Anti-Fraud Laws Help Republicans Win Elections
By Mary Mostert (10/21/06)
In the past week North Korea has basically declared war on the United States and Iran has promised to make Israel "disappear." Yet the "big news" is not about a looming nuclear war, but about the content of a private five year old instant message written by Rep. Mark Foly to a former congressional page. We are being told, according to various national polls, that this "moral" issue will cause voters to vote against Republicans on November 7th and against policies of the Republican president and Congress and their war on terror in Iraq.
For example the USA Today/Gallop Poll shows that just prior to the resignation of Mark Foley, the support for Republicans and Democrats was matched 48-48. Immediately after the announcement, the poll reported that support for the Republican candidates had dropped 12% and the Democrats picked up 11% so that only36% of the likely voters planned to voted Republican whereas 59% planned, at that point to vote Democrat.
As a political ploy, the Democrats on this particular October surprise may have allowed too much time for recovery. Of course, there may be another October surprise coming up. In the 2000 election, the Democrats’ first October Surprise was President Clinton announcing on October 17 an “agreement to end current violence in Israel.” It was the second October Surprise that almost won the election for the Democrats, the release a 1970s DUI arrest of George W. Bush on November 2nd, 5 days before the election.
Of course, after the election, that “agreement” totally went out of the minds of the American people as the media focused for weeks on hanging chads in Florida, but the DUI arrest seemed to set the stage for the next six years of intense and personal anti-Bush attacks.
In 2002 all polls predicted the Democrats would gain seats in the House and Senate. Yet, Republicans won control of the Senate and increased their narrow 5 seat majority in the House to an 11 seat majority.
In the 2004 election, the 11 seat majority in the House became a 14 seat majority in the House and the 51 seat majority in the Senate became a 55 seat majority. Now we are being told that the Republicans will lose both the House and the Senate because of a private instant message discussion between two males about masturbation. Dick Morris said on October 18th, that this “moral” issue will cause the defeat of the following Republicans, who had nothing at all to do with the Instant Message: “Republican Sens. Mike DeWine (Ohio), Conrad Burns (Mont.), Rick Santorum (Pa.), Jim Talent (Mo.) and Lincoln Chaffee (R.I.) seem likely to be gone. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's (R-Tenn.) seat seems likely to go to Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tenn.). And Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) may also be on his way out. In New Jersey, after trailing Tom Kean Jr. for most of September, Sen. Robert Menendez (D) seems to have moved out to a small lead that will probably grow.”
In 2000, 2002, 2004 and now 2006, the polls and even the exit polls on the day of the elections have predicted defeats for President Bush, his policies, and his supporters in the Republican Congress. Three times they have been wrong. Will they be right in 2006 in spite of the DOW hitting a record high of 12,000, inflation being low, a sharp drop in gasoline prices, tax cuts, almost no unemployment, and no successful terrorist attacks on US soil since 911 as President Bush relentlessly fights terrorism as he promised in 2001? Will 9 pages of private instant messaging between Rep. Mark Foley, a Republican, to a page or former page, which graphically described masturbation, (which ABC News still has posted on their Internet Site making it accessible to any child or teenager with a computer) be the “Nail in the coffin” of the Republican party as predicted? Have Americans become that moral about sex in the 8 years since the Senate refused to remove President Clinton from office over sex with a young female intern – because it was “only about sex?”
Why have the pollsters, who seem to be mostly Democrats, been so consistently wrong about election results in the past 3 election cycles? I think it can be traced to the passage and signing of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by President George W. Bush on October 29, 2002. As he pointed out on the day he signed the legislation:
‘The legislation I sign today will add to the nation's confidence. Each state will be required to maintain a clean and current and accurate state -- statewide list of registered voters, making it easier to register and easier to detect fraud. Under this law people registering to vote are required to prove that they are who they say they are, with appropriate identification. First-time voters who register by mail will be asked to provide identification when they cast their ballots. This law also creates new criminal penalties for providing false information, and punishes anyone guilty of conspiracy to deprive voters of a fair election.”
Every since that bill was signed, Republicans have won elections that, according to the pollsters and the Democrats, they were not supposed to win. It corrected, to a large degree, the fraud-friendly “motor-voter” law, the first piece of legislation signed by President Bill Clinton in 1992. That bill required driver's license bureaus to register anyone applying for licenses, to offer mail-in registration with no identification needed, and to forbid government workers to challenge new registrants, while making it difficult to purge "deadwood" voters (those who have died or moved away).
In 2006 many more precincts around the country will have voting machines, which makes ballot-box stuffing a great deal more difficult to accomplish. Since the mid-1940s as one who watched my employer, who was also the Democrat political boss of Tennessee, bring in busloads of Mississippi blacks that he paid to vote illegally in Memphis elections, I have been aware of the problem of ballot box stuffing. It has been a big problem and had gotten increasingly worse over the years.
However, it will be harder to stuff the ballot box with machines counting the votes, rather than people who want their candidate to win. My prediction is that the Republicans will keep control of the Congress and the Democrats will demand unlimited voting for felons, who are mostly Democrats, and the end of the voting machines. They may hesitate at insisting on the legalization of the dead voting.
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