Not to mention, the previous case of Republican voter fraud by Wisconsin Robert Monroe, a 50-year-old health executive who voted a dozen times in both Wisconsin and Indiana in the 2011/12 elections. It appears bad governors, like Brown & Walker, engender election crimes.
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If you were really concerned about ending the massively rampant voter fraud in Kansas, you would make sure anyone rich enough to own two homes in two different states would come under extra scrutiny.
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Thereâs a whole bunch of good comments above mine, here, almost all or which make solid points that mostly are not redundant.
But IMO thereâs also a baisc naivete about them, in the assumption that Kobach and Kansas GOPers in power positions like Brownback arenât perfectly aware of these points.
Here, to me, are the signals of exactly how disturbing all this is:
- The people elected to prosecute arenât prosecuting; instead, the power to prosecute has been extended to someone outside the state attorney generalâs reach.
What are the ethics involved when the COP is the prosecutor, like here? Kobach has a law school diploma, but thatâs incidental to his function in government. His role is to direct and oversee the ADMINISTRATIVE and POLICY functions of his state agency. In that capacity, itâs still not quite totally offensive that he and his agency file the charges, but it IS, DEFINITIVELY, anti-democratic AND anti-republican AND contrary to the principles that underlay the Rule of Law that he and his office then proceed to PROSECUTE those charges, He and his officers are in no way independent from the process that provides the context in which the charges are to be considered by courts of law; instead, they are active players in that process. Itâs as if your business competitor were given the right to not just complain but formally file and then PROSECUTE you for conducting business that competes with his. Itâs like if you and your neighbor were in a property line dispute and the state passed a law allowing your neighbor to file formal criminal charges against you AND to take control of the prosecution of those criminal charges, as if independent and in no way interested in the outcome of the case, just for asserting that the property line is an inch this way or a foot that way.
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It asserts CRIMINAL implications, and uses - misuses, and abuses - the concept of FRAUD, in relation to behavior that may be accidental, unintentional, or subject to color of right claims. Those sorts of cases are for things like traffic direction signs and local planning ordinances, not the criminal courts where people are subjected to the arrest, the stigma of being accused of being a criminal, and criminal penalties that include jail sentences and fruits of crime related property seizures and forfeitures.
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This all has the smell of a set-up. On the surface NOT ONE of these charges can be made out in court, UNLESS the persons charges in essence take a dive or take a fall deliberately - like, as we can see even just from this article, PUBLIC STATEMENTS and ADMISSIONS AGAINST INTEREST by the persons charged. But worse than that is that these folks charged are themselves in a conflict of interest over the outcome of their cases, because they could make a sweetheart deal just to have their âconvictionsâ allowed to be technically called criminal while actually suffering no criminal record or actually onerous penalty. These CHARGES appear to be vote fraud, not the behavior thatâs said to justify them being filed.
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Once Kobach has one or more âcriminal convictionsâ (or more than one finding of technical guilt with at least one of them being STYLED as âcriminalâ), he intends to use that as a door to open onto all registered voters. He could time the filing of charges against every person in heavily black counties, or every person with an hispanic appearing surname, or every Democrat, or just enough registered voters in those categories to tip all or even just key elections to ensure continuing official power by Kansas Republicans, WITHOUT EVEN ANY ONE OF THEM EVER BEING CONVICTED. All heâll need to do - and IMO this is what heâs aiming at - is TIME the filing of charges such that no court hearings on them that could dispose of the charges will happen before the very election that heâll be using those charges as excuses to strip the voting rights from those accused.
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With Chuck Todd and Major Garrett type âquestionersâ (read: stenographers), people like Kobach are off to the races.
I have seen the Million Man March, OCCUPY and the like.
What Kobach is doing represents something exponentially more dangerous than the themes of the above âmarchesââŚand should be not only âprotestedâ but VOTED AGAINST accordingly
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It is so rich that the people are Republicans. Be care about what you wish for Kris Kobach. What you think isnât what you get. Too funny.
Of course the accused defendants are Republicans and the allegations are vague. And of course voter ID would not have prevented any of this. And of course there is an explanation, even if it is a âdim-wittedâ Republican explanation, for why these 3 people did it that would probably induce a career prosecutor in KS exercising âprosecutorial discretionâ not to make these into major criminal cases (against Republican defendants). Kobach is not a prosecutor, he is a right wing zealot who wants to lead a national movement to disenfranchise voters who tend, by a very large percentage, to favor Democrats, from voting by imposing Voter ID requirements that would do nothing to stop this type of double voting from occurring. Is it really worth disenfranchising millions of voters because of a handful of cases that would still happen even if you had strict voter ID? Isnât a citizenâs right to vote among the most important rights in a democracy? These questions answer themselves.
These assholes think that people are stupid and can be played like this. They control the reigns of government so, goddammit, they are going to get their way no matter how corrupt and how unrepresentative that âwayâ might be. They describe our President, who was freely elected by huge margins in two national elections (i.e., almost 9 million votes in 2008, and 5 Million votes in 2012) as a tyrant because he is implementing the policy objectives of the people who voted for him (universal health coverage, financial industry reform and regulation, immigration reform, climate change, etc.), while they actively go about gerrymandering congressional and state legislative voting districts, disenfranchising millions of actual and potential voters (mostly racial and ethnic minorities, young people and the elderly), and swinging the doors wide open to billions in campaign funding (a lot of it shadowy and undisclosed) from a few billionaires, to ensure that the top 0.01% in wealth can exert undue influence over Congress and the government, and ensure the continued enactment of policies which provide for hundreds of billions in corporate handouts, in unnecessary defense and ânational securityâ spending, laws and policies which allow the fossil fuel industry to pollute and plunder Planet Earth with near impunity while the public suffers the consequences, and on and on and on. This is some seriously fucked up shit, people. As the progressive movement grows and expands demographically, these folks would undermine democracy, brazenly tilt the playing field their way, to perpetuate a system that primarily benefits the 100 richest families in the U.S., that a pretty wide majority of people not only donât support, but think is unfair, corrupt and undemocratic. And they seem to be getting away with it. WAKE UP. WE HAVE TO SHINE A VERY BRIGHT LIGHT ON THIS!!!
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Kansas and this guy Kobach are the tip oâ the spear in the continued republican cause of voter suppression, and election fraudâŚNext up voter purges, then Voting Machines Need to be ReplacedâŚcome on folks, they are not even trying to hide it anymoreâŚ
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How about millions? Still worth it?
It is a very Republican way of thinking. âOf course I am entitled to vote in both places, I own property in both places. Itâs not those dams Federals.â To me, the more salient point is that Voter ID would have nothing to prevent any of this. Nobody but an incredible idiot (and there are always a few of those) would risk a felony conviction for the sake of 1 extra vote in an election. So for that we adopt a superficially reasonable requirement that people demonstrate who they are that actually has the effect of denying the ability to vote to millions or tens of millions? Thatâs totally nuts. . . . or totally corrupt . . . or both.
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Wholesale voter fraud has been going on forever. It is the only kind that makes any sense. Jimmy Carter wrote about when he was an election volunteer way back when and he was shocked, being a moral kind of guy, when the officials just changed the numbers - they moved a bunch of ballots from the tall stack to the short one or something like that - right in front of him. Other wholesale ploys like not letting black people vote using many tactics, rigging machines, and a lot of politician control of counting like Carter saw only at much broader levels are a well documented part of our history.
A couple of people bothering to vote twice by being registered at their primary residence and their vacation home or whatever is obviously extremely small potatoes. It is hard to imagine why Republicans have been so big on this in recent years. It was the major focus of George W Bushâs completely corrupted Justice Department. I really donât get it. Maybe they were hoping to find some illegal Mexicans to parade around and thus promote their deportation policies or something.
I suppose the overall plot is to blow a few violations out of all proportion to justify passing laws that you need a passport and two other photo IDâs or something to be able to vote, and hoping a lot of poorer people will just figure itâs not worth it. And justifying actual wholesale fraud by tossing anyone who has been in jail or is erroneously on that list (the kind of crimes poorer people do are much more likely to result in a conviction plus they use crappy public defenders not good lawyers and the same things like drugs almost always only result in arrest if you are lower income), off the rolls, like happened in Florida in 2000. Still seems like less than a complete explanation.
Does anyone have a better explanation for this obsession?
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You realize that he could give a crap about throwing 3 republicans under the bus if it enables him to continue disenfranchising thousands of democrats, right?
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But he justified prosecuting those cases on the grounds that even a
small number of double-voters could have an impact on an election.
Although not as much of an impact as preventing thousands of eligible voters from voting one time.
Republicans and numbers. Not a good mix.
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Concur.
I have been perusing a fine book on U.S affairs prior to Pearl Harbour. Before 7 December, the U.S. was fractured. Afterward, the nation aroused, it was a different story.
Now, the danger is similar (annihilationâŚrather than by totalitarian ruleâŚa dystopian planet ruledâuntil it is too spoiled to sustain lifeâby a fraction of 1/000th of the population).
The problem we face now is that there is a Fossil Fuel Fourth Estate, content to let the most ignorant and biased of the population consume hokum disguised as ânewsâ. For âarousalâ we are going to have to wade through the aforementioned MSM, FOX, Talk Radio, the majority of people over 65, the Deep South and the Plains and Mountain states.
The ânewsâ is so deftly managed that there will not be a signal event like Minoru Gendaâs planes swooping down on Battleship Row galvanizing in one blow the American population fighting back from a concrete menace.
Rather there will be the usual âgridlockâ or âfalse equivalencyâ or idiocy that Anderson Cooper tried to snooker the Democratic debaters in focusing upon instead of the real dangers we face.
Truly:
âWe have met the Enemy and he is usâ
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Maybe itâs the U.S. desire to be more like Latin America.
Voter shenanigans have been happening with us (in Latin America) for years and years. The term sometimes used is âfraudeâ.
Maybe, in the U.S. itâs just a racist, degenerate TeaBagger desire.
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From the story in the Wichita Eagle:
Kobach said his office had uncovered new information, and âthe evidence
in both cases is very strong that the individuals in question
intentionally voted multiple times in the same election.â
And since it happened in 2 different states, picture ID would have prevented that how? Apparently, no one at the Eagle thought to ask.
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This.
Also any victories in Kansas will be used by the RNC, and the RW echo chamber to justify similiar actions nation-wide.
Sort weird Kanasas is the test state for this until you realize thereâs nothing to lose there either way. The perfect test case.
These and other similiar actions will come to swing-states soon enough, where the defendents will be (gasp) Democratic, and black.
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Yeah, just guessing, but Iâm thinking that anyone here illegally would avoid any contact with the government, particularly one that involved giving your name and address for the record.
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The permanent trick.
[See my 126,378 previous posts on the degenerate MSM]
The individual defendantâs politics donât matter at all. If every single perpetrator of actual voter fraud winds up being republican, the Kobach Krew comes out way ahead if it enables them to disenfranchise thousands of democrats.
Nope. That sums it up perfectly.