"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." Joseph StalinIt was reminiscent of one of those Halloween or Freddie Kruger Movies. Just when a victim thinks are safe behind a closed door the find out they they have locked themselves in a room with the monster. And that's just what happened to Norm Coleman and the GOP in Minnesota this past election.
The "Monster" is Minneapolis Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. Like most Secretary of States, one of Richie's responsibilities is counting a confirming the votes. Richie a former Community Organizer, was elected two years ago with help from former Nazi collaborator George Soros and the criminal enterprise, ACORN. It was Richie who kept approving the use of those mysterious ballots that kept popping up during the vote count. It was also Richie who allow each county to use their own method of approving ballots. These decisions were major contributors to the victory of Comedian Al Franken in the senate race.
In 2006, the Minnesota ACORN Political Action Committee endorsed Ritchie and donated to his campaign. According to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, contributors to Ritchie's campaign included liberal philanthropists George Soros, Drummond Pike, and Deborah Rappaport, along with veteran community organizer Heather Booth, a Saul Alinsky disciple who co-founded the Midwest Academy, a radical ACORN clone. One article on Ritchie's 2006 campaign website brags about the fine work ACORN did in Florida to pass a constitutional amendment to raise that state's minimum wage.
Minnesota was the first success of the George Soros funded "Secretary of State Project," a group started and funded by Soros, whose goal is to fill Secretary of State positions, with Soro's people with the purpose of stealing elections, so says Matthew Vadum in American Spectator:
...A group backed by Soros is gearing up to steal the 2012 election for President Obama and congressional Democrats by installing left-wing Democrats as secretaries of state across the nation. From such posts, secretaries of state can help tilt the electoral playing field.
This is, of course, the same Soros, the same hyperpolitical left-wing philanthropist who makes no secret of his intention to destroy capitalism. In an interview with Der Spiegel last year, Soros said European-style socialism "is exactly what we need now. I am against market fundamentalism. I think this propaganda that government involvement is always bad has been very successful -- but also very harmful to our society."
The vehicle for this planned hijacking of democracy is a below-the-radar non-federal "527" group called the Secretary of State Project. The entity can accept unlimited financial contributions and doesn't have to disclose them publicly until well after the election.
It was revealed during a panel discussion at the Democratic Party's convention last year that the Democracy Alliance, a financial clearinghouse created by Soros and Progressive insurance magnate Peter B. Lewis, approved the Secretary of State Project as a grantee. The Democracy Alliance aspires to create a permanent political infrastructure of nonprofits, think tanks, media outlets, leadership schools, and activist groups -- a kind of "vast left-wing conspiracy" to compete with the conservative movement. It has brokered more than $100 million in grants to liberal nonprofits, including ACORN.
The latest fundraising appeal from the SoS Project warns:
In the 2000 and 2004 elections, we saw the results of extreme Republican tactics to intimidate voters and steal the presidential election -- the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush. Today, we watch as Republicans go to even greater extremes -- even carrying guns to town hall meetings. If they are willing to go to such extremes now, how far will they go on November 6, 2012 to steal the election from President Barack Obama?
Its a brilliant strategy, put your people in position to count the votes, and you can steal every close election.
For 2010 SoS Project is trying to reelect California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, whom the group describes as "one of the most progressive Secretaries of State in the nation." Bowen was endorsed in her previous run by California ACORN PAC.
SoS Project is also endorsing Jocelyn Benson, candidate for secretary of state in Michigan, whom it lauds as an "[e]lection law scholar and community organizer."
Benson is a candidate ACORN would love. The bio SoS Project provides credits Benson with running a 2004 "voter protection campaign in 21 states, deploying 17,000 trained election law lawyers." Last year in Michigan, she helped to lead the fight to stop the Republican secretary of state "from disenfranchising voters who were victims of home foreclosures."
The secretary of state candidates the group endorses all sing the same familiar song about electoral integrity issues that we routinely hear from ACORN: Voter fraud is largely a myth, vote suppression is used widely by Republicans, cleansing the dead and fictional characters from voter rolls should be avoided until embarrassing media reports emerge, and anyone who demands that a voter produce photo identification before pulling the lever is a racist, democracy-hating fascist.
One of the most sacred rights and responsibilities of American citizenship is voting. We are supposedly guaranteed that every person's vote is worth as much as every other person's vote. That guarantee has never been perfect, Blacks weren't allowed to vote until the 15th amendment in 1870, and women until 1920's 19th Amendment, but the tradition of the United States has been to aspire toward honest elections.
The group was co-founded in July 2006 by James Rucker, formerly director of grassroots mobilization for MoveOn.org Political Action and Moveon.org Civic Action. Rucker is also a co-founder of Color of Change, a race-baiting left-wing hate group.
Its website claims, "A modest political investment in electing clean candidates to critical Secretary of State offices is an efficient way to protect the election." Indeed. Political observers know that a relatively small amount of money can help swing a little-watched race for a state office few people understand or care about.
The strategic targeting of the SoS Project yielded astounding results in 2008 and 2006.
In 2008, SoS Project-backed Democrats Linda McCulloch (Montana), Natalie Tennant (West Virginia), Robin Carnahan (Missouri), and Kate Brown (Oregon) won their races. Only Carnahan was an incumbent. The Center for Public Integrity reported that the group performed this electoral feat in the 2008 election cycle with a mere $280,000.
In 2006, along with Minnesota's Ritchie, SoS Project-endorsed Jennifer Brunner (Ohio), who defied federal law last year by refusing to take steps to verify 200,000 questionable voter registrations, trounced her opponent, 55% to 41%. Democrats supported by the group also won that year in New Mexico, Nevada, and Iowa. The group claims it spent about $500,000 in that election cycle.
This past election America took a major step backwards, ACORN, perpetuated voter fraud in at least 14 states to the point where some districts had MORE than 100% of registered voters casting ballots. They were helped by George Soros' hand picked Secretary of States. Ultimately this probably had little effect on the national election. But it did effect at least one state-wide election and can cause even more stolen elections in 2010 and 2012.
3 comments:
WOW -
Are you just saying, "Nazi collaborator George Soros"?
Sounds to me you have some links to back it up.
I'd really like to see some. That would explain an
awful lot about this old man's rotten character.
Yep he said so in a 60 minutes interview see http://tinyurl.com/c3chhk
Mark Ritchie had nothing to do with defeating Senator Coleman … Senator Coleman lost because of his votes and stance on the issues.
Even Coleman has finally admitted that he lost when he voted for TARP … he lost the hardcore conservatives.
Did you realize that 63,203 McCain voters did not vote for Coleman ? That’s right, if Coleman had just gotten just a couple more of those votes, he would still be in the Senate.
Former Democrat turned RINO Coleman did not have strong support from MN-GOP conservatives before the TARP vote … talk to the delegates at the MN-GOP endorsing convention who greeted Coleman’s speech with silence especially when he talked about climate change and immigration. There was open discussion of throwing Coleman under the bus as it was viewed that his votes would be the same as Franken.
When voters get their ballot, it is generally a choice of voting for someone or voting against someone … but Minnesota has a third option …with the Independence Party on the ballot, people can vote for the third option … IP candidate Dean Barkley got 437,505 votes which is more the 350,000 votes that a typical Independence Party candidate would get … most of those votes were anti-Coleman and anti-Franken votes … not pro-Barkley. Franken was a flawed candidate … it should not have even been close.
IF your assessment is that Mark Ritchie “stole” the election, then why did he make it so close ? Senator Coleman was the only defeated incumbent … Representative Bachmann was re-elected and Erik Paulsen replaced Republican Jim Ramstad … both of those were highly competitive races … and the Minnesota House elections did not generate any complaints of unfairness.
Your comment : “It was also Ritchie who allow each county to use their own method of approving ballots” is incorrect.
First, each county counted ballots using the same procedures. The re-counts were done openly and reviewed by a special Election Contest Court which included Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty appointees. The ECC as well as the Appellate Court and State Supreme Court rulings were unanimous. In fact during the Supreme Court oral arguments, Justice Paul Anderson asked Coleman’s lead attorney Joe Friedberg bluntly whether he was alleging outright criminality by election officials: "Is there any evidence of any fraud, any favoritism, or anything other than the election officials in Minnesota tried to do the best job possible to apply the law?" "Absolutely not," said Friedberg. "And there's no voter fraud, there's no election fraud."
Second, I suspect that you wanted to state was that some counties used their own discretion to accept an absentee ballot applications. What was discovered during the review process was that counties did comply with the requirements of the law, but that some counties went beyond what the law required. IF anything this was more of a case of voter suppression as the counties with the highest number of rejected applications were those that Coleman won … remember that before the election results were known, the conventional wisdom was that Obama would draw in new voters, so by rejecting applications, it would help Coleman. It is unfair to blame Ritchie when rogue county officials go beyond the requirements of the law.
Third, if application for absentee ballot was rejected, voters were to be notified and could appear on Election Day … some did … and some corrected their applications and did eventually vote.
Say what you want about other state’s voting procedures, but don’t slam Minnesota … we rejected Norm Coleman on the issues.
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