Lessons for Britain from the US election
Nathan Allonby
Vote-fraud has been a running theme in US elections, since the earliest days. Allegedly, even John F Kennedy was forced to make a corrupt deal to secure his own victory. Accordingly, allegations of fraud in the Trump-Biden election should come as no surprise.
However, is there something in the election system itself that encourages fraud? Are there election systems which inherently deter fraud? The answer to both those questions is, probably, yes.
However, all of this is relevant to the UK also – the UK could learn a great deal from the controversy surrounding the current US presidential election, about the need for electoral reform.
There are several electoral parallels between the US Electoral College system and UK First Past the Post parliamentary elections: –
- amplifying small numbers of votes, thus makes electoral fraud attractive,
- results often do not reflect overall votes cast and
- creates difficulties with multi-party elections.
These are the key issues: –
- The problem with postal voting
- The UK’s First Past the Post election system needs to be replaced, by a system that fairly reflects the overall votes cast – i.e. by proportional representation
Vote-Fraud and Cheating in the UK
To look at the figures from the Electoral Commission, one might imagine that the level of vote-fraud in the UK is relatively low. However, according to another report:
the danger of electoral corruption and fraud is that it is presently hidden.”
All of the main parties have been caught cheating at elections. The following article is a brief but incredibly valuable account of some of the methods: Vote Early, Vote Often – by Nick Davies
Confidence about the fairness of elections has been lower in the UK than anywhere in Europe.
Systemic Issues
1) Postal voting
It seems a majority of countries have abandoned postal voting due to problems with vote-fraud (including France, from 1975). “Why do most countries ban mail-in ballots?”
Most countries have concluded the problem with postal voting cannot be fixed.
Why did Britain increase the amount of postal voting, under Tony Blair, when the UK already had a problem with vote-fraud in general, and postal voting in particular? Can the UK have a safe democracy with so many postal votes, when just a tiny number of votes determine the outcome of an election (see below). Perhaps integrity was not foremost in Tony Blair’s mind.
2) Replace First Past the Post with Additional Member proportional representation
There are three objections to the First Past the Post system.
i) The system is vulnerable to vote-fraud. In the current UK system, a tiny minority of votes in a few marginal seats determines the overall result; this means relatively few fraudulent votes in the right places can win crucial seats. By contrast, in proportional representation, winning extra seats would require roughly a thousand times more fraudulent votes which, quite simply, makes vote-fraud impractical and unrewarding.
In 1992, the election was won by just 1,241 votes in 11 key marginal seats. Out of 22 million votes cast, this represented only 0.006% of the total. This gives a huge incentive for vote-fraud – just a few votes in the right places can totally change the outcome.
A narrow victory can have decisive results. John Major used his 1,241-vote victory in 1992 to push through a series of desperately contentious measures, including joining the EU and closing Britain’s coal-mines.
ii) The overall result may not necessarily reflect the total numbers of votes cast. In the past two decades, the UK has had several elections where the winning party, receiving the majority of Westminster seats, did not have a majority of votes in the country.
iii) The system works poorly with multi-party elections, and excludes minor parties and the entry of new parties. The UK electoral system stopped working fairly since the UK became significantly a multi-party system.
In 2005, not a single MP was returned with the votes of a majority of registered electors.
A number of new parties have emerged over recent decades, and the First Past the Post system has prevented or delayed these from breaking into parliamentary representation, such as the Greens, UKIP and more.
The Additional Member proportional representation system has worked well
The Additional Member system was adopted for the Scottish, Welsh and London assemblies, and worked well in each case.
Tony Blair imposed this system on the assemblies because he hoped it would make them weak and indecisive, by creating a situation where no party would have an overall majority. In practice, however, the assemblies have been effective and succesful.
How does it work? The majority of seats are elected on a constituency basis, so voters have a constituency member to represent them (e.g. that they can write to with problems); the remaining balance of seats is taken from party-lists, allocated so the total number of seats for each party reflects the total number of votes cast.
There are criticisms of the party-list aspect of the system but it creates fair representation of total votes cast, to within 1-2% accuracy.
As described above, this attribute alone would solve the problem with vote-fraud.
Voter ID and Vote-Fraud
It seems likely official photo-ID may soon be required to vote at polling stations – this requirement has already been introduced, as a pilot, in a numbers of constituencies during 2018-19.
This is despite impersonation, or false identity, represented a vanishingly small proportion of vote-fraud cases.
However, it is likely to mean that many people have will difficulty voting, due to lack of adequate ID. On the basis of a pilot in Northern Ireland, it is projected that Voter ID will require rolling-out a national ID card system, at a cost of billions. In general, ID and databases are the not the primary problem with UK elections – these are a merely bureaucratic obsession, using the electoral system as a Trojan horse.
Why put so much effort into such a non-problem, yet disregard the systemic weaknesses of the UK electoral system? Perhaps to make it look like doing something, while wilfully ignoring the real problems.
Is change possible or realistic?
When the current electoral system so clearly benefits the major parties, why would they support any change? One answer is Scotland. Both Labour and the Conservatives have effectively lost representation from Scotland at Westminster, and the First Past the Post system is not helping. Labour, particularly, cannot achieve a majority at Westminster without votes from Scotland.
Labour still receives votes in Scotland, but currently these do not translate into Westminster seats; proportional representation would mean those Scottish votes for Labour would still count at Westminster, via additional members.
The current system could lead almost inevitably to Scottish independence – unless the electoral system is reformed, the next time there is a hung parliament, the SNP bloc of seats at Westminster is likely to be decisive, thus SNP demands would become irresistible.
Under a proportional representation system, the SNP would hold fewer Westminster seats and those it did would be less decisive – there would likely be a compensating presence of other minority parties, thus the SNP would be less likely to act as king-maker.
Brexit Referendum
The Brexit referendum showed how an alternative voting format allowed representation of issues that had been suppressed within the current electoral system, by confining voting (mainly) to limited party choices. The result dramatically demonstrated voter dissatisfaction and the democratic deficit.
This was a shocking assault on the credibility of the main parties, which they are desperate not to repeat. Across the EU, Angela Merkel and other leaders cautioned against allowing the electorate the opportunity to express its true feelings. Such reactions are a terrible mistake.
Can the current system continue?
“Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable”
Electoral change would have to be preceded by acceptance within the political class that democracy has real value, and that the current system cannot continue.
It should be obvious to anyone with intelligence that the democratic deficit had allowed a very dangerous situation to arise. Despite the discomfort it caused, the Brexit result was a necessary step toward defusing this.
Lack of accountability has bred machinery that is not merely remote and inefficient but dangerously complacent and unreactive.
There is plenty of evidence, but can they accept it?
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Looks like Old Jezza has been permanently drummed out of the Brownies and cast into the outer darkness, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The Chosen Folk said they were going to break him, and they have.
They said they were going to drive him out of public life, and they have.
I can’t understand why the Chief Rabbi or Shai Masot doesn’t just elbow aside Sir K. and take direct control.
Might as well just cut out the middleman.
George Papadopoulos calls for progress on the Durham investigation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_investigation_origins_counter-narrative#Durham_inquiry
In April 2019, US Attorney General William Barr appointed John Durham, the U.S. attorney in the District of Connecticut, to oversee a DOJ probe into the origins of the FBI investigation into Russian interference. The origins of the probe were already being investigated by the DOJ inspector general and by U.S. Attorney John W. Huber, who was appointed in 2018 by Jeff Sessions.
—
Papadopoulos reacts to McCabe testimony
Nov 13, 2020
Newsmax TV
George Papadopoulos reacts to his name being mentioned several times during testimony from former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and gives his take on whether the “crossfire hurricane” situation was politically-motivated. – with Newsmax TV’s John Bachman
[They also discuss the situation in Afghanistan]
To me, this sounds like a drumroll:
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2020/11/15/source-durham-investigation-winding-down-scared-of-biden-blowback-n280344
The actual claim in the article is based on nothing but vapour: “a source familiar with Durham’s ongoing investigation”. But for some reason it’s being widely reported.
More drumroll or vapour squared?
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/durham-probe-moving-full-steam-ahead-after-election-day-source
Nov 18, 2020
Durham probe moving ‘full steam ahead’ after Election Day: source
Durham’s probe has produced one criminal charge so far against former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith
U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Russia probe remains “full steam ahead,” a source familiar with his progress told Fox News, despite concerns from Republicans and allies of President Trump that the probe has been dormant following Election Day.
“Durham remains full steam ahead,” the source familiar with the investigation told Fox News.
Another source told Fox News that his investigation “is definitely still happening,” despite radio silence coming from the U.S. attorney from Connecticut.
The wasn’t any Russiagate but their were CIANSAgates: they are simply the best funded and equipped hacker club in the world.
You missed the trick that the NSA/CIA/FBI after Brennan, Clapper and Mueller were using: vote count files are send over Internet from local polling stations up the chain. Allegedly their “Hammer” hardware and “Scorecard” software finds these files in transmission and modifies them on the fly to the desired tallies. 2, 5, 10% moved from scale A to B tips a balance by 4, 10 or 20%. This scam used to be run in foreign elections; since 2015 the above trio have been using these tools on their Anglo buddies, including the US of A. That flip from foreign to domestic made the inventor of Scorecard Dennis Montgomery become a US whistleblower.
This apart from the new normal of gathering of leverage / compromat on their own politicians, bankers, pharmacies etc. Edgar J. Hoover would die of envy.
This is one of the election-rigging scams that appears to have been used in India too in the last couple of national elections, and even in many state elections in India.
The 0th law of hackerdom (paraphrased):…
…- *All* systems are gameable… – *Any* system that can be gamed, *Will* be gamed…
…That is all.
Then the -1st law is that all system gamers can be watched while they’re gaming.
Who hacks the hackers?
https://qalerts.app/?n=1279
…More to the point who hacks the hackers, hacking the hackers… (…And so on…)
…- You see where I’m going with this?…
This article mostly describes voter fraud which requires human involvement for every ballot.
The far bigger problem is election fraud with various coding issues in the voting machines.
On CNN you can actually see the vote switching happening in Pennsylvania with Trump’s votes going DOWN by around 19,000 as Biden’s votes go UP by exactly the SAME number in the space of a minute. A lot of people have noticed this independently, regardless of their political affiliation.
In all the swing states where Trump was leading, counting stopped around 4am, when it resumed, Biden had suddenly pulled ahead with a thin margin.
Regardless of who wins, the truth about this needs to come out.
The way in which the media rushed to slam Trump for “unfounded allegations” suggests they know exactly what happened. If TV viewers saw it, of course their analysts saw it too.
https://noqreport.com/2020/11/11/data-deep-dive-on-dominion-voting-systems-offers-incontrovertible-proof-of-election-hack/
technology / data/ science etc etc etc..not Cambridge Analytica this time..the CIA’s data miner instead..
”One expert is now saying data shows that tech giant Google pushed liberal voters to vote in this month’s elections, but not conservatives…
Robert Epstein, a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, presented his data..”
https://www.westernjournal.com/expert-smoking-gun-data-reveals-google-showed-voting-reminders-liberals-days-election/
A programmer who designed election software, testified before Congress that it’s easy to run a script or write a program where the votes get switched. So a Trump landslide could be switched to a Biden – 51 Trump – 49 result, without county board or election oversight committee knowledge.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PIy7JZz4bFI
But even so, the point is not so much the issue of fraud itself, which we know happens due to exit polls rarely matching results, but can we trust any of the voting figures given by governments seeing that governments themselves set up the various NGOs that supposedly monitor elections and election results? I don’t believe so.
And what would the vote be for a party that agreed to abolish much of the restrictive and unconstitutional laws, regulations and unnecessary government bureaucracy that interferes and negatively impacts people’s lives and liberties? Perhaps we would finally see the elusive 50-40% of the populace who abstain from voting, finally join in.
These issues are suspiciously absent in civics, politics and the media.
I question the validity of an entire system of governance which is corrupted on so many levels and is purposefully opaque, so there’s no way for us as participants or observers to know the true levels of fraud.
By acquiescing to the system, which most would agree is unjust, fraudulent and corrupt, we relinquish our individual power, our self reliance and that’s a subliminal process of subservience and compliance, which then impacts all our subsequent thoughts and actions. So instead of questioning the system itself, voters become invested in their “team”, both of which work for the bankers, security apparatus and industrialists.
And when is anyone in the UK going to vote again ?…democracy and voting was suspended with the coronavirus act 2020…you dont think those clowns who claim to be a government will give that little gem up anytime soon ?…in your future your leaders will be installed with no input required from you or anyone else for that matter
FWIW, we have local elections scheduled for next May in my local government area. Some of which were postponed from last May. Of course, that could never happen again…
Pointless to discuss systems of voting. Deepstate doesn’t read election results. Deepstate just continues killing and killing and killing. No system will cause Deepstate to stop killing and killing and killing.
I’ve taken a closer look at Voting Systems – Just Tangled or a Web of Deceit?
“Dominion is ready to make a difference in your next election,” it declares on its ‘about’ page which somewhat bizarrely features an Elvis Presley impersonator.
The U.S. electoral voting system is confusing and perhaps deliberately so. Many people admit as much, even those who forget what they said yesterday. The Guardian newspaper published a two-part exposé, “America’s new voting machines bring new fears of election tampering” and “They think they are above the law’: the firms that own America’s voting system” — The Guardian, Apr 2019. At the time Russiagate was still in full flight, with fears of foreign interference in the election process.
The tangle of companies that make voting machines, their software and support systems, are privately owned and opaque. Amazingly so. Even to explain the history of the past two decades is like following a dizzying card game, with a fair dose of chicanery, feints and sleights of hand.
Either no-one really wants to be in the voting machines business or they’ve got an ulterior motive that goes beyond the mere running of elections.
Let’s start with the name that’s in the news. Canada’s – or Colorado’s – Dominion Voting Systems.
Dominion Voting Systems makes voting machines. The machines owe their heritage to Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems) which Dominion bought in 2010.
Dominion’s software traces its roots to Sequoia Voting Systems which in turn roots back to the Irish printing conglomerate Jefferson Smurfit, which spun off its punch card voting product in 1983 as Sequoia Pacific Systems Corp. In 1984, Sequoia bought the Automatic Voting Machine Corporation.
In 2002 De La Rue, the printer of Britain’s pound notes, bought Sequoia from Smurfit for $23 million but it lost money, and in March 2005, De La Rue sold Sequoia to Smartmatic.
However Smartmatic was under investigation for its Venezuelan origins at a time when the U.S. was at loggerheads with Caracas and the last President Hugo Chavez. Thus upon acquiring Sequoia Voting Systems in 2004-5, Smartmatic immediately sold Sequoia to SVS Holdings (of Westhill, Aberdeenshire?) for an undisclosed price.
SOFTWARE AND SERVICES
Sequoia machines use, at least in part, vote-counting software developed, owned and licensed by Smartmatic. This was revealed by a submission to the National Institute of Standards and Technology during a 2008 offer by rival Hart InterCivic to acquire Sequoia.
“Court Fight Between Smartmatic and Sequoia over Proposed Hart InterCivic Take-over of Sequoia Reveals Smartmatic Ownership of Vote-Counting Software in Sequoia Voting Machines.” — NIST, 2008
Talks between lawyers for the two companies suggested that Smartmatic may have indirect and functional control over Sequoia’s machines. “Furthermore, Sequoia takes the position that Smartmatic’s ownership of the Sequoia voting machines software, and any “indirect control” by Smartmatic over Sequoia is inconsistent with agreements made with the federal government.”
Hart InterCivic’s lawyers said Smartmatic owned the intellectual property rights to the software used in Sequoia’s machines and had agreed to license that software to Hart. Furthermore the proposed agreement said Sequoia would not compete with Smartmatic in Latin America, the Philippines, and Belgium.
DANGER OF TAMPERING
The document goes on to allege that “Sequoia Voting Machine Software Is Vulnerable to Tampering”. It states:
“Princeton Professor of Computer Science, Andrew Appel, testified as an expert in litigation in New Jersey involving the Sequoia Advantage voting machines that “it’s very easy to replace the software inside a computerized machine so it tells the voter it is voting for one candidate but really puts the vote in the wrong column… and you can even program it to do that only on election day.”
Other threats include USB thumb drives, it says and, worse still, that any testing enters the Logic and Accuracy mode distinct from Election Day mode, which enables malicious firmware… to avoid operating in an incorrect manner while in testing mode.”
Just like the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal, the machines operate perfectly when tested and then revert to a ‘corrupt mode’ in actual use.
The Optech line of ballot scanners are another key technology. Under a Department of Justice deal in 1997, Sequoia obtained the intellectual property rights to the Optech line of ballot scanners from Business Records Corporation. BRC merged with American Information Systems to form Election Systems & Software (ES&S).
It was the ES&S deal that put Dominion on the map when it bought the former Diebold operation. Diebold is famous for its automatic teller machines (ATMs) and retail cashier machines and entered the voting machine business with its 2002 acquisition of Global Election Systems.
Thus Sequoia has one foot in Diebold/ES&S/Optech (which is now Dominion Voting Systems) and another foot in Smartmatic. Those interests are brought together in Dominion which, through Sequoia, uses the Smartmatic vote-counting software which was the very reason the CFIUS blocked Smartmatic from holding Sequoia in the first place.
In 2009, Diebold/Premier was sold to ES&S (a merger of Business Records Corporation and American Information Systems — that controls one half of the Optech ballot scanner, with Sequoia owning the rights).
Objection! Shouted another voting services company, Hart Intercivic, Inc. (eee below). The combined company accounted for seventy percent of US voting equipment. So the Department of Justice stepped in and said, halt! Diebold/Premier was thus purportedly “dissolved” and its assets split between ES&S and Dominion Voting.
That rival who broke up the party was Hart Intercivic, Inc.. It filed a lawsuit against Diebold Incorporated and Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S) alleging antitrust. Based in Austin, Texas, Hart traces its origins to the Bain & Co. (often linked to the CIA) and Mitt Romney campaign donors.
DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS REACHES CRITICAL MASS
Founded in 2003, or 2000, incorporated in 2009, Dominion Voting Systems was founded by CEO John Poulos and James Hoover. In a letter of 2016, Dominion asserts: Dominion is entirely owned by its employees, who are U.S. and Canadian citizens.
Two main acquisitions brought Dominion to critical mass. In May 2010, Dominion acquired Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems).
In June 2010, Dominion acquired Sequoia Voting Systems, including the company’s intellectual property, software, firmware, and hardware. This includes “the industry’s fastest absentee ballot counting system, precinct-based optical scan ballot readers, ballot printing for some of the largest U.S. voting jurisdictions, and a full suite of voter registration and election management technology.”
The Dominion Voter Systems uses the vote-counting software of the opaque Smartmatic, founded in Venezuela, registered in several countries including Britain.
Smartmatic was founded in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1997 and is linked to George through its current owner Lord Mark Malloch-Brown who sits on the board of the Soros Open Society Foundation. Indeed, the ambitions of Dominion Voting Systems seem rather similar:
“In 2014, at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, Canada-based Dominion Voting Systems made a philanthropic commitment to donate its election technology to emerging democracies outside the United States as part of a three-year project.”
More here: https://moneycircus.blogspot.com/2020/11/voting-systems-just-tangled-or-web-of.html
Software has always been open for changes if you have the source codes . Consider that tampering could be done on the day of an election , i.e. the US election ,a possibility , and once the election is over , the software reverted back to it’s original method of counting .This might be simplistic but a possibility .A possibility that elections through electronic vote counts have actually become an almost world wide scam . Democracy for who would be the real question , especially since the corporations that have a hand in Dominion are pretty much all incestuously connected.
Dominion Voting Systems:… – Formerley ‘Premier Election Solutions’…
…- Formerley *’Diebold’*… – *Go Figure*…
…I could easier get TP for my bung-hole than a paper-trail from these fuckers…
It is a crime of attempted murder/ manslaughter to tell people to wear masks. All shops must immediately stop demanding customers wear masks. If customers/ shops wish to cooperate with the covid cults regulations then they must deal with customers outside. Take orders at the entrance so customers can breath freely. Employers have a duty to protect their staff and must not require staff to wear masks. To do so is the crime of attempted murder/ manslaughter. Restaurants/ pubs/ cafes must provide outdoor toilet facilities if they refuse entrance to unmasked customers. All transport options that wish to comply with covid cult must remove roofing of their vehicles so that trasportation can be outdoors and no masks be demanded. Where this is not possible transport must seize operations immediately until such a time as they decide to operate without demanding masks/ injections/ covid ‘tests’ etc.
Sidney Powell: “Release the Kraken!”
https://www.sidneypowell.com/
https://twitter.com/SidneyPowell1
—
Lou Dobbs with Trump Lawyer Sidney Powell
Nov 14, 2020
Pepe Escobar’s insight on the sorry mess:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55848.htm
I agree with the author that first past the vote system needs to be replaced with a proportional representation system. Like UK, even India suffers terribly because of the first past the vote system.
Electronic voting machines are totally fraudulent and postal voting too is very unreliable.
I think physical ballots (excluding postal ballots) are the only way in which fraud can be deterred to a great extent.
It’s probably a bit late for lessons, as the only reason Boris Johnson is in power in Britain is the stolen election a year ago, where the government dumped thousands of forged ballot papers on Labour seats.
I’ve never heard of this, which leads to another reform that is needed- a free press.
That’s not how they rig elections in the 1st world… – None of your “98% of peeps turned out for ‘El-Presidente'”, shit, here, Oh-No!… – *Generally* they like to finagle the result (pre-election), by way of polls/DrainStreamMedia (propaganda), down to a more-or-less 50/50 expectation, then they go to town on key swing constituencies… – Hence USA elex 2020; …- GenElex 2019 in the UK was Brexit Referendum 2.0… – Read the sentiment in the North of UK, who were just as pissed (if not moreso) as 2016… – One does not simply steal a 1st world election by a *Landslide*, young padwan…
As with Russiagate, there seems to have been a big role for the British and the Corporate Crown in the U.S. voting outcome.
AP: in 2014, at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, Canada-based Dominion Voting Systems made a philanthropic commitment to donate its election technology to emerging democracies outside the United States as part of a three-year project.
The DELIAN Project: Democracy through Technology | Clinton Global Initiative.
Posts falsify ties between election tech firm and Democrats — AP
Smartmatic (various sources):
INVESTIGATION: Did Crown Agent Dominion Voting Systems Rig The US Elections 2020
https://greatgameindia.com/dominion-voting-systems-rigged-us-elections/
“In June 2010, Dominion acquired Sequoia Voting Systems from Smartmatic after a major election fraud controversy in Venezuela. Following the 2004 Venezuelan recall election, Smartmatic acquired Sequoia Voting Systems, from the British company De La Rue in 2005. De la Rue was the official Crown Agent of the British Empire who still prints banknotes for the Bank of England. Crown Agents ran the day-today affairs of the Empire.”
It’s all about power,isn’t it, and money buys the muscle. The British Empire of the City embedded it’s monetary system in the world. Does anyone give up power? I’ve never seen it. How come the British military took over a major opium centre of Afghanistan and production has increased exponentially since then? Apart from the wish to set the women free from the despotic Mussulman and maybe add an exotic touch to the whorehouses of europe of course. It stands to reason that politics will always be corrupt when so much power is in the hands of so few people whose agents can create money out of nothing. Then you have the party system which encourages partisan feelings that will cover up misdemeanours of individuals in case the “party is tarnished”. It’s a minefield.
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing people that the British Empire had come to an end.
“…money buys the muscle”
…- Until the currency *Crashes* and their paychecks stop coming, that is…
…- See: Roman Empire…
Are you of the opinion that the Dominion voting system failed or worked well in Venezuela? Venezuela nationalized the biggest oil reserve in the South ,Central and North American continent .Was that intended or did the intention fail ? Also president Jimmy Carter was an observer of the electoral count in a major election of Hugo Chavez and declared it as the most democratic in the Western world .Was he scammed also ?
I am somewhat confused after listening to the lawyer Sidney Powell telling Lou Dobbs about Dominion use in Venezuela.I would appreciate your response.
Answer in three parts (with a dose of /s):
De la Rue used to make banknote paper, unfortunately we now have plastic banknotes which nurture Covid 104 weeks out of the year, and thus *Must* be destroyed, forthwith!!…
https://worldchangebrief.webnode.comBREAKING MAJOR NEWS: Trump Likely Raided CIA Hacking Headquarters In Frankfurt With “Large Force” of US Army/
Wikileaks Exposed CIA Frankfurt Connection/
These Frankfurt Servers Were Used In 2020 Election Vote Switching Hack/
CIA “Excluded” From The Seizure Operation
*Hopium*, 77… 😉
nope – it happened. Multiple reports. I am no Q follower trust me I would not have made it a headline if it hadn’t happened. The raid occurred the servers are in custody, the only “likely” I had to add was that it was a CIA Nest, which I showed was likely with the evidence that followed. Cheers! : )
https://worldchangebrief.webnode.comFEC Chair- Election Illegitimate/
Trump’s 2018 EO Against Foreign Meddling/
BREAKING: US Army Raids German Servers/
Big Lists of Fraud Evidence/
GA Recount: Unfair Terms/
Fact Checking BBC/
Leftists Dox Lawyers.Pass Out Swastikas
“Fact Checking BBC”
…- Whelp, – *That* would take you ’till the heat-death of the Universe, alone…
lol Can i at least go to the Restaurant At the End of The Universe?
…So long as you don’t mind being the pyrotechnic star atraction at a Disaster Area gig, afterwards… *Bon Apetite*…
Oopsie. The Guard forgets to take down its story exposing how “America’s new voting machines bring new fears of election tampering”
Back in April 2020 The Guard was still pushing the Russiagate hoax and it fitted the narrative to show how easily a foreign power could infiltrate the U.S. voting system and throw the election
Now the Mockingbird Media is telling us that fraud cannot affect the result becquse it doesn’t happen on a widespread scale.
Just read what The Guard wrote 18 months ago:
“Large election jurisdictions such as Delaware, New York and Philadelphia are purchasing these “hybrid” systems, which some observers say creates two problems.
First, the printer and the scanner share the same paper path. If a voter leaves any races blank – a common practice called undervoting – the machine could in theory autofill those races. Neither the voter nor election administrators would be able to detect the change. Second, the hybrid machines have a feature critics are calling “permission to cheat”. Voters can opt not to review their ballots… In such cases, there would be no way to confirm that what the voter intended to vote was actually what was printed and counted.
But there is another potential weakness, too.
Barcodes – or QR codes – that represent a voter’s choices are printed on the ballot along with plain text showing, presumably, the same information in a way people can understand. When the ballot is scanned, it is the barcode that is scanned and counted, not the text that voters can read. If a barcode is printed that represents a different choice, or the scanners were hacked, voters would not know the difference…
There may not be a better way to sow chaos in American democracy than to force dozens of jurisdictions across the country to redo elections….
More likely, complaints about the machines would be written off as user error and manipulation would go undetected. After all, thousands of complaints were made about the old machines in Texas and Georgia in the 2018 midterms. Neither the results nor the machines in either election have been investigated.”
Part Two of The Guard’s investigation into the easily-corrupted U.S. voting system.
“They think they are above the law’: the firms that own America’s voting system” — The Guardian, Apr 2019
“When [Maryland congressman Jamie] Raskin learned that there are next to no federal laws that govern or regulate private sector companies involved in US election infrastructure, he hurriedly introduced a bill that would prevent states from contracting with firms owned or influenced by non-US citizens.
That is not likely. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has been antagonistic to election reform bills, as has the whole Republican party. The party narrative is that Democrats are trying to use the federal government to take over state and local elections; the political angle is that recognizing vulnerabilities or flaws in the election system could raise doubts about the legitimacy of the party’s – and Donald Trump’s – victory in 2016.
“To say that they don’t have any evidence of any wrongdoing is not to say that nothing untoward happened,” Raskin said. “It’s simply to say that we don’t have the evidence of it.”
The companies are privately-owned and closely held, making information about ownership and financial stability difficult to obtain. The software source code and hardware design of their systems are kept as trade secrets and therefore difficult to study or investigate.
Raskin’s bill could affect at least two of the largest election companies. Dominion Voting Systems, which is the second-largest voting machine vendor in the US, is based in both the US and Canada. Scytl, which provides election night reporting and other online election management tools, is based in Spain. ByteGrid, the Maryland elections contractor, is no longer owned by the Russian parent company.
Campaigners say, however, that foreign ownership of an election vendor is not the only potential security problem. No matter who owns them, voting machines are more vulnerable to insider malfeasance than any other sector of the election industry, and no sector has a longer documented history of US-based ownership with clear partisan ties.
When it was discovered three days before the 2018 midterms that poor cybersecurity left Georgia’s voter registration system vulnerable to being altered, it was unclear whether the state or the company were responsible for the failures.”
Typo: Date of article April 2019
“American democracy”
“SHAM DEMOCRACY USA. When one buys into the CORPORATE FASCIST BIG LIE, one makes HUMANITY’S enslavement easier for THEM.”
https://www.deviantart.com/redamerican1945/art/Eugene-V-Debs-Republican-Democratic-Party-674343047
“In the land of the blind, be a King…”
bravo for your post
Win or lose, lunatic liberals will always be a bunch of butthurt Bolsheviks.
The CORPORATE FASCIST OLIGARCH MOBSTER PSYCHOPATHS are behind the SCAMDEMIC. They are anything but Bolsheviks.
Not mutually exclusive.
If Billy Eugenics and the rest of the CORPORATE FASCIST OLIGARCH MOBSTER PSYCHOPATHS can be Bolsheviks, so can you… COMRADE.
https://imgur.com/gallery/E9vGO
You should see how many on my Facebook newsfeed keep referring to the scamdemic as ‘communism’ or a ‘communist takeover’. It gets really really frustrating and tiring. Glad you’re here to set the record straight…
Of course they’re not, they just own them
I am an algorist and do not believe in “democracy.’ Rather than explain why, simply watch the Jones Plantation presented here last week. A perfect example of democracy is a lynch mob, or as Ben Franklin famously said, two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner. Furthermore, public opinion is usually easily manipulated by TPTB as they had existed throughout the ages, in this age of predictive programming and MK Ultra mind controlled, inherited from NAZI scientist via Project Paperclip, that is true in spades. The author of this article thinks that each vote should have equal power as to how our overlords are chosen, and I do not agree with that, since I do not recognize them as authorities other than they have the biggest guns. As a Yank, I would like to make a few remarks about the electoral college which was condemned in this article.
The drafting of the US Constitution started in 1787. The 13 colonies had recently fought a long and brutal war against what they considered to be the tyranny of the British Monarchy. The former colonies were sovereign states joined by a very weak and non-binding Confederacy. Some of the states were large and relatively highly populous, such as New York and Virginia, and some were quite small such as Rhode Island and New Hampshire. The drafters had to make many compromises between these interests to get the draft ratified. First was the construction of a bicameral legislature where one house was built on a state’s population (House of Representatives). The other (the Senate) gave even weight to each state with two representatives each. A law needed to be passed by both houses and then signed by the president. The second compromise was the electoral college for selecting the president. This has been amended to some extent over the last two centuries and a half, but what it does is give the power of each state the same clout as its number of representatives in the House. To some extent it buffered the power of the larger states and their interests in choosing the president against the smaller states, and stops an overwhelming number of voters from steamrolling the election. For example, if 85% of the voters in California selected a particular candidate, in a “popular” election, the people of Rhode Island or Alaska’s votes would be like a flea on an elephant’s ass.
Even with these compromises, the draft could not be ratified and the draft had to be returned to the assembly. Out of this came the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the constitution. Most of these amendments dealt for the idea that the new federal government was not to infringe on the God given freedoms of the individual citizens of the Federation. However, the tenth amendment was different and stated that any power not explicitly stated in the document for the federal government to possess, would remain with the individual states.
Thank you for explaining the oft-heard of electoral college system.
el Gallinazo,
“I do not agree with that, since I do not recognize them as authorities other than they have the biggest guns”
“Most of these amendments dealt for the idea that the new federal government was not to infringe on the God given freedoms of the individual citizens”
That is why I really like some of you Americans.
Thank You, You have held up the most basic Principles of Human Life.
You are writing For Freedom. I agree with you, but I can’t write so well as you.
I am still trying to learn.
Just pour your love and passion in
Tony
Thank you, Tony. Your English is fine. I almost got deported from my new country for committing an insult against the Spanish language.
They were Amazing at WOMAD – they had us all dancing
“Lo Cor de La Plana : Tant deman @ Ethnoambient Salona 2012
Tony Compo aka Distractor in Chief
This annoying contribution belongs in a 1960s magazine for those interested in the preservation of world music.
OffGuardian is not that magazine.
Stop being a pain, Tony, and stick to the point – the US election.
Your taste in music is for you alone, or perhaps also for a couple of close friends.
One lesson I have learned from the US election is that people not sticking to the point can very easily infect our entire society with a tendency to be unfocused…
Congress, Senate, Parliament and the entire MSM are perfect examples of this lethal malady.
DNFTT
Womad was another spooky undercover hippy james bond confab if I do remember correct…
We are not allowed to fly without some cunt sticking a rod up our noses, but we can still travel, cos we have got a Sailing Boat…Easy do The Atlantic, if we wanted to go there to the USA.
Our Passports are still valid.
Personally I prefer France.
No one has banned us…even if we don’t speak French too well.
We are English – though we did get Married in Scotland.
“Rod Stewart – Sailing (Official Video)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOt3oQ_k008
Tony
I will try again without the words. Apparently some people don’t like Harold Wilson.
https://ibb.co/j8gBphM
Sorry for the Off-Topic, but there isn’t an active Covid-19 thread going at the moment:
I used to have some vague respect for the “i” newspaper at one time, but it seems to have gone full-on Covid propaganda sheet now.
On the front page of the printed Friday 13th November 2020 edition, there was a blaring headline about “unfounded safety fears putting vaccine success at risk”. Those weren’t the exact words (I can’t find the article online), but that was the gist. Then I realised what they were doing, cunning bar-stewards: They are preparing in advance for the failure of the vaccine by blaming vaccine-sceptics. So, the story that the 77th is peddling is that because of anti-vax “fearmongers”, take-up will be lower than they hope, and so (wait for it, wait for it) “herd-immunity will not be achieved”. Ah, the magic words “herd immunity”, which they deny exists when the great unwashed are left to spread the wild virus among themselves, but can magically exist when spread by an official vaccine (plus the odd toxic adjuvant or preservative plus any other crap they can think of putting in it).
And when I think of it, it isn’t such a new tactic after all, if I think back to when measles outbreaks are also blamed on vaccine-sceptic parents who refuse to have their kids poisoned. When in fact generally there has been a pretty high take up of the vaccine, but there are still outbreaks because (a) the “immunity” conferred by the bloody vaccine doesn’t actually last all that long and/or (b) the outbreaks are actually caused by the virus spreading from kids who have been vaccinated…
But back to the propaganda sheet formerly known as the “i”, one story I can find online is headlined:
“PCR false positives aren’t causing the high Covid-19 case count, despite what you’ve seen on social media” yeah, right.
As with the smear campaign against Corbyn (only X 100), covid demonstrates how quickly and ruthlessly the media channels all pull together when required to do so. I’d say that the present implosion to a fixed point is clearly going to go on indefinitely. All MSM channels, and many of the “alternative” channels, are now part of Channel COVID. Indeed – what this reveals about those forementioned “alternative” channels is the biggest revelation.
If a vaccine is effective, the vaccinated individual is immune to the disease. This is the case regardless of whether or not any other individual has been vaccinated. Vaccination is a clinical treatment; it is not a public health measure.
Even vaccine proponents don’t claim that they give lifelong immunity. In the case of measles, it seems that the apparent immunity is very short term indeed.
But if they are saying (as some are) that in (in the case of Covid-19), in order to achieve herd immunity we need to vaccinate x% of the population where x=very high, i.e. that herd immunity is the aim, and vaccination is the means, then surely that makes vaccination a public health measure? Surely any measure for which there are national campaigns is by definition a public health measure.
Pretending that the term vaccine means something other than what it means is nothing but propaganda. Incidentally, the same people who are claiming that vaccine should have high take up in order to work are the ones who just got through condemning as “granny killers” anyone who advocated the barbarously named herd immunity, which is an interesting irony.
According to what I’ve read, the bar has been set so low in this case that a successful vaccination has only to alleviate mild symptoms. This of course makes them useless for the heavily infected who are the only ones that need them!
If it does not make someone immune from the disease, it is not a vaccine.
This is what sickens me about the ignorance of the conforming sheep out there.
They wear the masks and make them a ‘fashion accessory’ ; they learn the catchy mantras as instructed to them via their TV ; they blindly call those who rely upon logic and evidence of real danger ‘conspiracy theorists’ ( as instructed by their handlers via their TV).
If you tell the blind that politicians are being passed lies to pass on to us, they look confused like a cat watching a ball of wool. If you show them evidence that the actual liars who pass on the information have actually already stated that the current vaccines being ‘trialled’ won’t cure anything- they still look lost. If you explain that a real vaccine can only be made if it has the virus isolated to work from but that it hasn’t actually been isolated, they look like they’ve suffered a head injury while you weren’t looking.
Then, when you explain that the number of those who have died from any respiratory or flu- like virus over the last 50 years is insignificant in comparison to the huge swathes of human beings who have lost their lives or been left in a mess due to vaccines that they didn’t need, they’re finished.
Then tell them that those who dealt the vaccines out also held huge stakes in the businesses that produced them and they say you’re wrong. They base their argument on fresh air and bullshit.
Tell them that the phrase ” a public health measure” is the only legal term they can use as a form of disclaimer due to it being a load of BS. That they already know they’re attempting to forcibly put poison into everyone but need a reason that won’t provoke anarchy across the world. Their answer ?
” well that proves they’re desperate to get rid of the virus innit..or they wouldn’t spend that much on the vaccines and do all that to make sure it’s gone so they care really and if the economy suffers so what ..at least we’re all saved”.
And they- the wise ones of the dreamworld- are exactly why we are outnumbered. They are the allies of the nihilists. It’s they who provide the ‘general consensus of public opinion’, thus making the politicians and software psychopaths look like superheroes.
Nuremberg Code, Bitchez…
https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics
Representative democracy is an absurd idea. How can one person represent the conflicting wishes and interests of tens of thousands of people? It’s an impossibility.
We’re not here to be ”represented” by anyone else. How can we be? We’re all individuals, with our own minds. We can listen to people we respect, we can make our own voice heard. That’s it.
The last thing we need is politicians. Meddlesome, power-hungry little freaks.
Everyone should stop voting, and we’ll see where that takes us.
We’re all individuals, with our own minds.
Wow, I’ve never seen such a subversive statement…
That’s no way for a person to talk who wants to get on in the world…
I sometimes think the honest truth is that the world is not ready for individuals yet.
Great teachers ever since Christ have tried to give us a hint that we are supposed to be headed in that direction, but it’s just too darned inconvenient and uncomfortable, so we just stay with the crowd-think of the Old Testament so that we can feel secure…
I’d give it another 1,000 years or so… I mean, just look at how we actually treat individuals with their own minds today…
That crowd-think is really doing my nut in. The irony is that we are the ones who are accused by the BBC-watchers and Guardian-readers of being brainwashed.
Global *Republic*:…
…- https://www.britannica.com/topic/republic-government
Don’t worry, the OSCE were ( are?) on the case. And they’re :
” … the world’s largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, promotion of human rights, freedom of the press, and fair elections. It employs around 3,460 people, mostly in its field operations but also in its secretariat in Vienna, Austria, and its institutions. It has its origins in the 1975 Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland.”
..so we’re all OK.
After all, who can say there’s such a thing as illegal arms deals, breaches of human and civil rights, or dishonest reporting from the world’s press who would never ever allow lies and propaganda to pass it’s paid-for lips. These people are really effective. And if you think otherwise you’re a conspiracy theorists and you hate the baby Jesus.
International observers from OSCE described the elections as well-managed, but said that baseless allegations of systematic deficiencies, made by the incumbent President, harm public trust in democratic institutions. What. you mean there are people questioning the democratic process ? Good grief etc. Wait ’til Elvis finds out (I’ll mail him).
And if that doesn’t make you sleep better, those Independent Fact Checkers were brought in. They were dragged away from the arduous task of scouring the internet making sure nobody questioned the vaccine scam of Gates or that any doubts about the pretend virus were being published anywhere. They even asked for ( and received) help from the ever-so-honest and ‘independent’ Snopes dot com (who never have an agenda to serve on behalf of anyone who pays them etc etc).
This just in :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_controversial_elections
and i’s friend :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_for_Security_and_Co-operation_in_Europe
Tonight’s Raw Report by Sonia Poulton. The really interesting interview is with Dr Michael Nordfors at 1hr7mins in, where he nails the fake pandemic and fake 9/11. No doubt the usual shills will label Sonia Poulton “controlled opposition”.
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/the-raw-report-05-with-sonia-poulton-amp-guests_jUkJqKEJKFixyLw.html
Arran, the Bristol tattooist/piercer who stayed open, finally gets raided and arrested. Worth watching just for the locksmith comically making a pillock out of himself in front of the EIGHT attending police officers and THREE environmental health officers, and assorted passers by, attempting to break the shop’s locks (Arran eventually puts him out of his misery and lets him in).
https://www.facebook.com/100044790215439/videos/205595714276768/
Unrelated (but only slightly, and important enough to post anyway):
American Herald Tribune has been shut down by the FBI
The purge continues beyond YT, FB and Twitter. Now they’re going after websites.
American Herald Tribune features contributions by the likes of Edward Curtin, Pepe Escobar and Philip Giraldi. Their website before (Nov. 1st) and after (Nov. 7th) seizure by the FBI.
Good riddance to AHT. But, yes, We don’t need censorship.
Michael O’Bernicia just posted this important news about the UK Secretary of Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock…
https://www.facebook.com/michael.obernicia/posts/2749442845296937
It’ll be vetoed. Those at the top will make sure of it. Hancock is a puppet like the rest of them. Unnacountable, just taking orders.
Bringing the real policy makers to justice would be better,
I am at the top. #ArrestMattHancock
The DPP represent the Crown .Are they going to allow the Government stooges who have already had their blessing to carry this assault on the people to be arrested or charged of anything ?
All the DPP looks at is the validity of the case against the accused. If it’s strong the warrant is issued. If it’s less than strong then it won’t be. If it’s non-existent then forget it.
So who is going to say to the DPP ”it’s a scam, it’s a conspiracy” ? Bear in mind that even the medical, non-Twitter users, who have said it have been silenced or fired.
This is why i can’t use twitter. Too many looking for their 15 minutes. Even if their intentions are good they should at least give things like this some serious critical thought before trying to be the digital age’s Che Guevara.
If this goes ahead- and let’s be honest, it’s not going to, how would the MSM act. They couldn’t ignore something this big. It’s too high profile. What they’d do is highlight, like McAlpine did 10 years ago, that twitter needs to censor free speech and clamp down on anyone trying to have an opinion.
So, the intention of this O’ Bernicia might be to right a wrong and cause a stir. But it will do that in all the wrong ways and it will be a case one step forward and three steps back. The dangers of letting your ego open a social network account.
I want to be completely wrong and see the smug Hancock humiliated and brought down. I want to believe twitter is useful too. And i want a rocket for Christmas.
If the choice is to be between Johnson and Starmer, then why should I care how rigged the vote is? I don’t choose either. There will never be a ‘good’ candidate allowed.
I don’t think the system of voting is the problem. This is just tinkering at the edges while the real damage continues
Why don’t we just abolish the poison of political parties. Then local candidates will stand on local issues and be accountable to their local electorate and not owe allegiance to a party heirarchy, helicoptering them in wherever it chooses. The voters will be forced to look at the individual, not just choose their favourite colour.
Corruption once in parliament will still be rife, of course, but there will at least be some honest people with principles among all the shit. The party system weeds the honest out and squashes them.
We need a “none of the above” choice.
You can add that if you want to spoil your ballot papers, It’s been done before.
But you pay to vote through local taxes, Use it to vote for a local non attached person perhaps,
I think the option might give it more weight?
Hello Paul: I’ve been wishing for the “None of the above” on the ballot vote for about 40 years. A friend did a write in vote for Lassie (the dog) because Lassie always knew what to do…
Write In or NOTA … – That is All…
…- Let these fucks *Work* for they pay…
I’ve always thought we should abolish the whips in the House of Commons.
And abolish parties in a reformed (elected) second chamber. i.e. all members sit as independents.
The system has to change but it won’t.
Referendums are also rigged IMO. If any change does come it’ll be rigged, People will be given the illusion it has changed but it’ll stay the same.
What to do, what to do….
Who wants an Orange whip?… – Orange whip?, Orange whip?…
…- Three Orange Whips!…
On the median wage, and not permitted to join any boards in their post-parliamentary careers.
I am so sorry for the off topic. But, the readers from Canada- we need your help.
I’ve information at my place and am asking that you forward it to our local politicos
mayors, regional councillors, health talking heads, Provincial members of parliament
They need to know we are aware of the fallacious PCR tests and they have to be held to account- I guess it’s a call to action.
I will be making up an information package for the dolts that should be followed
please check the information provided by scientific source and see if you can help the cause
The hour is getting late my friends.
Real Time PCR Testing In Canada: Cycle Thresholds and Grossly Innacurate Test Results- Take the REAL Science to the Politicos
PCR “Pandemic” Testing- Please Raise This Issue With Your Public Politicos Including Health Officers
correction “the dolts that should be followed”
Should read the dolts that should NOT ever be followed. Never!
The UK election in December last year was totally rigged, and again on the postal vote.
Within 3 months of this election, the Coronavirus Act was passed (almost 400 pages of legal gobblydegook that had obviously been prepared years beforehand), and we had the lockdowns for a non-existent virus.
And has anyone noticed that all elections have been suspended?
You couldn’t make this stuff up, yet a majority of people still believe a massive con that’s going on before their very eyes.
In Ireland we had an election in February
And the first time in history we have a three party coalition
So obviously they knew what was in store a month later and had the monopoly and especially when Sinn Fein got the most votes but couldn’t form a government.
Anyone but them is one angle.
If that question was raised in Parliament or on the BBC it would quickly be shot down in flames. Or the Russians and Chinese meddled against the Cons for a Corbyn victory.
So called democracy in the U.K alone is in tatters. And the rest of the Western world isn’t looking good either.
RobG,
Do you like Sailing?
I would love to meet you. I like what you write.
Not sure when, but the boat was made in France, designed to survive The Bay of Biscay. It hasn’t sunk yet. He found The Bay of Biscay easy..The Atlantic a bit more tough in The Scilly Islands but we all survived…and we are not going to stop doing it.
Sometimes it is a bit scary, but we are used to that now.
“Oh Shit we are all about to Die”
I couldn’t photograph The Strom – It was all Hands on Deck – Except The Kids – we shoved into The Cabin below
We are Fit.
Hope you are Too.
I have still got all My Original Hair, and it is Getting Really Long.
I did ask John Ward, but so far he hasn’t made it, but I would love to meet him too..
He lives in The South of France too.
I reckon we would get on.
Tony
Tony, the only experience of sailing I have was not really sailing. It was a holiday when I was a kid, when we did the canals in northern England; one of the best holidays I’ve ever had (imagine, when you’re a kid!). I’m reminded of this because of the recent news about the Yorkshire Ripper. Amongst others we were on the Macclesfield Canal. We moored up one night right next to a drain where the Ripper had just dumped one of his victims. I didn’t find this out until years later.
Other than that, my uncle Terry did his NS in the Royal Navy. In his retirement uncle Terry had a small boat. I remember one occasion when we got stuck on a sandbank in the Medway estuary. We had to wait for hours for the tide to come back in again, during which we got through about two crates of beer.
My best story, though, was a voyage from Brixham harbour across the bay to Torquay. My sister, my cousin and I were just young kids, and we were in a small dinghy with a Seagull outboard. The boat was loaded up to the gunnels. Brixham harbour was mirror calm. As soon as we got out of the harbour and into the Bay the waves started picking up. Cut a long story short, the dinghy started taking in water and began to sink. We just about made it to the beach at Torquay, where the dinghy was completely smashed up in the surf.
The only thing I managed to rescue was the Seagull outboard engine. We took a bus back to Brixham, where our parents were ensconsed in a pub. On the bus I carried the Seagull engine, which was heavily leaking petrol. This in the days when everyone used to smoke on buses.
He was with Toby Gard, when he was 15 years old, at the time he wrote this and I would love to play Galleon again, rather than just doing it for real on his Sailing Boat. He runs his own small company, and sold a bit of it..He has got a real one now. It’s his. He worked for it, and uses me to hoist him up the mast, to change the light bulb to LED at the top at the top of the Mast.
His boat runs on Solar and Wind Power..None of this easy, but it keeps us fit, rather than staring at a screen
We have an X-Box somewhere..but its more fun doing it for real.
My son did not do the art work, but he was inspired.
Tony
We should go back to the old systems of choosing leaders.
Arthur was chosen by the Lady Of The Lake and had to pull a sword from the stone.
Why can’t the Lake Lady come back now and choose a new leader for America?
Even on an off day, she could do better than Trumpo or Creepy Joe.
Where are you Researcher? I’m missing your comments.
He’s researching
She just replied to me a short time ago on the previous story (Colin Todhunter)
Hi May. I’ve been researching compounds that repair DNA and prevent DNA damage from EMF and radiation: Base excision repair through phytomedicine.
With regards to this story, I think representative government is a con. One of the greatest cons in history. It’s continually sold to us as a beacon of liberty and enlightenment but the outcome is the same as a dictatorship (besides the optics) if the people’s wishes and wants are always ignored in favor of policies and agendas controlled by bankers, security apparatus and industrialists. The results of all this “democracy” speak for themselves.
Thanks Researcher. Glad you’re still here. Always learning more from your meticulous research.
The voting system in the US, UK, and across the globe isn’t open to fraud.
It’s all in your heads, build back better and the great reset are the best thing you’ll experience, a once in a lifetime chance. We have your best interests at heart, honestly. Believe us. Come on now, we are nice people really. Why won’t you like us. Just wear the freakin mask and vote without question, Grrrrrrr….
Please down vote me. I’m going for a record.
(Those who up vote, your names will go on ze list)
The overriding assumption that I’m hearing from the election fraud advocates is that anyone committing fraud must automatically be working to ensure Biden’s victory. This isn’t necessarily the case. First of all, because the ballot is secret there’s no way to determine a link between a fraudulent voter and a fraudulent vote. This is actually where postal voting scores over in-person voting — with postal votes the voter is tied to the ballot until the actual tabualtion of those votes so any problem with the voter’s identity or attempt to vote multiple times will be detected before the vote is counted. In-person voting has to detect a problem with a voter before the ballot is issued; once its issued the individual election worker has no control over that ballot, all they can do is ensure that the collection box is secure and that the box is safely delivered to the secure location where it will be processed. There is one weakness here in our county — although the box is sealed at the end of voting and delivered by two people there’s no guarantee that it wasn’t opened and tampered with en route (except for two things — one is as the supervisor I advise county by text when the ballots leave the location and we have a tabulation of the vote cards that were issued which should match those cast).
There’s a lot of ill-informed speculation about how the system works and how it could be corrupted but my knowledge of it suggests that it would be difficult to corrupt it sufficiently to make a difference, especailly with a national race. Every step of the process is open to the public by law (county has observers and webcams, everything is recorded and logged). Itss far easier and more cost effective to work on the body of voters by making it difficult to vote, disqualifiying voters and adjusting voting districts to yield the appropriate results (if you’re interested in computer software to influence the result of an election that’s one application you should investigate — its real). The best chance for ballot influence comes from off year down ticket races like a state’s “Secretary of State” job, a very prosaic and seemingly unimportant state post that in real life influences how we vote, who gets to vote and how votes are tabulated and presented. Based on the track record in various states we can say with confidence that its typically Republican controlled states that work hardest at influencing the outcome of elections.
As for this Presidential contest, the number tell it all — there are a lot of Republican voters out there that can’t stand Donald Trump. (Split tickets aren’t unusual in the US.)
There were significant votes cast in Georgia, which begins its audit today, that didn’t vote ‘down ballot’ at all, which people are claiming is very suspicious.
We had a number of these on Tuesday (Election Day). Based on feedback from the workforce handling the touch screen ballot printers they were invariably Trump voters — you’d explain the navigation controls and they’d literally just say “I’m not interested in other races, I just want to vote for Trump”.
Back in 2008 we had a number of people turn up in the afternoon that wanted to vote for — essentially — “not Obama”. Based on their lack of familiarity with the process (and their “inactive voter” status) I guessed that they’d not voted in years.
If you don’t trust the way the election’s run then sign up as a poll worker. Watch, learn, criticize and interact, don’t just guess and speculate.
I believe Georgia suspects the percentage of those who didn’t vote ‘down the ballot’ is very high. Let’s see what their audit says. You seem to have a vested interest here, M. Would you agree that a fair and democratic election is the most important thing? Since B stated he wouldn’t claim victory until it had been verified officially – since this situation was very much predicted – I would have thought B would be very eager to ensure the election was fair and democratic. Significant voting irregularities have been raised. Your bland assurances that such things can’t happen are your opinion and you’re within your rights to express it, but maybe we should avoid speaking too emphatically, and take emphatic opinions with just a pinch of salt. Let’s see what comes to light, if anything. Given the 11th hour rule changes in certain states, the Biden-only mail ballot dumps and the discarded envelopes, it looks like it could be a whole heap of mess. One thing for sure is, the media will continue to paint everything rosy XD A2
Yes, there’s still a chance that Yemen will be bombed by Trump instead of Biden.
It’s more likely Trump will build a hotel /casino /golf course complex in Yemen than bomb the place? Biden on the other has a record of bombing 3rd and 2nd world countries that goes back 4 decades !
Trump has already bombed Yemen for four years.
That has been the new Saudi king’s pet project since he seized power supported by the mullahs . It’s a tribal thing in the main with religious justifications . That the US has profited greatly from this conflict is true and totally bipartisan.
What’s the situation with Arizona? Can’t trust the MSM story on it right now
Am I the only one who finds it ironic (and or hypocritical) that here we are mostly critical about the value of voting in general but we here partake in up voting or down voting each others comments and views? 😁
Here, take a non fraudulant up vote.
😅🤣 Back at ya!
I voted twice.
It’s only to show you agree or disagree, the people who are commenting don’t change your life do they?
I dunno about that Geoff. That down vote I got has ruined my day. 😁
My dead cat voted for you
I’ve wondered about that as well . Probably makes easier for the algorithms that collect data , and or makes it easier to agree or disagree if you actually read some of the responses . Perhaps randomly voting up or down on all comments as an experiment of a sort?
Who do you infer is collecting data on this site?
Rly?
Ironic, maybe, but not particularly hypocritical.
I think at least part of the appeal of voting in comments threads is that one can immediately see the effects of one’s vote– i.e., that it’s counted.
The usual software delays and glitches blur this effect, as when votes don’t seem to “take” or buffering (if that’s the correct term) causes vote totals to increase or decrease in multiples. But overall, comments voting is a simple cause-and-effect mechanism that inspires confidence.
Regardless of all of the wonky assurances that modern electoral systems are theoretically meticulously operated, reliable, accurate and virtually fraud-proof and foolproof, only a terminally complacent, credulous authoritarian-submissive implicitly trusts them.
FWIW, I voted by mail in this election because I didn’t want to risk possible scamdemic-imposed hassles at the polling place. I have zero implicit trust in the process; even assuming my ballot was properly delivered in the first place, I have no confidence that it was correctly processed according to civics-class dogma.
Lessons for Anti-Imperialists from the U.S. Elections
First, you can expect war party voters to be crying about election fraud, and to be creepy-happy. Buy some eyedrops for when your eyes become irritated from rolling so much.
Try to avoid conversation which can possibly be intelligent or interesting–they will not understand it at this time. When you come across them, simply nod and smile like you’re taking a drink order on a Monday afternoon. Remember, war party voters are full of poop, so don’t get involved with their weird happiness or weird anger. Don’t go on the ride with them.
It is best to keep these lessons in mind for about a month–it’s the same ritual every four years;)
Aren’t all main parties surrounded by war hawks of some sort?
In the U.S., the Democrats and Republicans are war parties. Could be the same in Britain, I don’t know?
Corbyn is Anti Imperialist, anti war. and they forced him out. Now the two main parties are the same, both part of the machine, and neither would dare deviate from the script.
Like Sanders a spineless corrupt hack. In the US or the UK. “We do not have choices, we have owners.”
https://www.deviantart.com/redamerican1945/art/Eugene-V-Debs-Republican-Democratic-Party-674343047
No, he was an anti semitic communist terrorist.
The Board of deputies says so, so it must be true.
https://twitter.com/thisisAppa/status/500958842285735936/photo/1
Thanks:)
As they were before Corbyn, of course. Blair was famously pro-war.
very accurate
In Australia it is compulsory to turn up and vote. You can cast a donkey vote once you’re there or not vote at all but you got to turn up and mark yourself off the roll.
It seems that in Australia it’s illegal to not participate in a democracy.
That is correct. But like many countries you’re only voting in the same shit as the last bunch. Hardly seems worth voting for. But you must, vote for anything but the main parties, even a person dressed as a Penguin will do.
If they introduce compulsory voting, then they must also insist on a “none of the above” category, and of course, if “none of the above” gets the highest vote, the election must be re-run.
It’s still open to fraud Mike regardless and I doubt those who hide in the shadows would allow such a poll to be created. See my pencil at the polling booth remark. They really do take people for fools. I whipped out a marker pen and made sure my mark was large and couldn’t be tampered with.
They might have binned it at the count. Who knows.
You may be right.
I can’t quickly find your pencil remark, but on that point: when I (in the UK) vote, I almost always use my own black ball-point pen for the same reason as you. I’m not aware of any UK rule that says you have to use the pencil provided. As a matter of interest, I asked my wife what she did, and apparently she usually uses the provided pencil, but she also wasn’t aware of any particular rule.
She’s worked as a volunteer poll and count official in the distant past, and we’ve both been active in local politics more recently, and have attended counts as observers. Neither of us believes that election fraud is a big problem in the UK as far as personal voting is concerned.
Postal voting is another matter, and the massive growth of this is suspicious. But concerns about postal vote fraud go back a long way. My wife’s father worked in local government at a high rank, and become a party activist after he retired. He said one trick was for party agents to visit care homes to “help” elderly confused voters filling out their postal ballot papers. And another was for party agents or activists to “helpfully” collect postal ballot papers on behalf of voters, purely out of the goodness of their hearts you understand, and save them the bother of posting them, which obviously led to the possibility of fraud.
Traditionally the Conservatives were better at organising the postal votes for their supporters than Labour, it gave them an advantage in mobilising elderly and infirm voters and sometimes made the difference in marginals. That was the reputation in the 20th century at any rate, I am not sure about 21st century elections.
I know that they also used to be well organised in providing cars to ferry the “old dears” from old peoples homes (as we used to call them), to the polling station, for those of them who wanted to venture out. And they’d probably put a “vote Conservative” leaflet in their hand as they got them out of the car.
I believe the statement below was published in the Truth newspaper in 1905.
“To enter Australian politics ,to abide there ,and to succeed therein,a man must have the instincts of a loafer.the aptitude of a pickpocket,the conscience of a whore ,and the honor of a bludger “.
Australia is not and has never been a Democracy . It like the US ,Canada , India , and anywhere else the English have controlled , is a one party aristocracy where one party rules and sham “elections” are promoted along with differences without distinction in so called parties. All candidates are vetted and selected by those countries elites, when satisfied that said candidates support the status quo. When voting changes things it is declared illegal , and drastic measures are taken?
Who could forget the dismissal of the elected prime minister, geoff whitlam, in 1975?
The TV news seems to me to be getting more and more obvious all the time. I always thought its true function wasn’t to give you news but to look for a required response. And the required response was always to “get you on board” with whatever the rulers were planning to do or, in some cases, with what they were already doing.
And so I tune in tonight and there is the hushed reverential tone. I thought right away it was more covid disaster masturbation. Well it was but not in the direct mortality way. This was about the inevitable doom coming to small businesses. The voiceovers went something like this:
Announcer: “And so we go over to Jane who runs a card shop. Business is starting to feel the bite”
Jane: “It’s very difficult to try and stay afloat in these distressing times. But what can you do?”
Announcer: “And as the temperature drops, so does business. It is deeply regrettable but it won’t just be the weather that goes into a chill this year. British business is yet another sad victim of this covid catastrophe”.
I love the way they present this as if it’s just happening, or fate.
And God what I would give to be directing these announcements. I’d have The Last Post playing. Or maybe Barber’s adagio for strings. Or that Mahler piece from Death in Venice. (The Jon Snow interrogation with the disabled woman could have been punctuated with the theme from Cape Fear.)
This also applies to foreign locales including war zones. The on-site team that appears to have provided the videos or to answer questions is only a prop. A major news agency has sent the report, talking points or video to the producer earlier. In turn, the agency relies heavily on the official narrative.
We have much of the same problems here in Canada .We have first past the post and efforts to change to proportional representation have so far gone nowhere . I totally support proportional representation ,although not perfect , at least it provides for more voices in parliament from the various party voices.Sounds more like democracy to me.
I’m not convinced. I mean, yes, FPP has some obvious problems, and in theory, proportional representation should mean that representation in parliament should reflect voter preference more accurately.
But does it end up with better government? Not necessarily. We (in Britain) only have to look to our continental (European) neighbours, most using PR, and most having endless series of coalition governments. Which may sound fine in theory. “Parties working together” instead of mindlessly opposing each other. Well yes, but what thismeans is back door stitched-up deals, so the voter is actually less represented than before, and is less likely to get what he or she voted for than with FPP.
Have you done some research on proportional representation ? We had open house meetings / town hall meetings across our country to hear and discuss the possibility of this form of electoral system ,of which I attended and did research on the pluses and minuses . It was a very enlightening experience for me anyway .I am sold on it personally . In what form , as there are variations , is still to be determined, if indeed we ,as a nation ,finally decide to agree that the existing system , with quite a number of different parties ,no longer provides good governance .
FPP as the author of the article states is acceptable with 2 parties in the process. We ,in Canada , now have 4 + parties and we often end up with a majority government with less than 40 % of vote ,which can then govern roughshod, dictatorially over the remainder of the 60 % that actually voted for other parties .
The system could work quite well if the opposition do their job and actually be opposition. Many parties do what is best for the party. Democracy and creating a better society for all is way down their list of priorities, and will not happen until all corporate demands are met first.
We in western countries do not have a major politician who truly represents the public and ensures their lives and prospects are improved. It’s a dangerous game they play.
I think this is one aspect where more frequent parliamentary elections might help. Not necessarily of all the MPs at the same time, but it could be done in stages (as is indeed already done in some local authorities, who are by and large free to set their own frequency of elections).
Back in the day ,to use an over worn cliche , the electorate were quite happy with the government they elected .At least the ones that got their party in power .Today ,as I see it , the consciousness of people ,at least politically, has been raised a notch and people expect better and more from their elected representatives but all we get is a circus that usually lasts 4 years or so.
Cheers and thank you for your input.
Guy, I can’t say I’ve done actual research myself. I am on the mailing list of the (UK) Electoral Reform Society which is a long-standing and (I think) reasonably well respected organisation that campaigns for what the title suggests, and is pro PR and has written articles about the various systems. I probably ought to go back and study some of them again.
Yes of course, where you have multiple parties, and small parties, then that means that FPP is less fair, or downright unfair in some cases.
One issue that we have in the UK is of course our unelected “upper” chamber, and that is another thing that the ERS campaigns to change, for which I strongly support them. But there are ways that our electoral system could be improved, even within FPP, such as annual or biennial parliamentary elections, to make the chamber more representative at any one time (and to keep those in power on their toes). We could also look again at constituency sizes.
But I think my point about PR not necessarily leading to better government (as opposed to better representation) still stands, at least until someone can point me to evidence for the contrary.
You make a good point regarding the upper chamber as it is probably the same as our un-elected but appointed senate. One can often see some of them fast asleep while they are supposed to be contemplating sober judgment on up and coming laws to be enacted by the house .What a joke ! Most of them are in their 70s to 80s collecting from our tax dollars and hardly spending time in attendance .The senate should be scrapped and replaced. How, what and when will be for the next up and coming generation as this will definitely take much discussion and time.I am already in my 70s.
Cheers.
FORGET “elections”, your votes DO NOT COUNT!
The only thing that COUNTS is this…
The SRF & Billionaires are the Ones running the SHOW!
and BEST part:
Cummings out, Gates in.
So next time a previously unknown disease strikes at least we will be ready for the next COVID 19 pandemic?
Of course NOT… We’ve had ZERO pandemics in the XXI century!
They are just playing and testing what are the best tools in order to advance Their master plans to Protect Their Planet!
”Allegedly, even John F Kennedy was forced to make a corrupt deal to secure his own victory. ”
Who alleged that ? It’s accepted now that his father, Joe Kennedy, bought enough votes via his mafia friends to get his boy in. His first -born was the initial choice but died in action. So JFK got the cursed ticket. He, and his brother Bobby, were as naive enough to think they had the power to lead their country as they were in believing their daddy wasn’t a former bootlegger , anti semite and close friend of the paranoid headcase, McCarthy. I just thought I’d point these little nuggets out early as our author is talking about corruption and dastardly deeds. It’s important we don’t begin with disinformation.
”However, is there something in the election system itself that encourages fraud? ”
Yes. Dishonesty for one and corruption for another. And our old- or should it be new- friend -data analysis.
”However, all of this is relevant to the UK also – the UK could learn a great deal from the controversy surrounding the current US presidential election, about the need for electoral reform”
While you were sleeping, the UK held their election a year ago. A year before this still-fresh in the memory US election. Boris Johnson won.
So it should really be a question of should the US have learned from the UK’s farce of an election in which we saw endless baseless lies propagated about the opposition to the pro Jewish Tory party- Jeremy Corbyn, lies which still stand as lies until proven to be otherwise. The pro Jewish media ran( and ran and ran) with that and Corbyn was framed as Hitler’s more evil Twin. That will teach him to be a pacifist.
On the run up to the election, Dominic Cummings was snuck in the side entrance as ‘an advisor’ and a sort of digital chief whip who is even less trustworthy than his unpleasant countenance suggests. If this man ever says hello to you, I advise you not to believe him.
As a cover, Cummings was brought in to ‘influence’ the Brexit deal and votes. His masters were, and are, maths and data. His weapons of choice were -and are- social networks and bots. When he was brought in he made Johnson a promise. Despite Boris looking and sounding increasingly idiotic every time he opened his face, he would not only deliver him a victory, he would deliver an 80% majority. That’s a pretty specific figure. And to make such a bold prediction ahead of the game when Corbyn and Labour were doing well and the UK briefly had hope, it’s even more remarkable. It was looking like it would be a close run race. Word on the street was a Corbyn narrow victory. Word in the Synagogues was that their man would be in. For 24 heady hours Britain became Israel. The final result had everyone wondering if the votes had been counted in Jerusalem.
Johnson won. It was a huge victory. That’s Prime Minister No. 20 from Eton, the most prestigious toilet in the UK. Despite him being a laughing stock and B-list celebrity, he won by( wait for it) 80%. Who knew. Well, Cummings..
Johnson, Cummings and their fellow muppet Michael Gove all had dirty dealings with Cambridge Analytica. And that company appeared on the radar in 2015 with a similar remit involving the US election. The US and UK are two heads of one body. Ask Iran, Iraq, or Syria. They have the same masters. They share the same goals. They keep each other’s secrets.
Should Cambridge Analytica ever use phrases like ”we won” if they have no political identity or allegiance ? No. But they do.
Cummings wasted no time in employing several data and software people and even less time flooding social networks with his tactics of persuaus9on and influence. Rumour has / had it that the ‘victory’ of Jonson, along with the size of his winning margin, were announced before postal votes had even been opened, let alone counted.
All this does is confirm the suspicion which has finally begun to grow throughout the wider public of our great ‘democracies’. That is, that they aren’t democracies at all. And the veneer is wearing thinner with each election. So what does it mean ?It means that the results are decided in advance. That leaders are chosen by one government that we never hear or see.
If this past 12 months has taught us anything, it’s that no government rules their country or even leads it. They’re like school prefects. They look like they hold power but they’re doing what the school and it’s head master tells them to do. Look at the global covid game. We hear, almost weekly, how much vaccines will cost. How much countries are spending on them . And now, as the final moves are put in place to turn the world into one race with one government and one digital currency, we’re being told how there’s a sliding scale of paying for the drugs that won’t work anyway.
In preparation for the coming global caste system of slaves and masters, the countries have been ‘graded’ according to their economies. So ,Africa and the undeveloped Gates labs will pay less than say the UK who have a double recession( how the f**k does that work?).You can guess who was responsible for the ‘grading’ of course..
Who are the politicians who are talking money and costs ? None. A software magnates is doing it. Bill ‘Billionaire’ Gates. Who is tackling the global problem of a lethal pandemic ? Bill ”Billionaire’ Gates.
So, the man who has never studied economics, politics, or medicine is in charge of all three across the planet right now. Apparently his lack of experience in medicine, finance and economics can be overlooked because he’s a ‘philanthropist’ who’s ”good at computers and stuff”. Plus of course, ( just whisper this bit), he’s passionate about genocide and ridding the world of non-billionaires. They don’t have enough genes in the bank. They are- in the words of him and his selfless philanthropists- ‘undesirables’.
So, if we’re debating, discussing, arguing or even guessing about the levels of corruption within our world’s great democratic countries, I propose we ask -then seek the answer to- the one question that’s more important than all of that first :
Right now, look around you. Look at the ‘new normal’ . Look at the numbers being thrown at you and look at the solutions being proposed to combat the cause behind it all; the ‘virus’. The politicians you and your fellow citizens voted for are still politicians. Yet they have allowed, without protest, one man- a software magnate with no medical experience, no political experience and no experience of economics, decide what your country will spend and on what and what they must do to ensure they force his ideas upon them and their children.
Did you vote for that or for him ?
The only personal benefit, I can see of COVID, is that it has massively reduced my consumption of Tobacco. I had already given it up for nearly 10 years in my late teens and 20’s, which I am hoping will give me another 10 years at the end of my life.
To me Tobacco has always been a social drug. It breaks down the Social Divide. When I was working the smokers would all go outside, and talk about everything under the sun, including sometimes really important stuff, that actually affected real things. The was no difference between the person who cleaned the toilets, and the top management. We were all smokers.
All I can say, when really under the cosh, and everything that I was responsible for had stopped working, I switched all the phones off, and went outside with a cup of coffee and a cigarette and sat in my garden at 7:00 am thinking how the hell did this go wrong, and how can I fix it. I used to work from home a lot.
COVID means I am not allowed to Socialise, I don’t even think about a cigarette for days. I am not claiming it is healthy for anyone, but like caffeine, nicotine does help to stimulate your brain, and help you cope in a crisis.
Other drugs including alcohol, are completely useless, if you have just got to fix the problem quickly, or you will get fired.
“BROWNSVILLE STATION SMOKIN’ IN THE BOYS ROOM”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K59EMGgrUA
Tony
Tobacco is the least of your worries.
I no longer smell cigarette smoke when out. A former smoker myself I could smell it from afar. Now I smell a mix of Diesel and Petrol, and it makes me feel unwell.
You can’t smoke in a public building, some won’t even allow it outside that building,
but you can leave your quad exhaust V8 running for all to breathe in. See the hypocricy?
What else to expect?!
No booze. No food. No looking directly at a law officer. No exhaling, you name it.
No shooting policemen in the face. Political correctness gone mad.
Tobacco remains a big worry. If you live with people who are not sensible, there is nothing you can do about it. Here is an explanation:
The less well-off behaves as if they have no idea what fresh air is. Plus, they don’t want to know what fresh air is. Smoking is business as usual among the smoking working class, and they have been even emboldened by the police inaction in this regard as well as the police absence from their areas for extended periods of time due to the pandemic.
True, the air feels cleaner and the sky is bluer in many places. But In poorer areas, many places that became smoke free following anti-smoking campaigns, now with the pandemic thing, reverted (unofficially) to smoking areas due to [among other things] what the police claim:
– The service resources have been over-stretched, and
– They have important things to do, and
– The police confirm [off the record] that enforcing smoking ban enforcement is a very low priority for them.
This flies in the face of a deceitful government that claims they care about people’s health. This pandemic is about a virus that strikes the respiratory system. But the government has never shown any initiative to show they want to protect people’s lungs and lung capacity.
So Twinkletoes congratulations as I suspect you live in a well-off socio-economic circles or at lease you live among sensible people.
I’m possibly missing a point. But how does any of that relate to corrupt elections and a flawed process in the US and UK ( and other places) ?The topics in discussion in the article that is.
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The assertion that mail in ballots are prone to fraud is totally false, like a lot of ideas planted in the popular imagination it relies on most people not knowing how the system works. In order to cast a ballot a voter has to sign for that ballot. The signature is either on a form recorded at the polling place (where it checked in real time by the election worker) or on the envelope that the ballot is returned in. For a mail ballot to be accepted the signature has to match that on file from the voter registration and, obviously, there can’t be a ballot already accepted from that voter. Its actually possible for someone to cast multiple ballots in an election but all but one will be rejected (and the voter is likely to get a nastygram from the elections office if their actions look deliberate).
The voter also cannot mail in a ballot and cast a vote in person. In previous years if a voter was listed as using mail in ballots in the precint register then they had to either surrender their mail ballot to vote in person or vote provisionally (which segregated their ballot until it could be verified). The system changed this year to real time verification of voter status and voter signature in the polling places. Where there was some queiry about registration –late, not in the database, question about already voting and so on — then the poll worker had a number of options, all of which resulted in the segregation of the ballot until verified.
For those who are not familiar with Provisional and Conditional ballots — UK readers,for example, here’s an explanation of how it works. If a voter turns up and wants to vote but their eleigibility can’t be determined then they fill out an affidavit on the front of a special envelope. (They also record their name and address on a provisional sign in sheet). Once completed they are given a ballot to fill out. When they have voted they put their ballot in the envelope, seal it and drop it into a dedicated collection box. (Since the ballot, if paper, is identical to the live ones its possible to put it in the real ballot box. Poll workers tend to fold or mark the ballot as they issue it to make sure it won’t be accepted by the box; it depends on the system in use. In addition its one of the jobs of the lead worker/inspector to keep a very sharp eye out for ballots going astray — to make sure spoiled ballots are marked as such and stored appropriately, to make sure that provisionals end up in the right place and so on). Provisional and Conditional ballots are not counted immediately, the voter information on the affidavit has to be verified manually by county people before the vote is counted. (Why bother? Well, we’ve got a city council race which currently has 10 votes separating the two top contenders. So it won’t do much for President but it can certainly affect local races.)
Looking at the system as we implemented it I reckon it would be easier to fiddle the in-person than mail ballots, especially as all ballot processing is public (web cameras supplement the limited spaces for people). If you’re going to defraud the voting public then its really only practical to do this before the vote — making it difficult to vote, disenfranchising groups of voters, gerrymandering and so on. Once those votes are cast then it gets very difficult.
And the pencil given at polling booth’s makes the theory of voting fraud even more convincing.
I can’t speak for modern UK elections since its been many years since I last voted in the UK (1979). I can speak for US elections, at least for our corner of the US, since I’ve been volunteering as a poll worker ever since I naturalized in 2005. I got involved back then because of the Diebold machine problem — these touch screen voting machines were not used in our state but I was still interested to see how the system worked. I’m interested in the voting mechanics from a systems perspective, not just the machinery used to collect and tabulate votes, because I wanted to see how well it was put together. My assessment was that it was pretty robust.
You might then claim that because I only know one obscure corner of one obscure county in one state that I can’t possibly know the entire US. That’s true up to a point, but as it turns out the voting systems aren’t home made but purchased or leased from a relative handful of specialist suppliers. So you can see on news footage ballots and other paraphenalia of the election that looks the same as the system we use.
I’m sure that if the system in the UK still hasn’t caught up with us that it would be possible to contract with one or more suppliers for their systems (or make a home-made equivalent). The ‘stubby pencil and ‘X’ on a bit of paper’ might have sufficed in Victorian times but its just not up to today’s needs. The only thing we’re behind on is that preference voting has only got a tiny foothold in the extreme north-east (Maine) — there are situations like primaries (you don’t have them, you’re still at the smoke-free rooms stage of candidate selection) where we need to widen the choice given to voters, first past the post just doesn’t do the job.
Shall we just say you don’t know if the sytem is rigged or not?
Those wise to a system will find it’s flaws. Some may report the flaws, some may not and use them for their own gain.Those who have been informed about the flaws may also use them for their own gain. Perhaps the system was flawed from the beginning and has been exploited from the beginning. See what I’m getting at?
We’d all like to wear rose tinted speactacles and think foul play isn’t at work.
Where power and money is concerned it usually is.
My professional background is in systems design including the design of high reliability systems. I’m used to examining entire systems end to end and asking innumerable ‘what if’ questions. I did identify flaws in our ballot handling, areas where it might be possible to sneak in an extra ballot or two, but nothing that could be regarded as remotely cost-effective (or even just plain ‘effective’).
I’m probably not the only person who has thought deeply about the entire process, especially as the systems are devised not on an ad hoc basis but by companies who’s livelyhood depends on building reliable, transparent and accurate systems.
One characteristic that I’ve noticed in conversations on threads like this is that as far as I can tell I’m the only actual poll worker here. I have what we call in the (engineering) trade actual ‘hands on’ experience. Currently there’s a desperate search by the Trump campaign to come up with hard evidence of systematic malfeasance, something given the scope and distribution of the polls and the large number of people involved should be relatively easy to do. So far they’ve come up with nothing and the reason’s obvious — poll workers aren’t partisan, we leave our politics 100 feet from the polling place. Our job is to referree, to make sure that the process works as its supposed to and to administer the relevant laws and rules fairly. (We literally have to swear an oath to this effect at the start of each workday which someone with my British heritage finds faintly embarassing — whatever.) To allege widespread corruption is not only sowing wild allegations and stoking the fires of conspiracy theories but its downright insulting.
(So the next line of defense is to say that “voting’s a waste of time”…….”no matter who you vote for the Government always gets in” and so on. Given recent expereince we may want to reconsider this.)
My wife and I have worked as volunteer party observers in UK local and national elections in recent years, and many years before that, my wife was a volunteer polling and count clerk, and she and all like her also had to swear an oath (but only once, at the beginning of their “employment”). As I’ve said elsewhere, I don’t think there is much fraud in the UK at the personal voting level.
But postal voting is another matter entirely.
The persistence of back-doors in computers and phones for decades, and the current attempt to freeze Huawei out of 5G, should tell us the facts.
Re: primaries: No, we don’t have them as such, but at least for two parties which I am familiar with, parliamentary candidates are chosen by balloting the party members, on a constituency basis. Even before Covid, this would increasingly be done online these days, although there would be provision for paper balloting of those without internet facilities.
We aren’t totally in the stone age over here. (Well, the Tories might be).
“If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.”
~ Mark Twain.
It’s really that simple.
38% of votes cast in the last General Election were postal votes.
Up from 17% in the 2017 GE and 9% in 2015.
A privatised electoral roll and a digitised postal vote system with barely a fig leaf of oversight from elected officials.
Both run by the same company, whose parent group makes most of its income from fossil fuels and weapons, whose boards are stuffed full of the military/financial elite (including sitting politicians) and whose various iterations have been involved in ‘slightly unlikely’ results across the five-eyes nations.
Johnson barely increased the Conservatives vote share, but what votes they picked up were perfectly distributed to gain the majority the MSM had been foreshadowing so insistently despite the Conservatives own last minute internal polling suggesting it was impossible.
But ignoring any suspicion of voter fraud, the provable breaches of electoral law were so ubiquitous, severe and of such great volume that had we let honest electoral observers into the country they would have had no choice but to declare the result invalid.
Historically the 2019 UK GE was the point at which the rule of law completely collapsed.
The UK state has ceased to exist really.
It looks like the rest of the world will follow.
Can’t learn anything if you’re dead.
Yep, The Tories alleged landslide victory is suspect. But there is no place to voice concerns any longer. Bots slap you down, or the pre mod AI will wash or discard your concern before they are posted on the MSM opinion pages.
That’s because it’s bots fixing the elections 😉
There’s a big difference between purchasing or leasing voting systems from a private supplier and using a contractor to run an election. We have not gone that far in the US and I don’t think we’re likely to. Locally because of changes to the process and the particular characteristics of the election (as in “it has to be run by the book”) we even switched from using the traditional army of volunteers that ran precinct voting locations to enrolling those people as county employees, legally binding us to our duties at the “In Person Voting Locations”. This must have cost the county a lot more than before but it was a necessary expense.
The more Republican a precinct or area, the more votes get flipped from Trump to Biden, following a straight line.
Here’s the video:
Dr.SHIVA LIVE: MIT PhD Analysis of Michigan Votes Reveals Unfortunate Truth of U.S. Voting Systems.
An alternative interpretation of the results is that “a significant number of Republican voters can’t stand Trump”.
The Biden/Harris ticket is actually quite conservative, it would pass muster as mroe-or-less Republican back before modern Republicanism adopted this ‘winner take all or else’ mindset, so the idea of a split ticket where a voter would vote for a Republican House or state representative but a Democratic Presidential candidatte is not unknown.
RE: An alternative interpretation of the results is that “a significant number of Republican voters can’t stand Trump”.
Oh, I agree, but what is the likelihood that Republian voters who can’t stand Trump would vote against him in a linear fashion?
The answer is none.
In the UK, on occasions when general and local elections were held on the same day, split voting is noticeable. For example in 1979 something like a million people voted Liberal in local elections in England while choosing either Conservative or Labour in the general election. In some places Liberals had more credibility in local elections than national ones.