Tag: voting

How Democrats & Republicans ‘Stole’ Votes From the Greens, Libertarians in 2020

Many things that everyone knows, are not true. Sometimes, quite rarely, one of those widely-believed falsehoods not only turns out not to be true, but obscures the fact that the exact opposite is true.

Most people believe that small political parties siphon off votes from one of the two major parties. Mainstream media repeatedly declares, without bothering to cite evidence because its obviousness rises to the level of self-evident, that Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the 2000 election (not true) and Jill Stein sucked away enough Democratic votes from Hillary Clinton to put Donald Trump in the White House (also not true).

Let us, for the purpose of this essay, set aside the usual counterarguments to the claim that you shouldn’t vote Green they’re just spoilers: no presidential election is decided by a single vote so you can’t possibly individually change any outcome, people who don’t live in swing states really have no reason to worry about tipping an election, parties ought to have to earn votes, voting for a lesser evil is still voting for evil, a little party will never become bigger until we stop overthinking our tactical voting and simply support that candidate and the party we like best.

But—are small parties really electoral succubi? First, a look at Republican losers who blamed third parties for their losses.

Running as a Progressive in 1912, a vengeful Teddy Roosevelt out to punish his former protege for deviating from progressive Republicanism is alleged to have sucked away votes from William Howard Taft. We did wind up with President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat—a result cited as the ultimate example of a third-party candidate splitting a party.

But historians forget to mention that it was a four-way race. Wilson faced his own “spoiler,” from his left: Eugene Debs of the Socialist Party, who got six percent of the popular vote. Taft was such a weak candidate that neither Teddy nor Debs made a difference; Wilson would have won no matter what.

Pundits say Ross Perot created a big enough sucking sound of votes from George H.W. Bush in 1992 to hand the race to Bill Clinton. Pundits are mistaken: Perot pulled equally from the Democrats and the Republicans. Libertarian Gary Johnson is unfairly blamed for contributing to Trump’s defeat in 2020.

Similarly, left-leaning third-parties—since 2000, this has meant the Greens—have never poached from Democrats in big enough numbers to change the outcome. Green Party supporters tend to be leftists like me, who would otherwise not vote at all. If the only two parties on the ballot were the Democrats and Republicans, we’d sit on our hands.

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This Election Season, Beware of These False Promises

As elections approach, sweeping generalizations have a certain allure that often energizes the frustrated and captivates the hopeful. However, it’s essential that we as voters remember that things that seem too good to be true typically are. Here are a few warnings.

First, as far as our finances go, beware of politicians promising that they won’t touch Social Security and Medicare. In reality, they’ll have no choice. For one thing, if they keep this hollow promise, Social Security benefits will be cut across the board in 2033 by over 20 percent. According to the Committee for a Responsible Budget, that’s a cut of between $12,000 and $17,000 annually for a traditional retired couple. Medicare faces the same predicament for a variety of reasons.

The only workaround from this reality, which has been known for decades, is for Democrats and Republicans to finally come together for serious reform. That will likely result in a reduction of benefits and an increase in taxes. As unpleasant as it will be, we’d better hope that politicians don’t take the cowardly path and resort to shoving the problem onto Uncle Sam’s proverbial credit card (by paying all benefits that exceed payroll-tax receipts out of general revenues).

As the Manhattan Institute’s Brian Riedl noted recently, “Social Security and Medicare are projected by the CBO to spend $156 trillion in benefits but collect only $87 trillion in payroll taxes and premiums. This $69 trillion cash shortfall will have to be financed by budget deficits, which will in turn be responsible for $47 trillion of interest costs on the national debt.” Who will lend the U.S. government $114 trillion, even at unprecedentedly high interest rates?

That’s a question voters should ask politicians who promise never to touch entitlement programs. Those who claim it’s an easy fix by taxing the rich should be immediately dismissed as unserious. The numbers don’t add up. Any other one-sided ideological answers to an accounting question won’t cut it, either.

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A Delaware city is set to give corporations the right to vote in elections

The state of Delaware is famously business-friendly. With more than 1.8 million entities registered in the First State, companies outnumber its human residents by nearly two-to-one. 

One city is now moving to raise businesses’ influence in the state even further, with a proposal to grant them the right to vote.

Seaford, a town of about 8,000 on the Nanticoke River, amended its charter in April to allow businesses — including LLCs, corporations, trusts or partnerships — the right to vote in local elections. The law would go into effect once both houses of Delaware’s state legislature approve it.

The proposal has rekindled a debate over how much power corporations should have in local government, with fierce opposition from civic interest groups who say businesses already wield too much influence over politics.

“It was very shocking to see this attempt to have artificial entities have voting rights,” said Claire Snyder-Hall, executive director of Common Cause Delaware, a watchdog group. 

“We’re seeing voter suppression all over the county, and this is the flipside,” she added. “It’s not saying the residents of Seaford can’t vote, but it’s diluting their votes by allowing nonresidents to vote.”  

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Deja blue: Printer’s flub makes every Nassau County voter a Democrat

An upstate printer has once again screwed up downstate election materials, this time by mailing registration cards to Nassau County’s nearly 1 million voters — identifying them all as Democrats.

“It’s a terrible error. People are upset. People are angry. There is a lot of confusion,” GOP County Executive Bruce Blakeman seethed at a Tuesday press conference.

Democrats make up about 40 percent of the county’s 972,000 voters, according to state Board of Election records from February.

Blakeman ruled out partisanship as a likely cause of the mistake but said the county is investigating what did happen.

This week’s flub by the Rochester-based Phoenix Graphics comes two years after the company messed up absentee ballots for 100,000 Brooklynites shortly before the 2020 election, prompting outrage from voters concerned about whether their votes would count. The mistake extended into Nassau County as well, where nearly 800 people also received botched ballots.

Phoenix will now pay the roughly $300,000 needed to resend a correct registration card to every Nassau voter, Democratic County Election Commissioner Jim Scheuerman told The Post.

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9 Ways to Stop Cooperating with the Ruling Elite’s Control System

Done sneakily, or under the illusion of democracy, in recent times more oppressive laws have been made than ever before. Between us being subjected to more and more ordinances, rules, restrictions and outright laws then demonizing our dissension and opinion  should we object… It’s as if we can’t do anything right.

How long will it take for the masses to wake up to these grossly restricting laws and realize how un-free they are?  The masses’ unchallenging complacency with these laws has been made that much easier through social conditioning engineered over the years by the ruling elite.

In this charade, the power-mad egomaniac manipulating controlling parasitical ruling elite impose themselves on almost everything for their ulterior motives: ownership, power, profit and political gain – and that’s it. It’s that straightforward. It’s that pathetic.

These forever-increasing control mechanisms: regulations, rules, absurd mandates, threats of fines, intimidation, extreme petty police reprisals and imprisonment … are designed to sap the life-force from us while denying our true self-expression as we’re expected to bow down in acquiescence. It’s all designed to erode humanity into a subservient entity.

How do we break this manipulation?

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Why Is Election Denier Stacey Abrams Overseeing Elections In Nigeria?

It’s an odd case of juxtaposition.  A politician well known for refusing to accept election outcomes based on dubious claims is now helping to oversee the “integrity” of elections in an unstable foreign nation like Nigeria.  

Democrat and failed Georgia governor candidate Stacey Abrams is famous for her hypocrisy when it comes to accusations of election rigging while attacking conservative candidates for also questioning elections.  Abrams refused to concede to Republican Brian Kemp after the Georgia election results of 2018, claiming that the election was stolen due to voter oppression tied to discrimination.  She specifically targeted rules restricting some mail in ballots and absentee ballots.  Federal courts ruled that there were no grounds for her accusations.

Abrams has long been an avid defender of absentee ballot harvesting tactics and claims rules against the practice are “race related.”  The methodology of ballot harvesting has long been a boon for Democrats in the US as a means to secure election wins through absentee votes, which are collected by political operatives from people’s homes and then delivered to polling places.  Suspicions over ballot harvesting and the potential for vote rigging within the chain of custody have been the cause of numerous election conflicts, including conflicts over the 2020 presidential election.

The former governor’s candidate is also known for her aggressive opposition to voter ID laws designed to prevent non-citizens from casting in US elections.

Abrams is, strangely, now in Nigeria, joining the National Democratic Institute (along with the National Republican Institute) on a mission to observe elections and encourage voter participation.  The diplomatic initiative includes a contingent of globalist think-tank representatives from institutions like the Atlantic Council and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, which is heavily involved in diversity and equity programs similar to ESG efforts.

The NDI/NRI are focused on convincing younger voters to appear at polling stations, which seems to be a fair mission.  However, with widespread delays and attacks on some polling stations, there are questions of corruption and foreign interference.  The groups involved in the effort are predominantly concerned with the spread of globalist policies.  

Why Stacey Abrams and why Nigeria? It’s hard to say, but one of the major candidates for President of Nigeria is Bola Tinubu, a member of the socialist All Progressives Congress party, and Tinubu has some ties to Barack Obama, just as Abrams is a close associate of Barack Obama.  While Joe Biden’s interest in Tinubu is less certain, his former boss and the Democrat Party asked the Nigerian socialist to attend the Democratic National Convention in 2012, allegedly offering him a “gold card invitation”.  The circumstances surrounding the level of favor garnered by Tinubu’s DNC invitation are debated.    

The leftist oriented Woodrow Wilson Center, which as noted is part of the NDI election oversight operation in Nigeria, has also taken a special interest in Tinubu, inviting him to speak in 2014 on the value of the Opposition Parties in “progressing” Nigeria. 

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Chicago inmates claim jail guards are pressuring them to illegally vote in the mayoral election

Chicago inmates have claimed they are being pressured to illegally vote in the city’s mayoral election.

The inmates, some who are accused of murder, argued guards at Cook County Jail were pushing them to vote – despite some being registered in a different jurisdiction.

They claimed the guards were receiving orders from higher up and were ‘just doing what I’m told’ when confronted over the move.

It comes amid fears of ballot harvesting as insiders claimed the jail was the ‘ideal environment’ due to no cameras or election observers.

It also raised concerns it could propel Lori Lightfoot back into office, despite her languishing on just 13 percent in the polls.

One inmate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told DailyMail.com the guards didn’t seem to care that they might be breaking the law.

He said: ‘I asked him [the guard], ‘Did you ask people first if they’re registered to vote?’ And he said ‘no’.

‘I said but you should because if I’m registered to vote somewhere else like I am, you are asking me and enticing me to vote even though I’m registered somewhere else and that’s a felony. I can’t be voting in two different jurisdictions.’

He claims another guard told him that he was ‘just doing what I’m told’. 

An inmate being held on murder charges, also says 21 of the 48 inmates in his Division 11, have already voted but none were asked if they were registered or eligible to vote. 

‘They just say who wants to vote? Line up to vote,’ he said.

An unnamed source familiar with Cook County Jail said it is the ideal environment for ballot harvesting.

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