Cleveland City Councilwoman Phyllis Cleveland has been asking around today about a new billboard that reads "Voter fraud is a felony. Up to 3 1/2 yrs and $10,000 fine." The councilwoman says she wonders if billboards like this are only in African-American neighborhoods. This billboard, she says, is across from one subsidized housing development, a few blocks from three other projects, and down the street from Cuyahoga Community College.
From Ohio's lefty blog Plunderbund:
"This is blatant voter intimidation," says Councilwoman Cleveland. "A direct attack in the heart of African American community meant to scare people and keep them from exercising their right to vote."
The small print on the billboard says it was paid for by a "private family foundation." Plunderbund points out that billboards with similar language turned up in Milwaukee before the 2010 election. If you see billboards like this where you live, let us know, OK?
(Image: Plunderbund)
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Gosh Yet the GOP hires companies to commit voter fraud? Must be sumpin in the tea.
Soon they'll be jailing people for not returning library books.
GOTP stooping to intimidation tactics to scare minorities - I'm shocked I say, just shocked!
Yes because only minorities and the poor commit voter fraud
Don't forget dead people,felons in jail and, ACORN. LOL
ACORN committed no fraud.
http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/23/the-voter-fraud-hall-of-shame-milwaukee-voter-fraud-conviction-makes-acorn%E2%80%99s-2010-total-at-least-15/
Just google ACORN voter fraud and go from there. Plenty of material to play with there, and not too much of it from the EVIL FOX network either.
Hmmm.
Well I guess there are cases after all. Maybe we should delve deeper..
Nahh we will just say ACORN committed voter fraud as have many right winged groups.
Of course none of those cases would have been prevented by voter ID laws.
Moreover, it should be noted that of the handful of ACORN registration workers who submitted fraudulent applications over the years, almost all of those workers were turned into officials by ACORN themselves. The group checked all applications for validity before turning them in, flagged those which appeared to be fraudulent, and then turned them in to officials, along with the names of the workers who had defrauded them.
Contrast that with the disturbing activities of Sproul & Associates, Lincoln Strategies and now Sproul's Strategic Allied Consulting, along with what was admitted to by the Republican Party today in Colorado, and revealed by a number of recent cases of massive registration fraud by the Republican Party in California. (For the record, ACORN was never hired to do registration work by the Democratic Party, despite inaccurate Republican claims to the contrary.)
In 2006, GOP voter registration firms in California were reported by the LA Times to have turned in thousands of invalid registration forms, as well as fraudulent signatures on petitions in San Bernardino County. In once instance, "About 4,800 of more than 5,600 signatures submitted [by John Burkett Petition Management] were found to be invalid and were tossed out by election officials," the paper reported.
from..http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9586
The "inspector" needs a set of good glasses, so he can see beyond the end of his nose.
But thanks again, idiot, for the daily demonstration of what fools you wingnut morons are.
Some people love ignorance I guess.
The right should be ashamed of this and so many things; a bunch of bullies and racists.
Wow.....everyone on the right is a racist bully? How do you know? How do you know that there are no racist bullies in the liberal ring? Do you know what racism is or do you just feel good labeling folks and calling them names? Very productive.
lol So how do you commit voter fraud anyways...
The billboard is true, so whats the big deal... There are literally no people stupid enough to commit this kind of fraud. The real "fraud" is the notion that your vote "counts". I vote, every time, but I am not burdened by any notion that I can be a factor or change a narrative.
"This is blatant voter intimidation,"
How is this intimidation? If you are not committing voter fraud you have nothing to worry about. This sign is no different that one that says "Robbery is a felony" - it is stating an obvious truth that robbery is a felony, but if you are not a robber, then how can it intimidate you?
Ah, the "if you are innocent, you of course have nothing to worry about" excuse for intimidation. Yep, we've heard that before and it fails again and again. People worry about others lying about them and for good reason since we have people who are intentionally questioning the voting status of others with no good reason, only to prevent them from voting. In this context, apparently these billboard are *only* in african american neighborhoods, it is intimidation.
And the "family foundation" who is too cowardly to put their name on the billboards, well isn't it nice to see that they want to accuse people from anonymity? Seems we have nice strong-arm tactics here.
velkyn,
I see your reasoning and I guess it is a sad state of affairs to think that signs like this should intimidate anyone. The disadvantaged or poor or minorities should not be intimidated by this silly sign, but if they are, then we still have a long way to go in many ways. I do not think though that this is really a "strong-arm" tactic.
skip,
The "strong-arm" tactic will happen when the "True The Vote" volunteers show up at the polling places to "monitor" the election process.
The billboard will be a reminder when those coming to the polls see individuals outside with videocameras.
MindBend,
Again, why would someone with a video camera influence anyone? If someone is intimidated by someone with a videocamera outside a polling booth, then it is more an issue of information with regards to the voting process - which is, in itself a sad commentary. And of course, isn't stuff like that (videocameras) what poll watchers are for - to make sure the voting process is done properly?
skip,
I'll believe that when the signs and poll watchers show up in just as many rich, white, Republican districts as poor, minority, Democratic ones.
Ok MindBend. I still do not see the intimidation. You seem to be saying that if the signs and poll watchers show up in a rich, white, Republican district that that would intimidate voters there. I just am trying to follow the logic - a voter (rich, white, poor, minority, whomever) walks up to the voting precinct and sees someone with a "voting fraud is a felony" sign and/or a camera and they decide to just leave and not vote? I mean just what would recording someone walking into a voting precinct on video result in? The video would then be used how? Again I am just trying to follow some kind of sequence on how this would prevent someone from walking in to vote anywhere. IF there were some devious plan to use the video - how I have no idea - but IF there were some plan, then don't you think there would be a very large federal case brought up and the people openly doing this would be imprisoned for a pretty long time? But again I can not think of what could be done with a video of someone voting.
I'm a Democrat, and I'm poor, does this mean I can't vote twice?
Yes but only in Obamaland. You wouldn't be poor or a democrat if you would get some marketable skills.
Dear Inspector: go pee on the fire hydrants somewhere else, before we have to call Animal Control to come take you to the pound.
Just as soon as I'm done peeing on your BMW tires.
If it isn't voter intimidation, seems to me it's valuable information that should be going up in any upscale, gated community area, too.
Agreed....but upscale gated communuties do not have billboards anywhere near their neighborhood.
Yep. But what about flyers going into your shopping bag or cluttering the mailboxes? I would think everyone would be so happy to have that information. (snark).
Sure, that would work. Do you think it would intimidate anyone?
Is there a similar billboard in upscale Beechwood, Shaker Heights, Gates Mills? I think not ..... Blatant intimidation.
"Private Family Foundation," i.e. the Kochs.
Yes, voter fraud is a crime. Punishment should not be limited to or focused on race, gender or party affiliation. The right to vote is a right that brave people have fought and died for and it sickens me that we tolerate and allow voting by non-citizens and that corruption has crept into a process whose integrity we should aggressively defend. Voter intimidation???....HELL YES!! You need to be intimidated if you are not legal to cast a vote in this country but attempt to do so or if you contribute to activities in an attemp to determine the outcome.
Voting is aright afforded to CITIZENS and the integrity of the process should be VIGOROUSLY defended by all AMERICANS! If you are not doing your part, perhaps this is not the country for you and you can exercise your right to LEAVE.
There is a false claim circulating in the right wing media, one maybe TRMS would like to address, I don't know.
They're saying MSNBC commentators ignored previous voter fraud in order to advance the meme that voting fraud was a total FICTION made up by the GOP in order to inflame its base against ACORN and minorities/immigrants.
Now that evidence of actual GOP voter fraud has emerged, they claim this exposes the MSNBC bias in its previous advancement of the FICTIONAL voter fraud meme.
It is a false claim, insofar as MSNBC did cover ACORN and did look into things like the supposed "Black Panther voter intimidation incident" in Philadelphia (my RW FB friends throw that at me with righteous indignation, going "SEE?! See how evil this is?" I have no idea what I'm looking at, and I wish I did, even to be able to rebut it better, you know? I remember it vaguely in passing, but it does help me if TRMS engages these nutjob Fox News memes, just for the purpose of helping rank and file folks to demolish them in one-to-one conversations, you know?)
But now the claim is out there that MSNBC did a "news blackout" on these previous incidents, when voter fraud IS an issue that we should all be worried about (hell, I've been worried about it since 2004, when it appeared that electronic voting machines in Ohio were hacked, perhaps even through a corrupt-looking connection between the top state election official and Diebold).
* I think the MSNBC response is to call out a difference between IN PERSON Voting Fraud (the voter ID obsession, and Poll Taxes) vs. Voter REGISTRATION Fraud (mishandling registration materials, or making the process overly onerous), or Voting PROCESS Fraud (removing polling places from Dem districts, restricting access times) or Vote COUNTING Fraud (hacking e-voting machines, losing paper trails, losing or finding whole chunks of votes).
I don't want MSBNC to pooh-pooh ALL voter fraud as non-existent OR go crazy on it because of this freaky Freudian/Jungian Projection thing the GOP has going on with its own Shadow. I think the GOP claim is wrong, and there wasn't a blackout on the topic. But they are going around saying there was, and that in itself may be worthy of a full-scale rebuttal.
Hell, this freaky Freudian/Jungian Projection thing the GOP has going on with its own Shadow seems worthy of an academic-style story in itself. I mean, besides all the Rubber-Glue fun Rachel has with it. Why not do a story that questions an academic who studies this sort of thing, about the KIND of people who unconsciously create an Enemy/Shadow in the image of their own unresolved issues?
I mean, besides the obvious Karl Rovian embrace of it as a rhetorical tactic, to accuse the opponent of doing whatever you are already doing, to preemptively take the wind out of any later accusations, because then you can accuse the opponent of accusing you of doing what he is already doing to preemptively take the wind out of YOUR later accusations. And so on...
That's CONSCIOUS Shadow play. What about UNCONSCIOUS Shadow? You know, Luke Skywalker/George Lucas stuff, when Luke off to train with Yoda went, and face his SHADOW he did.
There's a lot of meat to play around with in there. Like how the loudest homophobes and worst gay bashers have unresolved homoerotic feelings. How the GOP fears voter fraud because Machiavellian ends-justify-means types within their own party reveal that they'll do anything dirty-tricksy to help the party win.
Nobody on the Maddow Show ever talks about how the Likud Party in Israel seems obsessed with turning the Palestinian Territories into one massive Warsaw Ghetto. That is one of the biggest unconscious Shadow projections currently in existence on this planet.
Obsession with the Other, whomever the Other may be, through bigotry, fear-mongering, dog whistles, immigration fences, etc. That's the obvious Shadow play.
(Biggest Shadow boogeyman? Reenacting the way the Roman Empire treated non-citizens by virtually CREATING the Visigoths as the ultimate Shadow as surely as Lord Voldemort created in Harry Potter his own mortal enemy when he tried to kill him as a baby-- nonfiction and fiction blur for me in these Shadowlands)
Even to the point of casting the word "Liberal" as Other, or, Democrat, as Other, or RINO as Other.
Links to the broader cultural phenomenon of Bullying and the need to gang up on and demonize an Other. Put two and two together here.
The link between cowardice (and chicken hawks) and bullying. Wow, that would be something neat to blow open.
Just a thought.
It is a common stunt for the conservative or the selfish perpetrator to throw an unlikely accusation against an innocent target; just to see that target try and struggle to defend itself.
It could be called water boarding. OR
It could be called throwing mud at a pig and calling it dirty.
The burden of proof is on the innocent, which is why we made laws in the first place.
Next we see polling places used for arrests, traffic fines, and self-deportation.
Or when someone in a crowd at a sporting event yells at the ref, "When did you stop beating your wife?"
Voter Fraud
Is when you cannot vote.
Is when you cannot register to vote.
Is when you meet intimidation.
Is when you greet poll watchers.
Is when you sense voter suppression.
Is when you find the polls closes early.
Is when you work and cannot vote.
If the same private donations were being spent by the government it would be called fraud. If the same dollars were being spent by the citizens of the community then democracy would grow along with the demand for good governance.
This would be a positive development!
But suspicions are harbored by private dollars obviously being spent for some gain, whose gain, what gain. The public may dumb as rock, but at some point they will show up with sharpened gardening tools.
Chris Mathews needs bigger panties because last night's undergarments got all knotted up over the weak showing of the incumbent. BO clearly has no idea how to run anything other than a classroom or a community gathering but he got a schooling about how business works last night and the liberal media suddenly got all tongue tied. Matthews couldn't even fabricate a laughable defense. Too funny.
lol Except when your a Republican and you build and hire a company to commit voter fraud--then you get to spend a week in the Bahamas and denying it on your way back to Martha Vineyard. Ya know as well as I do that no one will get any jail time over this. Just like the Democrats and their Texas to step fiasco, and that time they just so happen to find that box of votes that didn't get counted. Remember Florida and Bush suing for President. No politician will ever do time for voter fraud. If your a politician you can get away with murder--literally.
If someone sticks a video camera in my face at the polling place, they better be ready to have it shoved up their rear end. No one should tolerate these True the Vote people.
This sign is not voter fraud. If it is then I should be intimidated by the signs that say buckle up its the law. Please people stop showing ignorance and trying to cry poor is me