Supreme Court allows Arizona ‘ballot collection’ law
Nov 5, 2016 By Ariane de Vogue
(CNN)The Supreme Court on Saturday allowed an Arizona law barring organizers from picking up ballots and delivering them to election stations to remain in effect.
The ruling is a blow to Democrats in the state who say the law could disenfranchise thousands of voters, especially in minority communities that rely upon neighbors and activists to collect and hand-deliver the ballots.
Friday, a 6-5 ruling by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals granted a preliminary injunction of the law; the Supreme Court’s order stays that decision. There were no noted dissents.
In Arizona, voters can request an early ballot to be sent to them before the election. The voters can then mail it back or drop it off at a polling locations as long as it is received by 7 p.m. on Election Night.
Democrats in the state argued that thousands — particularly those in towns near the border and in Native American reservations without reliable mail service — have relied upon having their ballot collected by organizers in past years to ensure the ballots are received on time.
The law makes it a felony, punishable by a year in jail and $150,000 to knowingly collect “voted or unvoted early ballots” from another person. It provides for an exception for family members or caregivers.
“It is no secret that ballot collection and delivery has been particularly beneficial for Arizona’s minority voters, and legislators who have not traditionally enjoyed broad support in those communities have repeatedly tried to restrict it,” Democratic lawyer Marc Elias argued in his filing with the Supreme Court Saturday morning.
Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan praised the decision.
“We are extremely pleased the Supreme Court reversed the ninth circuit’s decision, Reagan said in a statement. “This commonsense law simply ensures ballot security in the state of Arizona and we’re relived that there will be no changes to the law this late in the election cycle. “
In briefs filed by lawyers for the Arizona, lawyers had argued that the law “will not actually have a discriminatory impact or anything more than a minimal burden on the right to vote,” and lambasted the appeals court for blocking the “sensible” law so close to the election.
Joshua A. Douglas, an election law expert at the University of Kentucky College of Law, believed a major concern for justices could be the timing.
“This could be a close vote,” Douglas said Friday. “I could see several justices worrying about the impact of the law while others will be more concerned with the timing issues.”
The majority of the appeals court said it recognized that it was blocking the law close to the election but said that its injunction would not affect the state’s “election processes or machinery.”
“The only effect is on the third party ballot collectors, whose efforts to collect legitimate ballots will not be criminalized, pending our review,” the majority said.
In a brief filed by the Arizona Republican Party and joined by the state attorney general, lawyers called the law a “well-reasoned” safeguard to a “fair and transparent election.”
They argued that the challengers “have not and cannot meet their burden to overcome the important regulatory interests protecting voters and ensuring an orderly and fair election process.”
They said the law was in effect for the primary election and that the challengers could not identify “a single voter whose ability to vote was burdened by the law.”
original here
American Elections Are Vulnerable to Wholesale Fraud
Nov 4, 2016 by Kurt Hyde
Bev Harris, elections expert and founder of Black Box Voting, believes our elections are vulnerable to wholesale fraud via manipulation of vote totals in the centralized computer databases. She recently appeared on the Alex Jones Show, where she demonstrated a computer script named Fraction Magic that can alter vote totals all the way down to the precinct level and make the final vote totals add up to a desired result.
Fraction Magic was written by Bennie Smith, a computer professional from Memphis, Tennessee. He demonstrated how it works by entering a desired outcome in an overlay and then he and Bev Harris watched as Fraction Magic altered all the precinct totals and recalculated all the subtotals up to the final totals Bennie Smith had specified. He added, “You can create plausible results that really pass off as the real thing.”
Harris reported that she tested Fraction Magic on her copy of the database of all votes cast in the general election in Alaska in 2004. She fed in desired outcomes and Fraction Magic performed the necessary vote count alterations all the way down to the precinct level in four seconds.
Both Harris and Smith expressed concern about the number of people who have the necessary access level to the vote totals databases. They would include numerous IT people, vendors, consultants, technicians, and others. Election officials rarely, if ever, make public lists of names of people who have privileged access to the election databases.
An extremely disturbing trend in American elections is the recent use of encryption to keep precinct totals secret until after they are in the hands of centralized elections offices. The American people are being told this is secure transmission and modernization. The spin in the news media has been to marvel at the skillful technology. But not enough people are asking what benefit we are achieving by concealing public information from the public.
Concealing precinct vote totals from the public until reviewed centrally was one of the tactics used by Hitler and Stalin. That’s how they had the ability to alter vote totals without being caught. No one but a few insiders had any election totals until the centralized authority had the ability to rework the numbers if necessary to achieve their desired results and then release election results.
The term “wholesale election fraud” refers to one act by a fraudster that changes a large number of votes, such as in a computer, or alters the vote totals hoping no one will audit the results and verify the totals. “Retail election fraud” refers to cheating one vote at a time, such as when people cast multiple absentee ballots or vote multiple times in person in an election. These people are known in the trade as “repeaters,” and their ability to repeat vote is greatly enhanced both by early voting and by either lax enforcement of voter ID laws or no voter ID requirement.
Specifying a vote total or percentage and then working it down is not a new form of corruption in American politics. Tracy Campbell described how political boss George Parr operated in his book Deliver the Vote:
Parr’s aide and feared enforcer, Luis Salas, later related how the Parr machine ruled: “Parr was the Godfather. He had life or death control. We could tell any election judge, ‘Give us 80 percent of the vote and the other guy 20 percent.’ We had it made in every election.”
Campbell also described how another 200 votes appeared after Lyndon Johnson issued the order to “find the votes” when he needed them to win the senate runoff election in Texas in 1948.
In Precinct Number 13, the precinct of Luis Salas, where he had manufactured a vote for Johnson of 765 to 60, the tally was now different. When one of the committee members read the totals for the precinct of Salas, the new total was 965 to 60. In the interim, obviously, one of Parr’s men had simply taken a pen and closed the top loop of the “7” to create a “9”.
Because the precinct totals were public information, were reported immediately, and were obtained by Governor Coke Stevenson right away, he was able to identify the precinct where the extra 200 votes were added. Unfortunately, too many people in positions of power were on Johnson’s side.
The concept behind Fraction Magic is not new to politics. What is different is the scale to which it can enable specifying an election result and make the subtotals match.
The fact that a program such as Fraction Magic can do what it does should be a wake-up call for the way we conduct our elections. We need to return to our traditional constitutionally correct decentralized counting of votes at the precinct level. We need a paper trail in the voting equipment. We must allow public access to any member of the public who wishes to observe the vote counts. And we must make precinct totals public immediately after the votes are counted, including posting them on the door of the voting site building.
If we do not, we run the risk of having our election results altered by the very people we hire to ensure that our elections are honest and accurate.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/24556-american-elections-are-vulnerable-to-wholesale-fraud
Hacker Guccifer 2.0 Warns He Has “Info From Inside FEC: Democrats May Rig The Elections”
Nov 4, 2016 by Tyler Durden
Before the recent torrent of daily Podesta email dumps brought renewed attention to Wikileaks (and accusations Julian Assange was working with the Kremlin despite his recent denial, which ultimately cost him his internet access), the media’s attention was closely focused on the recently emerged hacker known as Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be behind the hacking of the nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee emails and other documents distributed over the summer by WikiLeaks, and who likewise was accused of cooperating with Russia.
Earlier today, after a two week silence, Guccifer 2.0 reemerged, with a post on his blog, in which he alleges that he has information from inside the Federal Election Commission, according to which “democrats may rig the elections.” He then adds “this may be possible because of the software installed in the FEC networks by the large IT companies.”
INFO FROM INSIDE THE FEC: THE DEMOCRATS MAY RIG THE ELECTIONS
I’d like to warn you that the Democrats may rig the elections on November 8. This may be possible because of the software installed in the FEC networks by the large IT companies.
As I’ve already said, their software is of poor quality, with many holes and vulnerabilities.
I have registered in the FEC electronic system as an independent election observer; so I will monitor that the elections are held honestly.
I also call on other hackers to join me, monitor the elections from inside and inform the U.S. society about the facts of electoral fraud.
It is unclear what FEC information the hacker was in possession of, or was referring to, and how he intends to observe the elections. A recent video by Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting provided a real-time demo of the GEMS vote-fraud system, “fraction magic,” an election theft mechanism with context and explanation. There is much more detail on the BlackBoxVoting website.
The demonstration below used a real voting system and real vote databases and takes place in seconds across multiple jurisdictions. Over 5000 subcontractors and middlemen have the access to perform this for any or all clients. It can give contract signing authority to whoever the user chooses. All political power can be converted to the hands of a few anonymous subcontractors. It’s a product. It’s scaleable. It learns its environment and can adjust to any political environment, any demographic. It runs silently, invisibly, and can produce plausible results that really pass for the real thing.
It is possible that this is the process that Guccifer is referring to, although we are merely speculating. We are confident he will provide more detail shortly.
While we wait, watch the following video explaining how elections can be (and perhaps are) rigged.
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/hacker-guccifer-2-0-warns-he-has-info-from-inside-fec-democrats-may-rig-the-elections_11042016
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Final Warning from Immigration Officers: Clinton, Open Borders Will ‘Unleash’ Violence, ‘Countless Preventable Deaths’ in America
4 Nov 2016 by Julia Hahn
In a final warning to the American people ahead of Tuesday’s election, the nation’s frontline immigration officers are calling upon voters to reject Hillary Clinton and her “radical” open borders vision that will “unleash” violence in American communities and “cause countless preventable deaths.”
Although the nation’s border emergency goes virtually unreported by “corporate-funded media,” Clinton’s immigration policies would greatly exacerbate the crisis, the officers warn in a statement written by the president of the National ICE Council, which represents the nation’s roughly 5,000 frontline ICE officers, agents, and personnel.
“Hillary’s pledge for ‘open borders’ will mean disaster for our country, and turn the present border emergency into a cataclysm,” writes ICE Council President Chris Crane. “Hillary’s plan would unleash violent cartels and brutal transnational gangs into US communities and cause countless preventable deaths.”
Crane explains that the uncontrolled flood of record numbers of migrants into the country will be especially harmful on poor communities– including Hispanic and immigrant communities that will bear “the economic brunt the illegal immigrant surge.”
ICE officers on the front lines are witnessing a deluge of illegal immigration unlike anything we have seen before. The corporate-funded media won’t cover it. Our officers are being ordered to release recent border-crossers with no idea what their intentions are or what they are planning. Gang members, drug cartels and violent smugglers are taking advantage of the situation and threatening American communities. The influx is overwhelming public resources, especially in poor communities — including Hispanic communities and immigrant communities bearing the economic brunt of the illegal immigration surge.
Both border patrol and ICE agents have reported that the current border surge is the “worst we’ve ever seen it”– even surpassing the record influx experienced during 2014 border crisis. One ICE officer explained that with no room to house the incoming flood of migrants, agents have been forced to release illegals aliens–potentially including “would-be perpetrators or terrorists whose intent is to harm Americans or our country as a whole”– into American communities where they disappear “into the wind never to be seen by us again.”
In September the National ICE Council endorsed Donald Trump over Clinton and “urged all Americans, especially the millions of lawful immigrants living within our country, to support Donald J. Trump, and to protect American jobs, wages and lives.” The endorsement marked the ICE Council’s first-ever endorsement of any candidate for any elected office.
In a statement announcing the endorsement, Crane warned against Clinton’s “radical plan” of “total amnesty plus open borders” that “would result in the loss of innocent American lives, mass victimization and death for many attempting to immigrate to the United States, the total gutting of interior enforcement, the handcuffing of ICE officers, and uncontrollable flood of illegal immigrants across U.S. borders.” Crane warned that the agenda of non-enforcement, favored by Clinton, “results in the daily loss of life.”
By contrast, Donald Trump has pledged that he will enforce the nation’s immigration law and will advance an “America first” immigration policy that prioritizes the needs and interests of the American electorate. “After my inauguration, for the first time in decades, Americans will wake up in a country where their immigration laws are enforced,” Trump told Breitbart News earlier this year.
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/11/04/final-warning-america-immigration-officers-clintons-plan-open-borders-will-unleash-violence-american-communities-2/
Related
http://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-allows-arizona-to-ban-third-party-ballot-collection-1478372258
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