Nordlinger: Why Won’t Press Start Covering Fictitious Fraud?
There is no evidence of any non-trivial number of people casting fraudulent ballots. Given that reality, I find it remarkable that allegations of “voter fraud” each and every year manage to get a non-trivial quantity of press coverage. But Jay Nordlinger thinks the press ignores these stories and that America will only stand up and demand a stop to fraud that isn’t happening when the media starts doing its job and covering fraud that isn’t happening:
Do you remember when the Gore people handed cartons of cigarettes to homeless people, to entice them to the polls, or register Democratic, or whatever? We righties had a lot of fun with that — because Gore was Mr. Anti-Tobacco, you’ll recall. (That’s before he went Global Warming.) But it takes more than righties having fun — it takes the big people saying, “This is a story.”
If it’s true that Al Gore’s campaign staff was giving homeless people cigarettes in order to entice them to go vote, that would indeed be funny because Gore was Mr. Anti-Tobacco. On the other hand, it would be strange for the press to give widespread coverage to these instances of election fraud given that it’s not election fraud. For the press to provide widespread coverage of people voting illegally, there would need to be instances of people voting illegally. Nordlinger, even amidst whining that the press isn’t covering fraud, can’t produce an example of fraud for people to cover. Just as when the Bush Justice Department brought inappropriate and illegal political pressure to bear on US Attorneys across the country to investigate voter fraud, they could barely come up with anything to investigate. It just doesn’t happen. Among other things, the secret ballot makes it a little impractical to bribe people to vote for your candidate.
53 Responses to “Nordlinger: Why Won’t Press Start Covering Fictitious Fraud?”
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October 20th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
What disappoints me is that the press doesn’t give any coverage to people like Nordlinger just making shit up.
October 20th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Why did the mainstream media not object when Al Gore sent invisible purple talking Cobras to frighten all those homeless people in the midst of the shakes to go vote for him at their local McDonald’s dumpster? Why? Why did they fail us so?
October 20th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
This just shows how fast and loose Nordlinger plays with the facts. They were Camels, not Malboros.
October 20th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Re Matthew’s comment “Among other things, the secret ballot makes it a little impractical to bribe people to vote for your candidate.”
—————
Ah, our naive young Matthew.
In the good old days of the paper ballot/computer punch card, it was quite easy. The ward boss went in , got his ballot, pretended to cast it but threw in a fake, and left with a genuine ballot hidden under his jacket. (Those curtains around the voting booth are good for something, after all.)
Once outside, he met the first of his bribees. (Going rate was a pint of Early Times bourbon, as I recall.) Ward boss marked up HIS ballot correctly, gave it to Bribee1 and told Bribee1 to cast it and to bring out Bribee1′ s unmarked ballot to exchange for the bribe.
Ward Boss then marked up Bribee1’s ballot correctly, gave it to next Bribee2 and told Bribee2 the same. Upon receipt of Bribees2’s unmarked ballot, Ward Boss marked it up correctly and gave it to Bribee3 and so on.
Any true Southern Gentleman knows how to (a) play poker (b) shoot a gun and (c) rig the elections against the Negros.
There are immense shortcomings to a Harvard education — one of which is NOT knowing that there are immense shortcomings.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
For the press to provide widespread coverage of people voting illegally, there would need to be instances of people voting illegally. Nordlinger, even amidst whining that the press isn’t covering fraud, can’t produce an example of fraud for people to cover.
Is this good enough for you?
GOTHAM-TO-OHIO VOTE SCAM EYED
NYERS’ HOME AWAY FROM HOME PROBED AS A FRAUD OUTPOST
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10202008/news/politics/gotham_to_ohio_vote_scam_eyed_134392.htm?page=0
October 20th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
It’s like I’ve always said, Republicans will do practically ANYTHING to win an election . . . except actually get more votes than the other guy.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Many homeless people suffer from schizophrenia, and nicotine relieves the symptoms.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Why is it viewed as some sort of scam to encourage homeless people to vote? Implicit in Nordlinger’s argument is that homeless people aren’t entitled to the franchise.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
sigh, that’s not illegal. The article is, like most vote-fraud stories, a bunch of “and just imagine if…” and “some could…” sort of implications. And at most, what does this demonstrate? That even the appearance of just 13 votes that appear to be cast against the law attract attention. That’s why voter fraud doesn’t happen: it’s a lot of effort for very little payoff. The time and expense it takes to overturn an election by voter fraud could create even more votes by canvassing and legally getting registered and out to the polls, rather than try to engineer a conspiracy of tens of thousands.
I suspect the NYPost story will be the “cigarettes for votes” story of 2008. For some reason, back in 2000, the story of handing out cigarettes to entice people to vote was on the lips of all the right-wingers. It was never clear who, exactly was doing this or how many votes this was supposed to have enticed.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Re Bill Kleinhans comment “Many homeless people suffer from schizophrenia”
————–
schizophrenia?
Is that anything like what makes a Democratic Congress get elected advocating for the common citizens — only to turn around and give $1.5 TRILLION of our taxes to Wall Street Investment Banks once they’re elected?
October 20th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Wow, so those New Yorkers went to a huge amount of effort (and a good bit of money I expect) to affect 4 votes, apparently thought they’d met the requirements, hadn’t really, only managed to submit 2, AND GOT CAUGHT!!
So where does that put the succesful vote fraud meter now?
October 20th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I didn’t know they had “ward bosses” in the south. I thought that was an urban north political machine sort of thing. I can speak to Chicago about this. The Chicago machine didn’t need fraud to win. They may or may not have sometimes used illegally cast or counted ballots, but that wasn’t to gain victory. That was to pad the victory so make the “ward bosses” look good to the boss.
Dead voters and voters voting multiple times in Chicago in the hay days of the last real political patronage machine in America didn’t have anything to do with winning elections. The election was in the bag anyway.
Side note: Nixon got a full recount in W Virgina in 60 but didn’t ask for one in Illinois, where legend has it Daley won the state for Kennedy. Nixon didn’t ask for a recount because it’s likely the downstate vote (anywhere not Chicago) was padded heavily for Nixon.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
I’m disappointed that the press has completely failed to cover the Leprechaun Menace. They’ve bought the Democrats’ pro-leprechaun deflection tactics, which consist of claims that “nobody has actually seen a leprechaun”. What this really means, of course, is that we have no idea of the potential magnitude of the threat posed by leprechauns. If that doesn’t scare you, it should.
What we really need to be asking is, “why are the Democrats opposed to keeping us safe from leprechauns?” I’m not saying the Democrats are definitely in league with the leprechauns, but clearly that question is something the press should be investigating.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
They’ve been screaming about voter fraud every election cycle. They come up with a few cranks who vote in two states, but mostly they find stack of voter registration cards some kid and his friends scammed a canvassing group by filling out with Donald Duck.
Call in the feds.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Is this good enough for you?
GOTHAM-TO-OHIO VOTE SCAM EYED
NYERS’ HOME AWAY FROM HOME PROBED AS A FRAUD OUTPOST
Honestly, no. Buying and renting property is way too expensive to be an effective election-stealing tactic. Though, as a tactic, it does have some positive outcomes: any effort that was large enough to make a difference (if they hadn’t been caught) we also be a pretty massive stimulus package for Ohio. So, there’s that.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
There are some links about “inducements” to vote here.
A recent story about voting fraud (not just registration fraud) is here.
Should the Harvard Alumni Association sue MattY for besmirching their name?
October 20th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I believe the operative phrase here is “epic FAIL“.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
On the other hand, your blogwhoring worked, for me at least. So don’t feel too bad for looking like an idiot–you did get at least one hit out of it.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I think when most right wing bloggers reference “voter fraud” you need to realize that they mean “registering as a Democrat” or “voting for a Democrat”. And early voting is cheating.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
A part of the Democratic conspiracy that has not been reported on is how they raised the federal taxes on cartons of cigarettes.
Not to discourage smoking and reduce lung cancer , but to make their bribes more valuable.
October 20th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Matt, I can’t speak for election laws in other states, but in Ohio, it is illegal to bribe someone to vote (or give them a “gift” in exchange for voting). That said, in an opinion from one of the many recent election-related of lawsuits in Ohio, the Ohio Supreme Court stated the obvious by declaring that actual proof of law breaking is required before a suit or charges can be brought against a person or organization… not hearsay in some newspaper or blog. Shocking, I know….
I would suggest Jay Nordlinger find the people responsible for giving these bribes, get some proof that bribes were given, and contact the police/election officials. Or maybe he can just keep spreading rumors and cite these same rumors to support his claims that the election was “rigged” when November 5th rolls around.
October 20th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
That Ohio article was interesting. You have to be resident for just 30 Days. As a New Yorker, I was seriously contemplating this. You can buy Ohio homes on ebay for less than a couple grand. Now that I know the rules, next election I very well might by a house 6 months out, spend the time getting out the vote in Ohio and honestly and legally vote.
October 20th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
At some point we Liberals should just stop kvetching about the mainstream press. They are generally employees of large corporations and most all involved are well paid folks who have relatively “glamorous” lifestyles. . . While some may
favor progressive ideas they are not about to give up the money and perks they love.
It is up to Liberals to fund our own media and, most importantly, start ignoring the main stream media. Younger people are already doing that and we need to get over the fact that Klein, Matthews, Williams, Gibson et.al, are simply tools of the establishment. . . They will not change!
October 20th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
“I didn’t know they had “ward bosses” in the south.”
Oh, absolutely. They weren’t called ward bosses (because the towns in the rural South were generally too small to have very many voting wards per town – it was a comparatively quite large town to have more than 5 wards). They were simply called “county bosses” or “parish bosses” in LA, though unlike in the major Northern city, such persons would also generally have formal political patronage jobs as well (assistant sheriff, town assessor, county planning commission, etc), or at minimum be closely related to politicos with such jobs.
October 20th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Tom Hilton: unlike MattY, I’ll post an update to that post if the NM story turns out to be bogus. However, I’ll need a better source than one that says ACORN… asserting that local election officials had confirmed that the 28 people in question, mostly low-income Latinos, were valid voters. Which local officials? Where’s even a local report or a press release?
October 20th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I think voters need to have to prove their validity to crazy right wing blog whores before they’re allowed to vote. Any other approach is dangerous, and can lead to voting by the lower classes.
October 20th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
“I’ll need a better source than one that says ACORN… asserting that local election officials had confirmed that the 28 people in question, mostly low-income Latinos, were valid voters.”
But unverified claims by the NM Republican Party about vote fraud will be accepted at face value, ’cause we just KNOW how truthy those boys are…
Yeah – Epic Fail for sure…
October 20th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
I think the fact that the RNC didn’t bother to press their claims on the conference call they had called for that purpose pretty much speaks for itself.
Epic FAIL.
October 20th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
re: Among other things, the secret ballot makes it a little impractical to bribe people to vote for your candidate.
That’s why in San Francisco, the Democrats had city employees fill out absentee ballots:
The nine street cleaners said that in the week before the Dec. 9 runoff election they were taken to the Department of Elections and told to cast absentee ballots for Newsom.
When I worked for the City, I was told in a training session: “all of you owe your jobs to Willy Brown – and remember that on election day” …
rgds,
Jack
October 20th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
I can think of one example of actual vote fraud. Remember that woman, who back in 2006 put the wrong address on her voter registration, and then voted in a district in which she didn’t reside? What was her name again? Oh yeah, Ann Coulter.
Nordlinger’s right, why didn’t we see more coverage of that story?
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=2429
October 20th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Wow – best you can do jackifus? More than four years ago and the mayor demanded an investigation?? So what happened on that one??
I’m sure your investigative skills are up to this… (And no, I have no obligations to help you at all.)
October 20th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Oh, and jackifus – I’m sure a crusader like you filed a complaint against Brown.
October 20th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Butch:
I realize you’re probably a visitor from the TP side of things, but can’t you see a difference between the two sources? What’s at that post now is what the NM GOP says. What Hilton linked to is TPM supposedly describing what ACORN said. Do you understand the difference? Print out this page, show it to all your friends, and I’ll give a dollar to the first who can tell you the difference.
October 20th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Consider the source. Back on August 27 Nordlinger assured the Corner that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”
He was full of it then, he’s full of it now.
October 20th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Well, Matt, in all fairness, the United States Supreme Court *did* get Nordlinger’s hopes up by taking that bullshit Indiana voting-fraud case and pretending it involved an actual threat to democracy.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:31 am
No, no, no. If you’re going make wild accusations of cigarette bribery against the Gore campaign, you might as well do it [i]right[/i]. The fictitious cigarette cartons were thus neither Marlboros nor Camels, but Newport menthols.
Y’know, the sort of cigarettes that those sort of people smoke.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:30 am
Here in Milwaukee, this stuff did happen:
http://html.wisn.com/sh/election2000/stories/election2000-20001105-143203.html, although I thought the Gore team’s response was fair.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:25 am
What I find interesting is that since Obama campaign attorneys have gone to Mukasey about McCain campaign/ Justice Dept. anti-Acorn collusion, talk about the program has been tamped down a bit.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:18 am
“I realize you’re probably a visitor from the TP side of things, but can’t you see a difference between the two sources?”
Yup – the Republican party has FAR less credibility than ACORN at this point in time.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:58 am
“Supposedly” describing? Or did you mean “describing what ACORN supposedly said”? Kind of a different thing.
In any case, what I linked to also described what the Republicans said (in the conference call they called to raise accusations of voter fraud in New Mexico), and not only did it not include anything about the New Mexico allegations–they actually got evasive when that issue was raised. That constitutes a pretty solid admission that they were completely full of shit to begin with.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Yeah, GOP officials have been convicted of vote supppression, no ACORN people have been convicted for voter fraud.
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