It's Who Counts the Votes Stupid!

by Al Benson Jr.

There is an old saying attributed to Joseph Stalin that goes like this: "It's not those that vote that count. It's the people that count the votes." It sounds just evil enough to have been something Stalin would have said, but, then, the same sentiment could be attributed to some in this country. I have always wondered how Obama managed to get 140% of the vote in some places in the Northeast and I have also wondered why no Republicans ever complained about that. I have my own theory about that and, needless to say, it ain't politically correct.

But, however it happened, through intentional vote fraud, unintentional vote fraud, too many deceased folks voting too many times or through some magical phase of the moon, it looks like we may be getting ready in the upcoming mid-term elections for a repeat performance. I can almost see the headlines the morning after the election: "Democrats pick up enough seats to keep Senate, even pick up several in the House." I hope I am in error, but if such happened it would not surprise me.

This morning (October 21) someone sent me an email about a situation in Schaumburg, Illinois, in Cook County, Illinois. I used to live in Cook County, often called "Crook County" by those who knew what really went on.

Seems a State Representative candidate, Jim Moynihan, who is running in the 56th district decided to take advantage of the early voting program at the Schaumburg Public Library. Mr. Moynihan is a Republican and when he went to vote for himself he found that his voting machine cast his ballot for his Democratic opponent. He said: "You could imagine my surprise as the same thing happened with a number of races when I tried to vote for a Republican and the machine registered a vote for a Democrat.." No matter who he tried to vote for, the vote always turned up for some Democrat. Knowing his way around a little bit, Moynihan got hold of the election judge and showed him what his voting machine was doing, and he "was eventually allowed to vote for Republican candidates." It wasn't reported whether this particular voting machine was removed or not, though I did read another report that said it had been. Supposedly there was a "calibration" error made when the machine was being set up for voting. You might be tempted to wonder, especially in Illinois, how many other voting machines have similar "calibration" errors that will probably not be detected.

I checked this story out on several websites to make sure it was not something that just turned up on one far out site somewhere. Two sites I checked were www.eagnews.com and www.americanthinker.com which is a site that has a pretty good reputation. There were a batch of others but I can't list them all.

Moynihan stated that: "I cannot say whether or not this was intentional, but Cook County voters deserve better and should not have their right to vote suppressed." Good sentiment, and I agree, but Cook County voters have been getting the shaft from the county political machine for so long about so many issues that this would hardly be a surprise. As one commentator reported "They don't call it Crook County for nothing." Sadly he's right.

For years political pundits have railed about crooked politics in Louisiana and Mississippi. I'm here to tell you, folks, these two states have nothing on Illinois when it comes to crooked politics. I recall reading an article awhile back that said: "Illinois, where your governors make your licence plates." That was because so many ex-governors were in prison--from both parties.

No matter where you live, if you have to use a machine to vote instead of a plain old paper ballot, which I think is still the best way, you better check your machine before you leave the voting booth to make sure it recorded who you voted for and not his opponent.

Just to add this on the day following the one I posted this article on, I heard from a friend in Texas who knew someone that voted early in his county and it seems he had the same problem the man in Illinois did--a voting machine that when he voted Republican all it would give him were Democratic results. There must have been lots of "calibration" errors on voting machines across the country this year. Interesting that most of those found thus far seem to favor Democratic candidates. Wonder how that happened? Anyone who still thinks we have honest elections in this country had better buy his tickets for the next Easter Bunny extravaganza from the Tooth Fairy!