"Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy," by John Fund, Encounter Books, $17.95, 240 pages.
Election 2008 is poised to become worse than the Florida meltdown of 2000 as numerous factors foreshadow a replay of Florida’s court battles and recounts — but this time in more than one state, warns John Fund, author of the timely revised and updated “Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy.”
Fund, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal’s Web site and the paper’s daily “Political Diary,” as well as a contributor to Newsmax.com, is concerned that miscounts and voter fraud scandals everywhere from Seattle to Miami have rocked elections during the past several years — and, in very bad news for the election next month — many of the problems have not been resolved.
[Editor's Note: Get John Fund’s book, “Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy,” FREE — Go Here Now].
And then there are the new complications.
“This will be the first presidential election where the full impact of new federally mandated provisional ballots will be felt,” Fund says. “Any person who is not on the voter registration lists this November must be given a provisional ballot, which will be set aside and counted if found valid later.
“A tug of war over provisional ballots may be inevitable in key states where the margin of victory is no greater than the number of provisional ballots cast. Both campaigns would once again send squadrons of lawyers to any closely contested state to watch and argue as every single provisional ballot in the state is reviewed and a determination is made as to whether it should be counted. Results could once again be delayed for weeks after Election Day.”
“Stealing Elections” uncovers perhaps the most disturbing reason why this election’s credibility is in jeopardy. The Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, is linked intimately to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) a supposedly nonpartisan voter registration organization. But many of its activists have been indicted and convicted of voter fraud violations.
[Editor's Note: Read, “Author John Fund Fears Election Train Wreck,”— Go Here Now].
Fund details Obama’s involvement with ACORN throughout his career. In turn, ACORN’s political arm has endorsed him while its “nonpolitical arm” is “pledging to spend $35 million this year registering voters — most real but many fictional,” Fund notes.
Furthermore, “Stealing Elections” reveals shocking truths about how Obama had the support of the notorious Chicago Daley machine that stops at nothing to win elections, how ACORN led “the worst case of voter-registration fraud” in Washington State’s history, and how the 2008 elections are on a collision course with controversy as disputed provisional votes, absentee ballots, and an army of lawyers disputing results all converge in closely contested states.
On every page, Fund reveals eye-popping details. As Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, points out in his review: “[Y]ou don’t know the half of it until you read his book.”
Some examples:
Obama’s first election: He dismissed complaints of vote fraud even in notoriously dodgy Chicago precincts, while at the same time owing his first political office to his ability to deploy lawyers and throw every single one of his opponents off the ballot. From the national level to city hall, voting precincts in many states are ill-prepared to handle the influx of absentee ballots, provisional votes, and illegal voter registrations that could overwhelm election systems in many states in November. The terrible testament to the growing voter cynicism: Overall, the United States ranks 139th out of 163 democracies in the rate of voter participation. The growing shortage of vital volunteer poll workers as that group ages: In March 2002, for example, an unprecedented number of polling-place workers didn’t report for work in Los Angeles County. A total of 124 precincts opened late and one didn’t open at all. A latent bomb ticking for Election 2008: Since 2000, upwards of 70 percent to 75 percent of the nation has changed voting equipment. Says Kim Brace of Election Data Services, “Every time you make a change, it has the potential of causing problems.” Inevitably, the biggest problems occur the first time the new equipment is used, she says. Loose absentee laws don’t increase turnouts; they make fraud easier; they alter campaigns in strange ways. In 2000, they hurt the Democrats more profoundly than the butterfly ballots, hanging chads and other well-remembered epiphenomena of Florida. Learn how Al Gore could have won Florida. This year, it’s expected that three out of 10 Americans will vote before Election Day, Nov. 4. Many will vote three weeks before the election. In Maine, folks can begin voting a full three months before Election Day. A 2008 Rasmussen Reports poll found that 40 percent of Americans believe there is either significant vote fraud or active suppression of people who want to vote. At a time of heightened security and mundane rules that require citizens to show ID to travel and even rent a video, only half the states require some form of documentation to vote.The author warns: “Should ‘anything goes’ continue to be the ballot byword, the nation may wake up to another crisis even bigger than the 2000 Florida folly.
“Perhaps then it will demand to know who subverted the safeguards in its election laws. But wouldn’t it be better if — with the lessons of Florida and even more recent election snafus and scandals still fresh in the minds of many people — we did something now?
[Editor's Note: Get John Fund’s book, “Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy,” FREE — Go Here Now].
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