Our election process is a complete joke.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
1. i think we should abolish the electoral college, since, as 2000 demonstrates, you can lose the popular vote and still win the election (and hasn't the last 8 years proven that to be a mistake)
2. however, if you use the existence of the electoral college as a reason not to vote, no: you're wrong. the electoral college is a negative tweak to a system that still works. removing the electoral college merely makes it work better. the existence of the electoral college doesn't nullfy the entire process and doesn't nullify your vote. it merely warps the value of your vote in ways that are really kind of arbitrary, neither favoring one ideology or another. it's noise in the system
now, there are people out there with learned helplessness, with deficits in their ability to trust. there are plenty of reasons and examples of the system creating distrust, but there are also people in this world with a pathological disability: an inability to trust
such people are not disenfranchised by the system, such people disenfrachise themselves
so if you do not vote, simply because the electoral college exists, you are looking for a reason not to vote, and you found a very flimsy one. its really not a good reason not to vote
and if you don't vote because of the electoral college, there's osmething wrong with you. its self-disenfrachisement
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, that's better than what Bush did in 2000. He didn't answer a single question, and somehow he won it.
If your goal is to win, winning without answering a single question is about as good as you can get.
The line that moved your post from bigoted to just plain stupid was reason D. Your idea of "most laws" is "cars and copyright"? Homeless people have far more interaction with the actually important laws, and far more need for those laws to be reasonable and just, than people whose idea of the "law" is limited to traffic rules and copyright.
I don't know what "propositions" you are talking about (though I don't follow Mississippi politics), but all your "criteria" would be explicitly unconstitutional.
Did you know that most homeless people are not actually homeless for very long? Only a minority would even fall into your batshit-crazy idea that people without land or children have no stake in the future of our society.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I don't think Biden did any better. They both just repeatedly misstated the other campaign's position while only extolling the virtues of their own.
Possibly, but at least Biden gives the impression of understanding the constitution. It's not a lot if you want to lead a country, but a basic understanding of the law is kind of vital, I think.
But Palin was McCain's choice. She illustrates his judgment, or rather lack thereof; we would not be ok with the sort of president who chooses Palin for a running mate.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
If I want to say that we were right to try and stay out of WWII even as genocide occurred, I'd be completely within my rights, I could even go further and suggest that it was a good thing, try doing that in Europe. It is a genuinely disgusting sentiment, but here you can actually say it.
"In Europe"? What the hell does that mean? I'm "European", and I can say that in public. AFAIK there's nothing prohibiting me from doing it other than shame and life-long ridicule. I'd say the same applies to most European countries, other than Germany where it may - or may not - fall under the anti-nazi speech laws, but then Germany is the scene of the crime, and what they do is not my concern.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
IMO, Bush did not do well against Gore (aside from the fact that he impressed people who care more about how someone looks than what comes out of their mouth). Bush may not have been wooden in the 2000 debate, but he came across as extremely insincere. I'd take wooden over insincere any day. He sounded like a used-car salesman. Maybe that's what most people like, but that vibe has always bothered me. Combined with the fact that every single answer against Gore was "Well folks, I'm stupid. But I can surround myself with smart unscrupulous people who will tell me what to do.", I knew from his first debate with Gore that Bush's presidency would be bad. I had no idea it would be this bad.
Now we hear McCain saying the same thing (about the economy, at least). Fortunately Obama looks good and comes across well to the same people who decided that Bush won his debates against Gore without answering a single question. No one can win an election if only the intelligent people vote for him.
See the problem with answering questions honestly is that americans don't want to hear the truth. Carter proved that out when he asked the americans to tighten their belts and live within their means. They called his speech a "malaise" because Americans didn't want to hear it or accept it. So Reagan was voted in when he said "Carter is wrong, you can have anything you want!"
Bush Sr. said no new taxes. But a tax hike was required at an important time, so he helped raise taxes. He was then voted out.
A significant portion of Americans believe that the US government is required to preserve their specific way of life, no matter what that is. What's why we require so much foreign oil. That's why we have such large cars. That's why so many people have such large credit card debt. We want our politicians to tell us we can have everything, and they want them to ensure that we can get it. Few Americans are willing to accept that maybe we personally all have to accept responsibility and start buying less and tighten our belts and accept higher taxes. We have to start thinking about quality of life, and not "quantity" of life.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
"They both just repeatedly misstated the other campaign's position while only extolling the virtues of their own."
That's their job but I think there was much more to it than that. I'm a 50-ish Aussie who knows virtually nothing about Biden or Palin, I watched the debate on youtube expecting to see a loudmouth yanky politician argue with a rabid "soccer mom". What I saw was a polished statesman forced into debating a not so rabid "soccer mom", eg: in his conclusion he pratically begged the American people to choose reason and science over fear and faith.
That he had to have the debate with such an ordinary crackpot speaks volumes for American democracy, choosing Biden would speak equally well of Joe Sixpack.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I find that a very dubious claim. The Constitution enumerates the powers that the federal legislative bodies should hold, and grants them the authority to do so. The problem is that politicians use the clause giving them power to regulate interstate commerce, combined with the necessary-and-proper clause, to put their hands into everything. The typical defense of this view is McCulloch v. Maryland, in which SCOTUS granted the federal government the power to institute a bank. Given that the Constitution grants the power "To coin Money, [and] regulate the Value thereof," this isn't too troubling. But today you'll find all sorts of situations where powers have been stretched much, much further.
While recent Republicans have been quite guilty of this, I view the Democrats as the worse offenders. You won't find federal authority over education in the Constitution. Or welfare. Or science subsidies. Or health care.
I'm not saying these are bad ideas. I'm saying the Constitution does not grant that authority to the federal government. Implied or correlated powers are one thing, but completely unrelated powers are another. Someone who's read and understood the Constitution by itself should conclude that these are issues that should be handled by the several states. It's sad that neither party represents the viewpoint that a lot of people hold -- that the federal government should be made weaker, not stronger.
Why was this modded up? The first sentence is simply untrue. In every major presidential debate, the moderators make it perfectly clear that the questions were not shared with anyone prior to the event. Do you think that journalists such as Jim Lehrer, Gwen Ifill, Tom Brokaw, or the late Tim Russert would flat-out lie to their viewers? It's true that the candidates haggle over the most minute details, such as podium height, but I think you're confusing finagling over the details of the format of the debate with knowing the questions in advance.
As for the second point, I'll admit that candidates will sometimes refuse to answer questions (Palin especially comes to mind). But as Gwen Ifill explained on MTP this week, it is not her job as moderator to force Palin to answer. It was a debate between the candidates, and therefore her role was merely to guide the questioning. Biden should have been the one to call Palin out on her non-answers. That was his failure, not Ifill's. As for your "hard" questions:
1. Was talked about extensively in the last debate, which focused on foreign policy.
2. Was talked about to an extent in the last debate, which is substantial given that it was supposed to focus on foreign policy. Will probably be a major focus of tonight's debate.
3. The fact is that this isn't a big issue for most people, especially with the economy in the tank. Nevertheless, the candidates' positions are readily available: McCain will continue the Bush administration's policies towards medical marijuana, and Obama will instruct the Justice Department to not enforce the federal laws on medical marijuana patients.
4. The way this question is worded, it will never be asked. It is loaded.
And she's gone on to have a very high popularity rating in her home state.
How long do you think that's going to last now that the McCain campaign has flown in a bunch of high-priced Washington lawyers to interfere with the troopergate investigation? Frontier independent types aren't going to like being told what to do by out of town lawyers -- even if they disagreed with the investigation in the first place.
Make no mistake about it, Palin is smart
What's smart about believing that the Earth is 6,000 years old and that man and the dinosaurs walked the Earth together?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Well, I didn't think he won. I don't think anyone with any intelligence thought he won, either. Although it proves that P.T. Barnum knew what he was talking about.
I think it proves you're one of those people Pauline Kael made famous when she said "I don't see how Nixon could have possibly won. No one I know voted for him"
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
What's so smart about believing that democrats only want to tax those making over $250,000/year? They bring out that bedtime fairy tale every election.
And how does the incumbent party responsible for the largest increases in national debt in history continue to claim that they're the fiscally responsible party?
No no nonononononononono. No. People are dumb. They don't know what's good for them even when they know what's going on, which they rarely do. There's a good goddamn reason the US isn't a direct democracy.
ResidntGeek