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Interesting inside look at primary caucus process...

Posted: Mar 23, 2016

This isn't a comment about the GOP. I have little doubt that primaries on the other side are run just as....(ahem!) informally.

UTAH CAUCUS: First hand insider report - Incompetence, Manipulation, and Ballot Stuffing!!!Just got back from my caucus... My head is still spinning.

Check in was slow but reasonably controlled. Super-long lines. I've never seen turnout like this.

Got my credentials, but no presidential ballot. They said those would be delivered to our caucus room.

Got to my caucus room. I counted about 120 people there (no idea how many were actually registered and credentialed).

We elected Precinct Officers, State Delegates, and County Delegates - the typical incompetence and ignorance of the rules you'd expect to see from volunteers, but all went somewhat smooth.

...Then came the Presidential Ballot.

Someone shows up with a stack of probably 250 ballots. The precinct chair splits them up, and starts handing stacks of them out and tells people "take one and pass it down".

No checking credentials, IDs, NOTHING.

I'm sitting at the end of a row and people start handing me stacks of extras. I literally had over 50 ballots in my hand.

[link to i.imgur.com (secure)]

We were told to mark our vote and place our ballot in a tin can. They then asked for a volunteer to hold the can. At this point, most people filed out the door.

I cast ONE vote, then stuck around to see what would happen with the votes.

About 15 minutes later, with only about 10 or so people milling around, someone walks in the room with an envelopes STUFFED full of "absentee" ballots - some envelopes having 2-5+ ballots.

I raised a question and said, "isn't there an absentee process already in place? Didn't people have to register for that last week?" and was told "Oh no, this is completely normal".

As I've mentioned in other threads, I was in Party leadership for 6 years and no, this is absolutely not normal.

I then asked if I could observe the vote count, and I was told my observations where not needed and to leave the area while the ballots were being counted.

I left the room (things were already a complete Charlie Foxtrot at this point) and wandered over to my friends precinct caucus to see if it was just as much a cluster.

His caucus was just getting to the presidential ballot, and as I walked in the door I was handed ANOTHER BALLOT.

Again, no credential check, no ID check, NOTHING.

No, I didn't vote again...

I went back to my precinct and they had the results:
74% Cruz
14% Trump
11% Kasich

Now just imagine this kind of outright incompetence/manipulation happening in 2000 precincts across the state.

As I left the building, I started overhearing results coming back from other precincts... Overwhelmingly numbers for Cruz... Like 70-90% or more. (In one precinct Cruz got around 100, Trump had 2, Kasich 0)

Bottom line... They basically are going to post whatever the hell numbers they want.

There were no apparent controls, no credential checks, no ID checks, and ballots being handed around like napkins.

UTAH RESULTS ARE A COMPLETE SHAM

;

What happens in Georgia everytime there are - elections

[ In Reply To ..]
People (usually black, who predominately vote democratic) are not able to cast votes because of polling machine failures. Every single time. You would think between times to vote the machines could be refurbished, if that is really needed, but time and time again.

Look at the mess in Arizona... 200 polls cut - to only 60, and 5-hour waiting - msg

[ In Reply To ..]
lines. I'm sure your average working voter doesn't have 5 hours to waste standing in line. Also there was a high incidence of heavily Latino neighborhoods having no polling place at all.

Can you spell "R-I-G-G-E-D"?

Perhaps there were no workers to man all the polls. - When that happes they close them.

[ In Reply To ..]
It might look rigged, but I'd have to reserve judgment without knowing a lot more about the situation and why the polls were closed.

No, it was planned disenfranchisement - and MSM is not covering it

[ In Reply To ..]
You can wander around on the local news in Phoenix.
Look for Maricopa County, Clerk, election fraud

http://www.12news.com/

http://usuncut.com/politics/5-examples-voter-suppression-arizona-primary/

Okay, I looked but I only found speculation. - Maybe something more will surface.

[ In Reply To ..]
I'm almost anal about avoiding any conclusions that aren't evidence-based. It's my background in law enforcement, I suppose.

It's not that I discount speculation - I don't. But I don't act on it either. I file it away and wait to see if something more substantial turns up.

Further investigation: I'm more inclined to a "perfect storm" - explanation - not deliberate disenfranchisement.

[ In Reply To ..]
I think county election officials underestimated the expected turnout. There are two ways you can interpret the increase in mail-in ballots they saw, namely that with more mail-ins there would be fewer voters at the polls, or as an indication that the turnout will be higher. They assumed that there would be fewer voters, more people mailing in their votes. It costs a lot of money for each polling station and that also figured into the calculation.

Obviously, the second interpretation (that the increase in mail-ins portended an increase at the polls as well) proved to be the correct one.

What no one could have anticipated was the surge in independent voters that showed up on election day.

Like "racism", like "homophobia", etc., we really need to be careful when we accuse people of bad motives and/or deliberate bad acts. Sometimes, like all humans, officials simply make bad decisions.

At this point, in terms of HARD evidence that someone in the elections office did something that would amount to "deliberate disenfranchisement", there is none whatsoever that I have found.

The officials who made the decisions should - lose their jobs

[ In Reply To ..]
If they lose their jobs, I will believe it was just a mistake in calculation - but in the meantime I think it was shady. I would not want to pay taxes to pay their salaries.

Stupid people should not collect a salary from tax payers.

So losing their jobs would be "proof" it was a - mistake?

[ In Reply To ..]
Your thinking eludes me.

In my state it is volunteers of the parties, not governrnent - are states different in primaries? nm

[ In Reply To ..]

I think if you check, you'll find that the primary voting process - is regulated by state/county electoral agencies.

[ In Reply To ..]
Within certain limits, the parties are more or less at liberty to establish rules for their primaries, but the voting process itself is paid for and regulated by govt electoral agencies, and even falls under federal voting laws. It isn't simply up for grabs.

At least she thinks. - nm

[ In Reply To ..]

Just got this e-mail from Bernie Sanders - regarding Arizona

[ In Reply To ..]

What happened yesterday in Arizona should be considered a national disgrace. I got an email last night from a woman who waited five hours to vote in Arizona. Five hours.

We don't know how many thousands of people didn't get to cast their ballots yesterday in Arizona because they couldn't afford to wait that long. Scenes on cable news last night showed hundreds of people in line at 11:30pm in Phoenix – more than four hours after polls closed. Voting should not be this difficult.

One reason it is so hard to vote in Arizona is because the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. There were 70 percent fewer polling places this year than in 2012 in Phoenix's county. They wouldn't have been allowed to cut those polling places if the Voting Rights Act was still in tact.

These cuts meant that, in a county with more than 4 million residents, there were just 60 polling places. This is unacceptable, but it's also not an isolated incident.

We need to make it easier to vote, not more difficult. One way we can do that is by reaffirming our support for the Voting Rights Act, which, when I am president, I will fight to reinstate.

Add your name to say you support reinstating the Voting Rights Act so we can make voting easier for everybody, not more difficult.

We cannot continue to see democracy undermined in the United States of America. Enough is enough.

Make no mistake: the billionaire class does not want Americans to vote. Billions of dollars are being funneled into our elections in a form of legalized bribery, even as American voters — especially minority voters — are being discouraged from voting. It is no wonder that government no longer works for ordinary Americans.

Above all, we need to remember the price that was paid for the right to vote. The Voting Rights Act was one of the great victories of the civil rights movement. Now, as then, change comes when the people demand it — in the voting booth, and on the streets in peaceful demonstrations. We must remind ourselves of what’s been achieved in the past, and resolve to do equally great things in the future. Democracy is not a spectator sport.

It is my sincere hope that the states that vote in the coming weeks and months do better than what we saw yesterday in Arizona. Too much is at stake for our future.

Right now, what we can do is show your support by adding your name to say you want to reinstate the Voting Rights Act. Click here to add your name.

No one said a political revolution would be easy. The billionaire class doesn't want to see our movement win, and so we must do everything we can to show them that we have the power.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

I went to one caucus a few years ago... - Dem caucus. sm

[ In Reply To ..]
...in WA, left with a massive headache and in a state of confusion. Never went to another one. I much prefer having my ballot sent to me so I can fill it in and mail it back. Mail-in voting is one thing I think this state got right.

If my state held caucuses, I would probably - never vote. Headache here, too!

[ In Reply To ..]
It would be as bad, or maybe even worse, than going to the DMV on a busy day.

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