Opinion
OP-ED: Is Voting Fraud Real?
“Why does death have to stop love? It doesn’t stop people from voting in Chicago?” ~ Jarod Kintz
We have all heard the humorous quips about voter fraud. “Vote early and vote often” is a common phrase. But is voter fraud real?
All U.S. citizens who have reached the age of eighteen and who are non felons and not currently incarcerated and may register to vote within in the district where they reside. In a world filled with dictators and monarchs, America is one of the few democracies. The dictionary defines democracy as :
“government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.”
For a democracy to be sustained the integrity of the ballot box must be above reproach. It is a federal crime for an illegal alien to register to vote or to vote in U.S. elections and yet Project Veritas discovered that twelve thousand noncitizens registered to vote in Colorado and apparently five thousand of those voted in 2010.
*In December 2012 a 61 year old Belleville, NJ man was sentenced to five years in prison for submitting phony absentee ballots while he was working on the 2007 election campaign of State Sen. Teresa Ruiz.
*In December 2013 Ohio Secretary of State John Husted announced that his office found 17 non-citizens illegally cast ballots in the 2012 presidential election.
*Per the December 30. 2013 New York Post article The dead can vote in NYC, “Investigators posing as dead voters were allowed to cast ballots for this year’s primary and general elections, thanks to antiquated Board of Elections registration records and lax oversight by poll workers, authorities said. Undercover DOI agents were able to access voting booths 61 instances, including 39 dead people, 14 jail birds and eight non-residents.”
* In Iowa a two year investigation recently uncovered 117 illegally cast votes resulting in six criminal convictions. The crimes included non-citizen voting and felony voting.
* Per the Taunton Daily Gazette, June 10, 2014 article, “a Massachusetts man pled guilty to illegally voting in both the 2008 and 2012 NH primaries. He was charged with one felony count and two misdemeanor counts of wrongful voting under NH law for traveling from Massachusetts to New Hampshire to cast votes in both primaries. He was fined $5,000 and given a suspended prison term of one to three years.
* Last month Bridgeport State Rep. Christina Ayala was arrested on 19 charges of voting fraud including, eight misdemeanor counts of fraudulent voting, ten felony of primary or enrollment violations and one felony count of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence. Ms. Ayala was released on a promise to appear for arraignment at Bridgeport Superior Court on October 7, 2014, the charges are merely accusations and she is presumed innocent unless and until she is found guilty.
In bold script the preamble to our Constitution begins with the words, We The People, and what voter fraud does is to make a mockery of our very fragile democracy. Voter fraud is not just a crime against our system of government it is a crime against every American!
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of December 11 – 17, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of December 11 – 17, 2024
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Activism
Oakland Post: Week of December 4 – 10, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of December 4 – 10, 2024, 2024
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Activism
COMMENTARY: PEN Oakland Entices: When the News is Bad, Try Poetry
Strongman politics is not for the weak. Here in the U.S., Donald Trump is testing how strongman politics could work in the world’s model democracy.
By Emil Guillermo
As the world falls apart, you need more poetry in your life.
I was convinced on Tuesday when a weak and unpopular president of South Korea — a free nation U.S. ally — tried to save himself by declaring martial law.
Was it a stunt? Maybe. But indicative of the South Korean president’s weakness, almost immediately, the parliament there voted down his declaration.
The takeaway: in politics, nothing quite works like it used to.
Strongman politics is not for the weak. Here in the U.S., Donald Trump is testing how strongman politics could work in the world’s model democracy.
Right now, we need more than a prayer.
NEWS ANTIDOTE? LITERATURE
As we prepare for another Trump administration, my advice: Take a deep breath, and read more poetry, essays and novels.
From “Poetry, Essays and Novels,” the acronym PEN is derived.
Which ones to read?
Register (tickets are limited) to join Tennessee Reed and myself as we host PEN OAKLAND’s award ceremony this Saturday on Zoom, in association with the Oakland Public Library.
Find out about what’s worth a read from local artists and writers like Cheryl Fabio, Jack Foley, Maw Shein Win, and Lucille Lang Day.
Hear from award winning writers like Henry Threadgill, Brent Hayes Edwards and Airea D. Matthews.
PEN Oakland is the local branch of the national PEN. Co-founded by the renowned Oakland writer, playwright, poet and novelist Ishmael Reed, Oakland PEN is special because it is a leader in fighting to include multicultural voices.
Reed is still writing. So is his wife Carla Blank, whose title essay in the new book, “A Jew in Ramallah, And Other Essays,” (Baraka Books), provides an artist’s perspective on the conflict in Gaza.
Of all Reed’s work, it’s his poetry that I’ve found the most musical and inspiring.
It’s made me start writing and enjoying poetry more intentionally. This year, I was named poet laureate of my small San Joaquin rural town.
Now as a member of Oakland PEN, I can say, yes, I have written poetry and essays, but not a novel. One man shows I’ve written, so I have my own sub-group. My acronym: Oakland PEOMS.
Reed’s most recent book of poetry, “Why the Black Hole Sings the Blues, Poems 2007-2020” is one of my favorites. One poem especially captures the emerging xenophobia of the day. I offer you the first stanza of “The Banishment.”
We don’t want you here
Your crops grow better than ours
We don’t want you here
You’re not one of our kind
We’ll drive you out
As thou you were never here
Your names, family, and history
We’ll make them all disappear.
There’s more. But that stanza captures the anxiety many of us feel from the threat of mass deportations. The poem was written more than four years ago during the first Trump administration.
We’ve lived through all this before. And survived.
The news sometimes lulls us into acquiescence, but poetry strikes at the heart and forces us to see and feel more clearly.
About the Author
Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. Join him at www.patreon.com/emilamok
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