Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Make Elections Great Again
President Trump, in delivering on the 2016 Republican Party platform, on his promises, actually produced the legitimate change in voter behavior that Republicans, including Reagan, had long dismissed as pie in the sky. Black and Hispanic voters apparently turned out for President Trump, outperforming previous Republican presidential campaigns, because of what he actually delivered for them. They were apparently met with a brazen level of organized ballot box stuffing fraud never seen before in this country. So, now we have an entire electorate, a full citizenry that is either saying “voter suppression” or “election fraud.” We must make elections great again, for the sake of our republic and the possibility of preserving a civil society.
Every state legislature under Republican majority control must immediately vote out a petition to the Congress for a Convention of the States to consider an amendment re-establishing real security and legitimacy for all federal elections. They will need at least one more state legislature, not entirely under Republican control, to put this must-accept/must-pass proposal before the Congress, triggering a meeting of the 50 states to agree on language and then send it back out to the states for possible ratification.
Because a change that increases ballot security is always opposed by Democrats, Republicans must sweeten the pot a great deal.
- Make the federal election every two years a mandatory paid federal holiday. Then give a 100% refundable tax credit for this cost to employers, including the self-employed. Don’t like this? Kiss your country goodbye. This is a piece of the price of preserving our constitutional republic.
- Mandate real verification of citizenship and issuance of voter registration identification on that basis. Again, fully fund this with federal mandatory spending. This answers the voter suppression claim that poor people don’t have ID. The leftist claim is a lie, but you absolutely must answer the lie by embracing the premise and then answering it with a showy flashing of federal cash. If conservatives and constitutionalists are concerned about cheating now, this is another piece of the answer.
- Mandate verified in-person voting over a four day period, the last day being the designated federal holiday date, with strict exceptions. Fully federally fund, through grants to the states, the election workers, and election logistics. Provide funding for transportation to the polling places. This again gets directly at the “voter suppression” claim, while also answering the “cheating” claim.
- Federally fund and apply federal court oversight to verifying voter roles before each federal election. Federal courts have overseen states and localities with histories of segregation, so there is precedent for court oversight of election processes when equal protection claims can be invoked.
Call it the Real Voter Protection Amendment, get it rolling, and see if Democrat states are not pressed into getting on board.
Published in Elections
If all states have to ratify this amendment it would probably have to address more of the Democrats’ issues with voter suppression. Would Republican states be willing to pay the price?
For eg Florida – they had that referendum that said felons could vote after serving their sentences, the legislature added on that voting rights would be restored after they paid pending fines, fees, and restitutions, there are about 700K former felons in Florida who can’t vote because they haven’t (or can’t) pay these.
If you think that is voter suppression (not arguing either way) you’re going to want it addressed before you ratify anything, right?
Trump won Florida by less than 400K. There’s a chance that some of those 700K ex-felons (1) would have voted and (2) would have voted for Biden. So that’s a real price for the Right to pay. Would Florida (a Republican state) ratify that?
Similarly gerrymandering is an issue – indulged in by those who can and bitterly resented by those who can’t. Would a state run by the result of a gerrymandered electoral map ratify anything which took that advantage away from them?
The challenge is making a system has strong voter identity and ballot security and that is equally convenient for city and rural folks. I like a system that uses government issued ID for in person and biometric signing of ballots should be done for all absentee ballots. Ink and fingerprint will do, ballots must be requested with fingerprints on file. I am OK with a phone app to act as an absentee ballot.
Not that anything we say matters. Half the country likes a corrupt system and they will never change it.
First, ALL states don’t have to ratify any amendment, only 3/4 of states (38/50) under our current construct or (39/52) under Democratic proposals.
In this case, Florida passed a law detailing how to restore voting rights. However all states have a process to restore civil rights to felons. It just varies from state to state.
Part of the punishment for being a felon is to lose one’s right to vote, (among other civil rights) so it is hardly what is generally meant by the term “voter suppression”.
First, this is also not an issue in Presidential or Senatorial elections, as those are Statewide elections. As to the House, various Supreme Court decisions mandate a form of gerrymandering, so it is “baked in” as one would say.
Voting is an excellent application of Blockchain technology.
I wrote about it here:
Startup Idea: Blockchain Electronic Voting
The voters and votes would be a public record, but the actual voting selections would private, all verifiable, untamperable, in multiple ways.
Look up Bev Harris and Bennie Smith. Bev Harris twitter acct spells out what she expects to happen with voting back in Sept.. Bennie Smith is a programmer who showed how easy he can manipulate GEM systems (it was touch screen systems he initially investigated) and change elections by hacking. If you preset the percentage a canditate gets by early, absentee, etc. it doesn’t matter how many people vote, you’ll get the outcome you want. People don’t or can’t check up on their votes. I think that is how it got caught in Mi, it was a small group that questioned the results and the good old hand count uncovered a major problem.
Look up Fraction Magic on youtube Bev Harris Bennie Smith. Fascinationg.
Yes, the bar to get a proposed amendment before the states is 2/3. The ratification bar is 3/4, which safeguards against “runaway” conventions or Congress with a temporary supermajority getting together with a bare majority of states to change the Constitution. This is why we have only had 27 amendments in our history, and really only 18 successful amendment campaigns, as the first 10 all came in one package.
Because of the long-term political make of the states, it is clear that an amendment affecting the conduct of elections must include significant sweeteners for core Democrat constituencies, placing significant pressure on their state legislatures.
Here is the USA’s situation in a nutshell: Big Money =’s free speech.
So we have Soros, the Koch Brothers, Big Pharma and Bill Gates controlling virtually any and everything that is seen on the major TV, radio and newspaper outlets. **
Think also of all the huge amounts of monies these UberWealthy offer up to campaign coffers for the candidates of their choice.
Soros now controls the entire West Coast. He has spent oodles of monies to gain this control. However once an individual gains such access, he get re-paid for his efforts. For instance, Gavin Newsom acquired one billion dollars of masks from China. Does anyone really think that deal did not enable Newsom and any partners in crime with whom he has become involved to then anticipate huge kickbacks?
So Soros is now at an advantage point where he probably is getting a 150% return on any monies he spent. With Biden as President, all the coming “green energy” programs will also allow for re-payment to him in one form or another – outright slush fund payments, or more likely, those Fed and state green programs will offer his family abilities to own well funded and substantial shell companies Those companies will feed at the trough of Fed and state monies for near eternity.
Now that Soros can reap the harvest for what he has sown, he can come for Republican states as well. The silence of Republican House representatives and senators has been a signal that on some levels they know what is coming as well. I imagine some of the Republican turncoats are already scheming about how to have an interest in any future Solyndra ventures that can benefit them financially.
** (The Washington Post might actually be free of influence from those players like Soros et al. This has to do with the deal Jeff Bezos, owner of both Amazon and WaPo made with Dem Leaders back in 2007. It is assumed he has promised support for Dems as long as he has the controlling interest in The USPS, an interest he gained in Spring of 2007 thru Congressional allowance of him owning the benefits of the USPS, without having to pony up for any responsibilities. We tax payers still pay for the Post Office’s deficits.
Arizona is not primarily about cheating or the McCain wing’s jihad against all the rest of us. There appears to be a shift in the beliefs of the electorate, independent of candidate assessments, reflected in voting on propositions.
https://ricochet.com/821610/distinguish-real-voter-change-from-ballot-box-stuffing/
On this same topic, with a longer list of possible provisions, see @stad “Uniform Voting Standards.”
If you are going to a convention of states, there is one other constitutional amendment that is popular nationally and in legislatures but in the House and Senate: Term Limits.
Yes.
I tried watching the Fraction Magic videos, but the ridiculous production values, the jibberish word salad, and the stupid loud soundtrack makes it impossible for me to take it seriously. Or even sit through more than a minute.
Is there a version that makes sense?
This post-election count-challenge, maybe-go-to-court thing sounded like it was gonna be a lot more fun when Jeffrey Toobin was rehearsing/wargaming it.
Yeah. I’m surprised the White House hasn’t been fire bombed yet.
Term limits is defeated every time it is considered by the very people whose terms would be limited. Going to a convention of the states gets around Congress. Can you imagine how quickly ambitious state legislators, many of whom are term limited, would approve this?
Some guy did make it across the WH fence recently, maybe yesterday? but was apprehended before he could do whatever it is he thought he might do.
Jeffrey Toobin always pulls through in the end.
When the user pays the user is served, when the advertiser pays the advertiser is served.
Jefferson was a fan. And Gilbert Sullivan, representative of to the first Constitutional Convention from Duchess County NY who stated regarding no term limits and 6 year terms: ” What will be the effect of this? Probably a security of their reëlection, as long as they please. Indeed, in my view, it will amount nearly to an appointment for life. What will be their situation in a federal town? Hallowed ground! Nothing so unclean as state laws to enter there, surrounded, as they will be, by an impenetrable wall of adamant and gold, the wealth of the whole country flowing into it. [Here a member, who did not fully understand, called out to know what WALL the gentleman meant; on which he turned, and replied, “A wall of gold — of adamant, which will flow in from all parts of the continent.” At which flowing metaphor, a great laugh in the house.] “
He advocated that they needed to go back where they came from so the laws they pass would take effect on them also. Remember, Washington was a swamp at the time, no WH nothing.
I wish he could see his prediction of the wealth around that town coming true.
Not sure if this helps https://www.theburningplatform.com/2020/11/05/fractional-magic-ballot-tampering/
It shows the same video, but the blog author explains it in writing also. You break up votes into fractions in a program that is run behind what the poll workers use/see (hacked). Ballot stuffing seems so old fashioned.
Fractional Banking. The bank really does not have all your money sitting in the vault. Seems to me, kind of the same thing. sorta.
This video was produced in 2016 before the last PE. It concerned touch screen ballot marking, but the programmer said and still says today, the best way of voting is paper, backed with a photo scan. Interestingly, the guy that cracked this sits on the election board in TN and cannot convince fellow board members to use paper ballots.
You would think using a uniform program/system would be fair, but I’m thinking it could be like all centralization. I’m not saying that is what happened, but it is plausible when something doesn’t seem right, as per the two places in Michigan. I don’t know how a glitch can change votes unless it is incompetence or meant to. Either way, we need another system of checks.
What do they mandate? The last SC decision on this that I can remember basically said that they couldn’t rule on gerrymandering that was partisan since that was out of scope. ??
Anyway – I understand that it’s legal, but if you’re looking at the integrity of elections then gerrymandering undermines that, doesn’t it? Legally, to be sure, but nonetheless. And perhaps for that reason more profoundly.
In terms of political buy in you’d probably need to address it. Why would people be morally upset about vote counting fraud but not about the fact that electoral boundaries can still be deliberately drawn to ensure that some votes in a state have no political impact?
In terms of the stability of the political system, wouldn’t a widening gap between the popular vote and political outcomes be a bad thing?
This one is great, it is long, he may be a little slow, but after the intro he educates. he explains at the end about 45 min. the big vote dumps. This you should watch. Everyone should.
Nope. I’m a software engineer; this is either wrong, or very badly written.
If this is real, someone should be able to supply a proper explanation using correct terminology and not jibberjabber.
I only read the summary, so I’m not party to all the gibberish.
The summary writer has a poor understanding of the video, but by your testimony, the video isn’t much better.
The summary conflates central banking with fraction weighting. I’ve done fractional weighting in writing ESOP modeling software. The conflation is weird.
Central Banking/Central Voting
This concept would require the collecting of all votes into a pool and then redistributing to districts. Like the central banking system, the overall system says it has so much money, but individual branches only have so much. To purpose something like this for cheating, you’d siphon extra votes from one district that has excess to win and move them to another district that has a deficit to win. It would not be hard to create such a system, but 1) I was under the impression that these machines are not inter-connected and 2) the summary does not make me confident that they know what they are talking about.
Fractional Weighting
This is a bit more interesting, but I’m also not certain about it. The concept is similar to how I allocate shares to an ESOP. For shares distributed to participating employees, they get a fraction of the amount of available shares. There are two ways of doing this – split the share initially, add to a counter, and ceiling/floor the result (the decimal conversion the summary unhelpfully refers to it as) OR I can split the total and ceiling/floor the fraction. Because shares aren’t splittable and go in whole numbers, just like votes, the number needs to be moved to a whole number.
What this guy makes it sound like the software does is takes the vote, splits it, tallies the fractional values awarded, then converts to a whole number to display the result.
Does this make more sense to you? The Fractional weighting doesn’t seem impossible or out of reach. The Central Banking thing is a stretch. The conflating of the two doesn’t inspire confidence in the summary.
He’s using the existence of decimal conversion to whole numbers as evidence that there is something fishy going on in the code. Because why would a vote tallying software require any decimal conversions? It only need tallies.
This is way too long winded, disorganized, and hard to follow. When he goes into details, it’s not clear what he’s going into details about. And the unreadable text overlaid over a portion of the powerpoint slides isn’t helping
This is a different topic than the Fraction Magic, right?
There’s got to be a ton of compelling evidence of voter fraud out there, but this guy isn’t bringing it home.