Slashdot Mirror
Texas Attorney General Warns International Election Observers
First time accepted submitter mescobal writes "Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott warned international election observers not to come closer than 100 feet from a polling place; otherwise, they could be subject to criminal prosecution. The warning was addressed to a group of international observers who intend to monitor polls. The OSCE, an UN affiliated organization of observers, was concerned about voter ID issues among other things. From the article: '“The Texas Election Code governs anyone who participates in Texas elections — including representatives of the OSCE,” Abbott wrote. “The OSCE’s representatives are not authorized by Texas law to enter a polling place. It may be a criminal offense for OSCE’s representatives to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place’s entrance. Failure to comply with these requirements could subject the OSCE’s representatives to criminal prosecution for violating state law.”'"
Chuck "Walker" Norris himself will watch over this and will roundhouse-kick you until you learn to respect democracy!
If that's what the law states, then I'm glad the Texas AG is doing his job and upholding it since that the law that the democratically elected legislature passed. Additionally, why should there be unsupervised "observers" standing around a polling place and potentially intimidating voters? There are already plenty of limits to regulate campaigning in and around polling places, and I see no reason why unelected "observers" should be given more access to polling places that legitimately registered voters are.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Over time, this principle has been reinforced: the more land a government oversees, and the more remote it is from a local area, the more likely it is to misunderstand the specific needs of that locality.
It's bad enough that the federal government makes laws that might work on the coasts but ignore the needs of people in the flyover states, but trust the UN to treat Texas like New York or Brussels and thus completely miss the point.
I'm not calling for Texas Secession yet, but it's tempting some days... and not just for Texas. Washington and New York are too far from most places to understand local needs.
...of election officials to fix the vote.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I love how Americans go around the world telling other countries how to do "fair" elections, when they can't even following their own laws and do fair elections themselves.
Tell me again who should have won the last election?
The world looks to America to set a good example, and America leads by example.
It's a terrible tragedy that these nutjob far right wing extremists have managed to compromise politics so badly. And that they want to win so badly, they'll obliterate America's good name in the world to do so.
And it isn't just implementing blatantly racist and illegal policies to purge 'enemy' voters either. It's setting up stings and other deceit to try and prop up their extremist loony Right lies that liberals are engaging in voter fraud.
Somebody tell me why there isn't a completely independent, non-partisan election agency in the US anyway. Only a COMPLETE fucking idiot would let political appointees run elections. It's akin to putting the foxes in charge of the henhouse.
In terms of elections we now have less credibility than Venezuela.
It took real effort to break down confidence in the fairness of U.S. elections within 10 years.
Janez LenarÄiÄ, the Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), stated that "The United States, like all countries in the OSCE, has an obligation to invite ODIHR observers to observe its elections.â (http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/96639).
Where does this obligation come from?
Moral obligation to fairness. A concept we're forgetting by the day.
Where does this obligation come from?
As a signing member of OSCE, the US must comply to the treaty's terms. This is irrespective of what Texas' AG quacks, since the legalese in international treaties supersedes national laws where applicable -- or at least that's how it's supposed to work anyway.
In PA police are not allowed within 100 feet of a polling place unless voting or responding to a call.
The only way I can respond to "this isn't Chicago" is that you're right... it's the right doing the intimidation rather than the left.
Both are wrong.
The obligation comes from being a participatory member of the organization.
Son. This is Texas. The fix has been in for the past sixty years. Just because the machine doesn't call itself a "machine" doesn't change the effect. Just because the machine changes party does not mean it changes its stripe.
-
The Gore election was fixed, but it was done way before the vote was taken. There were massive voter purges in Florida done by the Jeb Bush administration. The number of Democratic voters taken out was several times Bush's margin of victory.
This is well documented (with REAL FACTS!) but it isn't talked about.
I was under the impression that the 100 foot radius (in California--Ianal) was created to prevent campaigners from trying to sway voters to their side and prevent the ensuing emotional chaos created from interfering with the voting process when the voters were making a decision at the polling booth. Witnesses, OTOH, can be anyone, for whatever purpose, watching and learning about the voting process in the voting area as long as it's peaceable and reasonably practical. (An example: students not of voting age.)
Yesterday's Weirdness is Tomorrow's Reason Why
It should be noted that they did NOTHING along these lines when the Black Panthers did what they did. However, the same bunch that's doing the asking is the one that allowed that to be done and nothing to be done about it. They've caught 30k fraudulent registrations in Houston, again done by the same bunch doing the asking for this. Most of the purges were not legit registrations. Even much of that 20% that people were ranting on and on about.
Ask yourself something. Why? It's not to ensure the vote if you look at the facts. This is another ploy and Abbott's right about this. If it were a Federal agent instead of the OSCE, they'd get arrested as well- if you legally don't have authority (Treaties carry the same force as the Constitution, but do NOT trump it... Don't forget that this isn't a power delegated to the Federal Government but to the States by the Constitution...) you CAN get arrested by the group that does.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
then there shouldn't be a problem with letting people observe the process to make sure nothing funny is going on.
Right?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Maybe Gore should have won his own state, thus rendering Florida and any alleged shenanigans there irrelevant. If you can't convince the voters who know you best to send you to the White House.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
While there may be no provision for outside organizations, in many states there are provisions for campaigns to designate authorized observers. I've done that in Massachusetts (I was marking off the names of the voters who voted on my own list so that we would not call them in the afternoon get-out-the-vote campaign). Assuming there are similar rules in Texas, it just takes one candidate to designate the observers as official representatives.
Grandstanding akin to calling a press conference to state the sky is blue.
FTA: “I have specifically informed the Texas team that Chapter 61 of the Texas Election Code would not allow them into actual polling places, and they understood this limitation,” per the election authority.
So the observers were told of the limitation, accepted it, and understood it, but the AG in an effort to bolster his own image couldn't resist the urge to make a scene.
Texas as usual.
... for elections observers to be sent to Afghanistan.
Oh Yes They Do
I've done OSCE election missions, and if I proposed going to Afghanistan my wife would most certainly have something to say about how dangerous it is.
The OCSE is not part of the UN.
If that's what the law states, then I'm glad the Texas AG is doing his job and upholding it since that the law that the democratically elected legislature passed.
Ah - but if they ban international, UN-sanctioned observers from monitoring the election how can anyone have confidence that they are "democratically elected" as you claim? Afterall in the aftermath of the 2000 US presidential election one of your former presidents, Carter, claimed that the US presidential election rules would not satisfy the current UN rules for a true democracy and continues to criticise the way the US holds elections even today. So if your former leaders are not convinced by the process why should the rest of us have any confidence in it if you refuse to let anyone observe it?
Took me a bit to find, but OSCE is not a formal treaty, therefore it is not U.S. law, and cannot legally be held above any law in any State. OSCE is a political commitment. AKA, it's pretty much just some trash some folks signed to make them look good.
Telling citizens they won't be berated in a voting place is not intimidation. If you think it is I think you have your definitions screwy.
And we have Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott trying to hide the fact that he is supporting voter fraud?
What is he afraid of?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
First you say
then you link to a wikipedia article where the first sentence reads:
Care to explain your thought process a bit further?
This whole bruhahaha over voter rights and disenfranchising voters is what elections have been about in this country since it was founded. It's been a tug of war ever since the constitution was signed.
Remember that Women weren't allowed to vote? That was in the constitution as well, not in a state law. Poll Taxes weren't abolished until the 1960s!
T
Now all of this voter "deletion" and other unscrupulous acts cause people to take notice? I just ask those people "Where the fuck have you been? Under a rock?"
Look, people in power don't like to give up power, that's why we have really two parties in the US. They've come to write the laws including voter registration laws and the oh so popular redistricting battles that come around every 10 years with the Census. They agree that when one party is in charge that the other will cause no end of fighting and finger pointing to say how fraudulent the process is, no matter how fair people try to make it. Don't like a congressman? We'll redistrict his ass out to the pasture by bringing in more voters of one racial or bias group that will vote more the way we like it.
It's been going on since the country was founded and simply put, it's not fair to some but it's always fair to the politicians who want to hold onto office despite their deplorable voting records and obstructionism.
What's also lost on a lot of people is that Texas picked up a few seats in the house at the loss of predominantly Democratic States. Remember Congressman "I didn't take lude pics of my weiner" Weiner? His seat went *poof* because of the Census and more people moving to Texas. And the Democrats are worried that these 4 extra seats may just go Red. That's why there's been constant legal challenges to the redistricting going on in the state and every left and right wing fringe element is coming to the party. It's just wonderful to watch our courts and our processes get drug into the mud with all this Gerrymandering but it's a fact of life and ultimately the guys who make the laws could fix it but again they have agreement with their counterparts across the aisle to keep the status quo because it keeps them both gainfully in power and employed. You also have a white house with AG Holder that has been playing whack-a-mole with ever voter registration change or requirement that has come along in the last four years to weed out voter fraud. All the while Holder is playing up to every racial minority and pulls the race card out at every opportunity. Having an Picture ID? That's a minimal requirement nowadays even if you want to cash a check, get a bank account or even travel on a train or airplane and this whole bunch of bullshit around this in Texas and in Pennsylvania is another smoke screen to make sure that voter fraud can continue. You see we have to maintain that status quo.
Oh and if you don't think that voter fraud actually exists, how about something that was smoothed over recently. A woman and a democrat, suddenly withdrew from running for Congress when it was alleged that she voted in Maryland and in Florida during the 2006 and 2008 elections. So if you think that voter fraud doesn't exist, here's a woman, running for office with the ethics of a crack dealer. Now it's alleged but her own party called her out! Maybe she can do some arts and crafts when she's in prison?
So who represents you? That's why you vote and that's why every vote does count and I don't care if you're black, white, green or brown but if you're here in the US, are a citizen op age and a resident of the state where you're voting, you should be able to vote. Each state can come up with requirements to assure that
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Maybe Gore should have won his own state, thus rendering Florida and any alleged shenanigans there irrelevant. If you can't convince the voters who know you best to send you to the White House.....
Are you suggesting that if Romney loses Mass. and Michigan he SHOULD lose the White House? Because he surely will be losing those states.
Wow, and yet Gore STILL got more votes than Bush in Florida, only to have them not counted by a conspiracy between corrupt election officials and corrupt Supreme Court justices.
My thanks go to the Washington Post and other fine newspapers for establishing this fact, so that nobody in the future will ever consider Bush 's first term to be legitimate:
First off, if you were going to monitor every polling location in Texas with one person, it would require a army larger than most other nations have.
While I am not going to debate the Texas AG statements, one thing is bothering me.
If the Constitution has given the states the power to control their elections process within the requirements set out by the constitution, then the Federal Government signing a treaty dictating a process in the election is doing a end around the Constitution
That seems UN-lawful to me, of course my faith in the federal government has waned over the years to, so there is no surprise there.
I have personally been involved in the election process on the inside, and at least where we were, with extreme voter turnout last
presidential election, I saw nothing that raised my eyebrow. If there is any election rigging its beyond the actual voting process itself.
Either by electronics afterwards, or fraudulent voter registration. Neither that would be able to be verified by being on site with anybody.
And as far as the 100 foot rule, they are pretty firm on that. You can be outside at the proper distance and hold signs to your hearts content
but show any brow beating and they will remove you. Which is the right thing to do. I really do not think there is anything to see here in this issue.
Why bother to cite facts when cited facts don't sway ideological nincompoops like yourself?
Here's your fucking cite, jackass. It's a widely known FACT trivially discovered by a Google search that a four-year-old could do in less time than it takes you to stretch when you wake up.
In Texas it is seen as a sign of weakness if you have to get closer than 100 feet to cast your vote.
That's because Texans vote by shooting at their ballots. "If you have to get closer than 100 feet, you need to practice your shooting more. YEE-HAW!" *bang* *bang* *bang*
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
No there's not. There are superficial differences which do a good job of keeping the rabble roused, but fundamentally there's almost no difference. Both fundamentally favor protection of corporate interests and the expansion of government power. Their list of corporate interests might differ slightly, but are surprisingly similar.
If there were a fundamental difference in the parties, it would be reflected in their rhetoric on things like the NDAA, our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the huge abuses of the financial industry in the U.S., etc. But both parties are CONSPICUOUSLY SILENT on all these issues. Instead they want to argue about what word the other guy used in a press conference, or what the other guy said in a divorce case twenty years ago.
Face it, on the issues that really matter, there is no substantive difference between the parties. Any perceived difference is simply electioneering--saying they'd do it different than the other guy. Even though they probably supported the other guy's position publicly a few years ago...
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
OCSE observers have been present at elections in Texas for ten years, without incident. OCSE can and does recruit watchers who meet the eligibility requirements for registered observers under Texas state law.
This is purely a manufactured issue, to entertain the masses.
It's settled then. In Texas international election observers will conducted under the auspicies of Heinekin, Becks, Fosters, Stolichnaya, Dos Equis, Guiness, Molson, Dom Perignon, Tsingtao, and, of course, Mr. Jose Cuervo.
FTFY
You have that exactly backwards. A quarter of black Americans do not have ID. Those "free" ID's can cost $200 for older Americans born at home without birth certificates, and expensive trips to the DMV for the poor.
And all to address a problem that simply does not exist .
All the "voter fraud" cases that people like you point to are either:
1) Actually voter registration fraud, not preventable by any ID law
2) Voting absentee and then in a polling booth - also not prevented by any ID law
You know how many cases of in-person voting fraud there are in the United States? About a dozen over a 10 year period, out of more than 600 million votes cast across the country. Ten times that many people were killed by vending machines in the same time period. So unless you're running around screaming for laws to protect us from this vending machine menace, why on earth are you demanding ID's to vote?
Voter ID solves a problem that does not exist, while raising considerable barriers to voting for poor Americans. If the laws you demand were in place in the 80's, Ronald Reagan would not have been able to vote in either of the elections he won for the presidency.
Because he was born at home without a birth certificate, and didn't get one until the 90's.