Free For All - The Free Liberal Blog: Ron Paul supporter spreading democracy from Iraq

August 2008

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Here's the news item from Iowa:

This weekend's Republican Straw poll is being challenged.
That comes from a national group that is threatening legal action over the voting machines that the Republican Party of Iowa is using.

A supporter of Republican candidate Ron Paul, who is not connected to the campaign, made the legal threat, NewsChannel 8 reported.

The Iowa GOP said the straw poll is fraud-proof [editorial note: As the inside-the-campaign guy who counseled Michael Badnarik to challenge 2004 election results in Ohio and New Mexico, you will not find me accepting the word of GOP officials without question. Because of this and many other election place irregularities, Ken Blackwell is now politically unemployed.]

At a Creston restaurant, Paul greeted people Wednesday and hoped some of them would vote for him at the Ames straw poll.

"It's pretty important and if we do well, we'll certainly send a strong signal, but I have no idea how well I'll do. We're doing our very best," Paul said.

Paul campaign staffers acknowledge asking Iowa Republican leaders to count paper ballots in the straw poll as well as using voting machines.

They said the Diebold machines to be used have been decertified in other states.

Michelle had a valid point:

Could they have planned anything more insulting than purple ink? Iowa is not Iraq. And, to complicate matters, there’s a little conflict of interest in the Diebold certification. A member of Mitt Romney’s Leadership Team is the auditor.
Some are saying that it isn’t a big deal because it’s not a “real” election; it is a basically an opinion poll. That’s a crock of horseshit. We all know that Ames is a decider of who moves forward in the race. If it is flawed, it will affect what happens next.

If you really want to certify the Diebold machines, use them in Iowa while also using a paper ballot system as Ron Paul’s team suggested. Then count the paper ballots under the watchful eyes of all candidates. Compare the end totals. It would certainly be an easier test this weekend than November ‘08. If the numbers add up, fabulous. If they don’t, we might have a shot at fixing the problem without screwing up another real election.

I'll add the following. If they are going to use purple thumbs in Iowa, why not import democracy to most of our other states, as well. After all, if the Iraqi citizens could figure out how to vote for just one of over 100 candidates, surely we could figure out how to vote more more than two candidates on our political tickets.

Ron Paul supporter spreading democracy from Iraq

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