US Election Integrity

[ngern]

The US political situation continues to get stranger and stranger every week. A small group of concerned US citizens in Bangkok have been meeting regularly to discuss the specific issue of US election integrity. They would like to invite you to attend a presentation of some of their concerns regarding election integrity and later, after these brief presentations, have an open non-partisan discussion of US election integrity . All concerned persons are invited regardless of their political party affiliation or no party affiliation at all.

 

Please join us on Tuesday, 27 March for food, drinks and this non-partisan discussion. Hopefully all can come away with much better understanding of what US election integrity means and what actions can be taken to improve US election integrity.

 

When: Tuesday, 27 March 2018

 

Time:  Arrive and get acquainted at around 6:30 pm. Presentations and open discussion to start at 7 pm and conclude by 9:00 pm. Maybe stay later for live music!

 

Food and Drink:  ala carte menu and very good beer selection. Reduced happy hour prices for beer (especially draft pitchers), wine and mixes. Each person responsible for their own food and drinks expenses.

 

Where:  Check Inn 99, Soi 33 (not Soi 33/1!), just a short 6 minute walk (450 meters) from Phrom Phrong BTS station; very close to Sukhumvit on left side of Soi 33; event at Green Room of Check Inn 99

Google Maps

 

RSVP:  Please do let us know that you will be attending - please email your confirmation to Carl Gardner  [email protected] 

 

Agenda:  Presentations -  Election Manipulation Issues

                                       -  Voting Machine Vulnerabilities 

                                       -  US Census  2020

                                       -  Gerrymandering 

                                       -  An Electoral College Challenge

 

                Open Discussion  - discuss and prioritize election integrity issues

 

Hope to see you there!

 

Best regards,

Andy Silver

[pmarlin]

Not me. I moved here to get away from that crap.

[ngern]

I urgently need to change the rsvp email address to myself at [email protected].  I don't see a way to edit the post.  If someone knows a way, can you please tell me.

[ngern]

1 hour ago, ngern said:

I urgently need to change the rsvp email address to myself at [email protected].  I don't see a way to edit the post.  If someone knows a way, can you please tell me.

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."  Never truer for Americans than now.

[Justfine]

Can't see how Americans living in Bangkok know more about elections than local scrutineers who get paid to check these things. Don't own a Tin foil hat.

 

 

 

 

[bkk6060]

On 3/18/2018 at 5:35 PM, pmarlin said:

Not me. I moved here to get away from that crap.

OMG yes me too.

So stupid the entire US is in a constant frenzy.

Good luck, so happy to be in LOS away from that crap..

[Bang Bang]

On 3/18/2018 at 2:49 PM, ngern said:

Arrive and get acquainted at around 6:30 pm. Presentations and open discussion to start at 7 pm and conclude by 9:00 pm.

When does the pitched battle begin between snowflakes and deplorables? What weapons are allowed? Is there a viewing gallery for those who just want to watch?

[ngern]

It would be nice to have an internet forum without trolls and smart alecs.

[Bang Bang]

from

7 hours ago, ngern said:

It would be nice to have an internet forum without trolls and smart alecs.

Honestly, I thought this topic itself was a troll. But then I see you are serious. Which is funny.

 

On 3/18/2018 at 2:49 PM, ngern said:

non-partisan discussion of US election integrity

Really? The only people whining about election integrity are Hillary voters. Of which I was one.

 

But Hillary blew it. She was lazy, complacent, entitled and never took the blowhard seriously. But the blowhard took himself seriously, worked really really hard and won fair and square. So give it to him.

 

No, there hasn't been a single credible report of a single ballot being altered or box being stuffed. Quit being a sore loser and quit impugning the US electoral process, which is actually something to be proud of.

 

2016 represented the will of the American people whether you and I like it or not. So get over it. It's been a year already. Find a good candidate and get to work. There's a lot to do.

 

And putting the wrong RSVP address on a meeting advertised on the internet bespeaks the incompetence surrounding Hillary's campaign.

 

Election integrity? My left foot.

 

Edited March 24, 2018 by Bang Bang

[ngern]

Although snide, pointless remarks by anonymous contributors do not deserve a reply, Bang Bang’s substantive argument does.  Perhaps there are other readers who have a serious interest in the integrity of US elections who would be interested in purposeful discussion.  For them I post this reply.

The event tonight is not about voter fraud.  It is about the integrity of election administration, focusing not on individual voters but on election officials and the politicians whom they serve.

The scare talk about “voter fraud” by Trump and his supporters is clearly designed to reinforce efforts at voter suppression by use of voter “caging” to remove non-white voters from registration rolls, and to suppress voting by requiring photo ID’s that 5-10% of eligible but mostly poor voters in all states do not have.

The right-wing Heritage Foundation has documented 1088 cases of voter fraud since 2000.  https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/commentary/more-cases-voter-fraud-pile-liberals-look-the-other-way  I have briefly looked at their database and find that some of the cases actually are of election fraud, e.g. of election officials changing ballots after they are cast.  Nevertheless, most of the cases involve multiple voting or voting by ineligible persons.  In its extensive research on voter fraud, using data also from research conducted at Columbia University, Arizona State University, and the Washington Post https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud-myth , The Brennan Center at New York University School of Law found that instances of voter fraud in the elections studied comprise no more than .0003% of votes cast. 

In contrast, documented instances of election fraud by election officials have changed vote totals by several percentage points, enough to swing elections that are not extremely close.

I will not try to summarize the vast literature on election fraud and hacking, but for persons interested in looking at it, here are some useful starting points: 

 

https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/americas-voting-machines-risk-an-update

 

http://tdmsresearch.com/2016/11/10/2016-presidential-election-table/

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3P75GCw488&t=1388s Green News Network (WatchGNN.tv) At minute 9: George Martin, co-chairman of Wisconsin Green Party

 

Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker, The Real Voting Scandal of 2016, Dec 12, 2016

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gop-rigs-elections-gerrymandering-voter-id-laws-dark-money-w515664

 

www.commondreams.org/views06/0601-34.htm

[ngern]

Scare talk about voter fraud is carried by mainstream media, which ignores almost entirely the books full of documentation of serious election fraud, and so most Americans assume that there is a problem with dishonest voters, not with election officials.  US mainstream media are notoriously (outside the US) unreliable, as can be seen historically by their unanimous early support for the lies that led the US into idiotic wars in Vietnam and Iraq. Since I realized in 1965 that US newspapers cannot be trusted, I have relied instead on more “high-brow” publications, such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, and The Nation, and “muckraking” publications that specialize in real investigative reporting, like Mother Jones and Rolling Stone.  For a daily newspaper in English, I trust only The Guardian of London.

[Justfine]

The Guardian is full of lies.

[Ulysses G.]

13 hours ago, Justfine said:

The Guardian is full of lies.

So are the other publications that were mentioned.

[Justfine]

11 minutes ago, Ulysses G. said:

So are the other publications that were mentioned.

Welcome to journalism.