Category Archives: Election Integrity

Aim Toward “Complete Collapse” And Glue The Throttle To The Floor

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House Democrats can’t bring themselves to oppose illegal immigrant voting, even in the most meaningless way possible:

Nearly every House Democrat on Friday opposed a measure condemning voting in U.S. elections by illegal immigrants, as part of a sweeping election reform bill.
The GOP-backed measure would have added language to the “H.R. 1” election proposal stating that “allowing illegal immigrants the right to vote devalues the franchise and diminishes the voting power of United States citizens.”
Federal law already prohibits non-citizens from voting in elections for federal office. But the GOP motion referenced how San Francisco is allowing non-citizens, including illegal immigrants, to register to vote in school board elections.

Oh nooo, Fox News

Bear in mind – it’s the same language that passed without controversy six months ago.

The entire Democrat conference seems to think the entire nation suffers from Pauline Kael syndrome.

Convenience Is King

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A friend of the blog writes:

I don’t necessarily think it should be easier to vote. I think people should respect their right and make informed decisions. But, I do think it would be beneficial if more people did take their right seriously and voted.
With that, I laugh every time someone declares that voting day as a holiday will make it easier for people to vote. Easier for whom? Most poor people working for minimum wage in service industries will still be working. Healthcare workers will still be working. The list could go on.
Let’s look at the announcement by the city of Sandusky, Ohio, who will be making voting day a holiday. They’re swapping out Columbus Day.   (I don’t think that I have ever had Columbus Day off let alone holiday pay for working it, so is this going to be helpful for people?) Some decision makers were concerned that they were losing a 3 day holiday, but we’re swayed because this would be for the greater good. Of note, per this article, this would only affect 250 residents out of 26,000. The city manager admits it is “a small gesture, but an important one.”
Not sure if it is even a gesture of any import. How many of these 250 were already voting?

It might be a cheap shot to say “Progressives benefit by driving lots of ill-informed people to the polls”.

It really might.

I’m not sure “cheap shot” and “accurate” are mutually exclusive.

A Guy Can Dream

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Arthur Chrenkoff on election reform, Australian style.

Tired of non-citizens enrolling (and voting Democrat (allegedly))? Or counties where more people end up enrolled (and voting) than are actually eligible to vote? Easy – to enrol to vote in Australia you need to present a driver’s licence or a passport or have someone who is already enrolled confirm your identity. This last option potentially opens the door to mischief, since you could make a chain of fraudulent enrolments based on the first, genuine link, but even with that proviso, the Australian system seems to me a lot tighter than the American seemingly free-for-all.

It could hardly be worse.

Before an election, every person on the electoral roll is mailed a little card by the electoral commission with the voter’s details and a unique barcode. To be able to receive a ballot at the polling station you need to either present the card to be scanned or if you have forgotten to bring it with you you need to show a valid ID for your name to be marked on the voters’ list. Failing either, you can query your absence on the electoral roll and lodge a provisional vote, whose validity will be carefully assessed as part of the overall count, but it is a relatively rare occurrence. To an Australian, an argument that requiring an ID to vote is tantamount to “voter suppression” seems pretty ridiculous. Virtually everyone has got some sort of an ID; the tiny remainder can be accommodated separately.

It seems to make sense.

The DFL will fight it to the death.

The Demography Of Anti-Democracy

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A friend of the blog writes:

This story, which will likely be explained away as a harmless anomaly, hints at what is likely a much larger issue.

A dozen invalid ballots? I would like to know if the full dozen were all witnessed by the same ineligible person or if its a dozen ineligible persons. I would also like to know the reason for their ineligibility (i.e. out of state resident, suspended civil rights, or simply failure to register to vote). Given that CD1,CD2 & CD8 are all in play for possible Republican takeover and CD5 has media darling Omar who, like Ocasio-Cortez, must be supported at any cost to keep the millennial voters interested enough to vote, it is not unlikely that the ineligible witness is an out of state operative associated with the DNC or one of the Soros based groups. I would also like to know what subgroups those ineligible ballots came from (black, Asian, Hispanic, etc). If Omar loses out to Keliher then she’s out of office/politics for at least a couple years

Greater Minnesota seems to be getting redder, so the DFL needs its bulwark in the metro to be as strong as possible.

No matter how many shenanigans they need to pull.

Henco: Bigger Than The SCOTUS

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You will practice your so-called “freedom” the way your betters decree you shall, peasant:

“Sure – indulge in your so-called freedom of speech.  The authorities will have you on record”.

Hennepin County doesn’t recognize the authority of the First Amendment, much less the ‘Supreme Court”.

It’s Only Sarcastic Until It’s The Law

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The State of Minnesota will be printing election ballots soon.  The more candidates, the more voter confusion, the greater the risk the wrong person will be elected by mistake. The State has a legitimate interest in keeping elections fair and transparent.  One method would be to limit the number of candidates.  We already do that tto some extent, by requiring a certain number of signatures to get on the ballot, but there still are too many candidates who qualify.  It’s reasonable to restrict the number of candidates for voter convenience.  But not in a random or discriminatory manner; instead, the restriction should apply to candidates that have the fewest number of likely voters and therefore the least likelihood of being elected.  Eliminating them from the ballot won’t affect the outcome of the election – they weren’t going to get elected anyway.
As it happens, those sure-loser candidates mostly are Republicans, who haven’t won elective office in the Twin Cities for decades.  Republican candidates serve mainly to confuse and mislead voters which threatens the integrity of the elections.  Henceforth, Republican candidates are banned in Minnesota.
It’s a restriction that is reasonably related to a legitimate government interest and therefore passes the “rational basis” standard of review for infringements on liberties protected by the Constitution. It’s every bit as Constitutional as this law:

Joe Doakes

And if the DFL manages to pass it, the Supreme Court of Minnesota won’t dream of challenging it.

My Brain Hurts

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Joe Doakes from Como Parks emails:

Liberal:  There is absolutely no voter fraud; therefore, we do not need an investigation or voter ID law and you’re a hateful racissss for saying so.

 Conservative:  Dozens of non-citizens voted illegally in Ohio.  There were more votes than voters in Detroit.  

 Liberal:  There is voter fraud; but we do not need an investigation or voter ID law and you’re a hateful racisss for saying so.

 As always, Monty Python anticipates real life, in the “Expedition to Lake Pahoe” sketch:

 “ . . . there is no – I repeat, no – cannibalism in the British Navy.  Absolutely none.  And when I say none, I mean that there is a certain amount, more than we are prepared to admit, but all new ratings are warned that if they wake up in the morning and find any toothmarks at all anywhere on their bodies, they’re to tell me immediately so that I can immediately take every measure to hush the whole thing up.”

 Joe Doakes

I think it’s hilarious that George Orwell’s 1984 has re-entered the best-seller list – since it was written about the Western far-left.  And it still may as well be;  the ease and fluency with which the left’s chanting points bots went from “Our electoral system is perfect, and you’re a racist misogynist transphobe traitor to suggest otherwise” to “our electoral system is a shambles” after November 8 would have beggared Orwell’s imagination.

Call For John Banner

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

We know Democrats cheated in the election, they always do. The reason they lost is they didn’t cheat hard enough, possibly because they believed their own fake polls and thought she had it in the bag. That explains why they were so embarrassed when she lost – it’s their own damned fault for being so cocky.
Before the recount, Democrats confidently assured me there wasn’t a single smidgen of evidence that any voting fraud had ever happened and it was all my imagination.
But Jill Stein demanding the recount forced Michigan to ask “Why are there 300 votes for Hillary in this precinct but only 50 voters total?” Hell, why do a third of precincts show too many Hillary votes?
Cat.
Bag.
Okay, NOW can we talk about election fraud and voter ID?
Joe Doakes

That stuff that doesn’t exist, and where suggesting it is treason?

Heavens no.

Rigged

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Get out and vote today.

Assuming it matters.  George Soros has been spending big bucks to control the system.  And he’s just getting started:

The documents reveal that the Soros campaign fueled litigation attacking election integrity measures, such as citizenship verification and voter ID. It funded long-term efforts to fundamentally transform election administration — including the creation of databases that were marketed to state governments for use in voter verification. It propped up left-leaning media to attack reports of voter fraud, and conducted racially and ideologically targeted voter registration drives.

The racially targeted voter registration drives were executed at the same time Soros dollars were funding other public relations efforts to polarize racial minority groups by scaring them about the loss of voting rights and the dangers of police officers.

The Soros documents reveal hundreds of millions of dollars being poured into the effort to transform the legal and media environment touching on elections. One document notes that poverty-alleviation programs are being de-emphasized for this new effort. It states: “George Soros has authorized U.S. Programs to propose a budget of $320 million over two years, with the understanding that the annual budget for U.S. Programs will be $150 million beginning in 2013.”

To have a functional democracy, it’s important for people to trust their fellow citizens’ motives.

I don’t know that there’s any way to trust the motives of people who are floating on a raft of Sorosbucks.

Evidence

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SCENE:    At the garden center.  Mitch BERG is taking advantage of late-season blowouts when Avery LIBRELLE, carrying a lawn flamingo, steps around the corner, catching BERG by surprise. 

LIBRELLE:  Merg!  You keep claiming there’s vote fraud.  And yet there is not.  There never has been and there never will be.

BERG:  Well, the evidence in  California and Chicago and Philadelphia and Maryland and Florida and a key and very swingy district in Virginia and Mississippi and of course right here in Minnesota says you’re wrong.

LIBRELLE:  But the Brennan Center said there is no voter fraud!

BERG:  Leaving aside the fact that the Brennan Center is pretty much devoted to undermining self-government and making society safe for our “elite” better to govern as they see fit, their “sources” were pretty much all election authorities confirming that nothing is wrong, nosirreebob.  In most states where the fraud happens, it’s almost impossible to convict anyone for even the most bald-faced vote fraud.

LIBRELLE:  But there’s more evidence!

BERG:  Aaaand what’s that?

LIBRELLE:  You’re racist.  Hah!

(LIBRELLE turns and runs for the door)

BERG:  Clearly.

(And SCENE)

EDITOR’S NOTE:  Oooh, look there; an article about vote fraud.  Feel free to leave a comment in the comment section.

Unless, of course, you are one of the commenters who’s made a habit of leaving extremely long, usually off-topic, usually condescending comments, purporting to “fact-check” my content, but usually proving only that you’re a terrible researcher with no command of logic:

You’ll need to respond in depth to this question in a previous thread.  And respond to the responses.  And then I will start letting your comments out of moderation.  And only then.  Your call.  No skin off my teeth).

It’s Just The Normal Noises In Here

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Minnesota election law requires party delegates at the convention to designate electors and alternates.  Minnesota Republicans failed to do that at their convention so party big-shots designated some afterwards.  Democrats correctly pointed out this duct-tape fix failed to comply with the law and asked the Supreme Court to strike Trump’s name from the ballot.

The Secretary of State objected that early voting starts in 11 days and they’ve already printed a million ballots so it would cost a fortune to change the ballots now. The Supreme Court decided the Democrats had waited too long to bring the challenge and ruled against them based on the ancient equitable doctrine of laches.

 Laches?  Laches?!? That’s Republicans’ ace in the hole?  That’s their big defense? 

 Laches is one of those kitchen-sink defenses you throw into the Answer when you’re totally desperate and have no defense on the merits of the case.  It’s for losers and scoundrels and weasels.  A major political party trying to get a Presidential candidate onto the ballot shouldn’t be relying on laches.

 They really are the Stupid Party. 

 Joe Doakes

But why did the DFL file the suit – which, but for logistics and the appeal to, ahem, laches, might have succeeded?

Michael Brodkorb, newly at MinnPost, breaks that down.   Short story short; there are people who get paid to be cynical about things like rules.

Voter Suppression

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In perhaps the most bald-faced violation of Berg’s Seventh Law in history, the DFL – which is constantly whinging about phantom claims of “voter suppression” – is actively trying to disenfranchise half of this state’s electorate in the Presidential election.

DFL Chair Ken “Dwight Schrute” Martin is sueing to keep Donald Trump off the Minnesota ballot in November, over an absurd, abstruse technicality in election law:

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s Thursday lawsuit claims the Minnesota Republican Party failed to nominate its presidential electors, the people who cast the state’s 10 electoral college votes, in accordance with state law. Keith Downey, the chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, said last month that the party called a special meeting to approve alternative electors because it had previously neglected to do so.

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One of these people is imitating Mussolini. The other was a character on a hit TV show.

The suit, which was filed directly to the Minnesota Supreme Court, adds a new level of chaos to an already strange election season. It could cause the parties to spend some of the rushed final eight weeks of the election fighting in court, distracting from other campaigning. While the suit is a technical one, if successful, it could affect the entire presidential election.

If the DFL wins – and one would think even Minnesota’s absurdly liberal Supreme Court couldn’t possibly be that obtuse – then long-time friend of this blog Dave Thul had a great idea; every conservative should vote for Jill Stein, and make the Greens a major party in Minnesota, sapping DFL votes for at least the next four years and drawing money from the DFL’s graft pool.

There’s also a part of me that hopes Martin “wins”.  This – the most baldfaced example of corruption masquerading as law I’ve seen in my lifetime – would stand a good chance of opening an epic floodgate of support for Trump, or at least against Hillary’s party.

Ballot Fodder

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A regular reader of this blog (whose name does not rhyme with “Moe Jokes”) writes:

I know this has been talked about in Minneapolis for a few months, but when I read the following, I just couldn’t help but think that if you don’t rate voting as a high priority, perhaps you shouldn’t be voting.  Perhaps, if you need your landlord to hold your hand through life’s responsibilities, you aren’t yet ready to live away from your parents.

“Council Member Jacob Frey, who sponsored the measure, said he could have used the reminder about voter registration when he was younger and frequently changed apartments.

“When you’re thinking about your study group and your track team and the girlfriend and the social and what you’re going to do that weekend, and all the other trillions of stimuli that you have at a university, for instance, you don’t think to register,” Frey said.”

You ever notice how the Democrat “get out the vote” machine is focused almost to exclusion on reaching people who don’t pay much attention to government and politics?

There’s a reason for that.

Democracia Ahora!

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¡Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

When I went outside this morning to put up my American flag, a pickup full of illegal immigrants stopped to ask if this is where they vote Democrat For Immigration Amnesty. No dude, that’s the Rec Center down the street. And they don’t open til 8. Yes, ocho. Yeah you have a good day, too.

In Saint Paul, the line between satire and truth is so gray and blurry, it hardly exists.

Calibrated

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Back in 2006, they told us that electronic voting machines were going to be an easy, non-transparent way to hijack elections. 

And they were right:

Republican state representative candidate Jim Moynihan went to vote Monday at the Schaumburg Public Library.

“I tried to cast a vote for myself and instead it cast the vote for my opponent,” Moynihan 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.”

The conservative website Illinois Review reported that “While using a touch screen voting machine in Schaumburg, Moynihan voted for several races on the ballot, only to find that whenever he voted for a Republican candidate, the machine registered the vote for a Democrat in the same race. He notified the election judge at his polling place and demonstrated that it continued to cast a vote for the opposing candidate’s party. Moynihan was eventually allowed to vote for Republican candidates, including his own race.

There’s a simple answer, of course:

 “This was a calibration error of the touch-screen on the machine,” Scalzitti said. “When Mr. Moynihan used the touch-screen, it improperly assigned his votes due to improper calibration.”

“I’m not robbing this bank, officer; I’m just doing a bad job of calibrating the safe”.

“That’s not a crack pipe under my seat, officer; its a poorly-calibrated CPAP mask”. 

“Those weren’t dead people voting; just poorly-calibrated living people”. 

I’m not going to say the Democrats are a criminal syndicate.  I’m just wondering how they’d have to behave any differently to be one…

Despicable Steve

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It hasn’t been a good campaign for DFL Secretary of State candidate Steve Simon. 

For starters, he barely got over 40% in the primary – against a perennial candidate and a nobody.  Which might not have been a showstopper for the DFL machine to overcome, except that they were up against Dan Severson, who has statewide name recognition from a 2010 SOS run and a Senate bid (that came up short in the convention in 2012). 

Then, last week, the polls showed that Severson was ahead of Simon; he was the only GOP statewide candidate to lead in the polls at that time.  

At the very least – given the polling that, we are told, shows Mark Dayton supposedly cruising to victory – it’s a sign that the DFL/Big Money Democrat onslaught has a chink in the armor. 

At the most?  It shows that the DFL’s “We’re Inevitable!” vibe may not be entirely factual. 

Severson’s press conference last week – in which he showed smoking guns tying the SOS office to a policy of tossing veterans’ votes, and Rep. Simon’s signature on legislation that exempted the military from absentee voter reforms – went badly for Simon, and worse for the DFL’s Ken Martin, who tried and failed to take a chunk out of Severson in a comical morning of duelling press conferences. 

Simon is apparently desperate; he’s now telling his base that Severson proposes “forcing rape victims to pay for rape kits”. 

It’s BS, of course.  Not just the usual, comical, inept BS the DFL tosses around at this point in campaigns, all juvenile photoshopped heads and racist japes. 

No.  This is a sleazy, toxic, intentional, cowardly lie.  Severson responds (and I’ll add emphasis):

I moved it forward with the understanding that the bill would propose sharing the cost of all expenses associated with sexual assault between the counties of the victim and the perpetrator.

I specifically killed the bill before it EVER got a hearing because of the language specific to victims having to pay for anything.

In a just world, whatever DFL messaging genius that came up with this attack would get some sense groin-kicked into him.

As it stands?  Since a lie will make it around the world before the truth has finished checking Facebook in the morning, it’s back to the long, slow slog of telling people the one central truth of Minnesota politics.

If a DFLer says it, it’s a lie. 

If a DFLer who’s losing says it, it’s probably defamation.

Call It A 2016 Election Dress Rehearsal…

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DFL Representative Steve Simon is running for Secretary of State against GOP endorsed candidate Dan Severson. 

He’s had kind of a rough race so far; during the primaries, he came in with barely over 40% of the DFL vote, against a perennial candidate (Dick Fransen, who’s sort of a downmarket Ole Savior) and an unknown.  He’s got no name recognition to speak of (as compared to Dan Severson, who is a former state rep, SOS and Senate candidate). 

So he’s gotta get some name recognition – “popularity” – somehow, between now and November.

Now, as of last summer, Simon had a set of Twitter followers that, quite frankly, would befit a candidate who could only eke out 42% in his own party’s primary; around about a thousand or so.

Then, suddenly, BOOM: he was over 70,000 followers.

A case of Steve-mentum?

Probably not. It would seem the Simon campaign has chosen to try to buy some popularity – at least on Twitter:

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A “TwitterAudit” shows that at least 55,000 of Simon’s 70,000 followers are probably fakes.  An email from a GOP analyst explains:

This typically indicates that someone has purchased a list of fake subscribers.

Some of the earmarks of “list buyers” are:

  • Twitter accounts that are in a foreign language (paging thru his followers, it’s remarkable how many are in Russian, Asian and Arabic (yes, Arabic)
  • Twitter accounts that have no image of a real person next to them, but instead just have what is called the “Twitter egg” – again, paging thru Steve’s followers, it’s clear that a majority of his followers are “eggs”.

Check out the Twitteraudit yourself.

If this is how he runs his Twitter account, imagine what he’ll do for the voter rolls!

“But wait, Merg!  Lots of people, yourself included, have lots of spam followers on Twitter!  I mean, look at how popular you seem to be with 18 year old Filipinas!”.  Spam followers are certainly an issue on Twitter – everyone’s got ’em – but having one’s number of overall followers multiply by almost two orders of magnitude in less time than it’s taking me to type about it is not just the sign of some staff intern getting happy fingers on the “Follow!” buttons. 

“But Merg!  Maybe Simon’s account was hacked!”.  Maybe.  Show us the evidence that a “malicious” “hack” just happened to inflate a less-than-popular candidate’s numbers into Twitterverse regional A-lister levels, and we can talk. 

I’ll wait. 

But I’m not going to hold my breath, if it’s all right with you. 

Continue reading →

Best Voting System In America!

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They warned me that if I voted Republican, there’d be a wave of claims of voter fraud when ethnic minorities tried to vote.

And they were right!

GOP operative Heather Linville put it well on Twitter:

@H_Linville: Oh…. OK. So now voter fraud exists, because a democrat might lose her seat. Got it! http://t.co/CwKIYpMm3j #stribpol

From the Strib:

The attorney for Phyllis Kahn says he got word Thursday night; there might be hundreds of people who are registering and voting using an address that’s not their home.
Absentee voting kicked-off Friday morning in a hotly contested democratic primary race for the state house between incumbent Phyllis Kahn and Mohamud Noor.

Republican operator Heather Linville put it best on Twitter

@H_Linville: Oh…. OK. So now voter fraud exists, because a democrat might lose her seat. Got it! http://t.co/CwKIYpMm3j #stribpol

Stop me if you’ve heard this before (emphasis added):

Brian Rice, attorney for the Phyllis Kahn Volunteer Committee, claims there’s voter fraud.
“I think there is a coordinated effort to use this address to bring voters into the DFL primary election on August 12, that’s what I think is going on,” Rice said. “It’s wrong, it violates Minnesota Law, it’s a crime.”
According to voter registration records from the Secretary of State’s office and the DFL Voter Activation Network more than 140 people used 419 Cedar Avenue South in Minneapolis as their home address, when they registered to vote.
The address is for what’s called Cedar Mailbox Center. The building manager and mail center’s employees weren’t comfortable speaking on camera, but they said they were surprised by the allegations.

Of course, during the 2010 elections the Minnesota Majority noted scads of such irregularities – including nine people listing a laundromat as their “home” address.  The response?

“It can’t be!”

Why?

“We have the best election system in the country”. 

Until it’s Phyllis Kahn being defrauded, of course.

TANGENT:  Remember when the only reason to claim voter fraud was racism?  Why do Rep. Kahn and the DFL hate Somalis, anyway?

Inconvenient Inconsistency

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Judge Guthmann ruled that the Secretary of State had no authority to establish an on-line voter registration site. He ordered it taken down at once.

So . . . where’d the money come from? Misappropriation of funds should be an impeachable offense.

Also . . . to register on-line, you must enter a Minnesota Driver’s License, Minnesota State ID number, or the last four digits of your Social Security number. I thought it was racist to demand that stuff? Shouldn’t racism be an impeachable offense, too?

Joe Doakes

Only the wrong racism.

Dayton Administration: “Rules Are For Peasants!”

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The State Auditor confirmed what this blog pointed out a year and change ago; Governor Dayton’s use of a state plane to haul campaign staff on junkets that either mixed official and campaign business, or involved no state business whatsoever, violated the law:

At issue were three separate trips Dayton took using a Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) airplane. During the fall of 2012, in the run-up to that year’s election, Dayton flew out of St. Paul for appearances in Willmar, Brainerd and Bemidji. On each trip, Dayton combined official state business with political events; a subsequent flight from Bemidji to International Falls was made for purely political purposes. On that flight, Dayton’s travel companions on the plane included Julie Hottinger, a campaign staffer who is not employed by the state.

Using the plane to transport Dayton and Hottinger for a political event was determined to be a violation of both state statute and MnDOT policy. According to the code of ethics for executive branch employees, state funds, resources or property cannot be deployed for “any … use not in the interest of the state.” The audit report spells out certain exceptions to that law, including security detail personnel, who will travel with the governor regardless of the nature of an event.

In this instance, Dayton’s staff argued that the use of the official plane was a matter of security, telling OLA investigators that the MnDOT aircraft gives the administration staff greater control over equipment and choice of pilots.

The report recommendations find that the state-issued plane should not be used if the governor is traveling only for a political reason, or is bringing political staffers. But, for cases when a governor plans to attend both official and political functions, the current law lacks clarity, and the OLA recommends that the Legislature take up the issue to spell out its legality.

“In the meantime,” the report states, “we recommend that Governor Dayton encourage his office staff and campaign staff to schedule his travel in ways that strictly limit the use of a state airplane to attend political events.”

In an official response penned on behalf of Dayton, chief of staff Tina Smith said the state’s paying for Hottinger’s travel resulted from “an error and will not happen again.” Smith also points out that the Dayton campaign had intended all along to split costs for the trips that combined both public and political activities, and reimbursed the state fully for the trip from Bemidji to International Falls.

As always with the DFL – with the damage long done, Governor Dayton apologized. 

How many passes will the DFL get when it comes to cheating on state campaign laws?

“Trust Us: Smoke Never Means Fire!”

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James O’Keefe and his merry band of prankersters are able to fraudulently obtain ballots 97 percent of the time:

New York City’s Department of Investigation (DOI) has just shown how easy it is to commit voter fraud that is almost undetectable. Its undercover agents were able to obtain ballots for city elections a total of 61 times — 39 times using the names of dead people, 14 times using the names of incarcerated felons, and eight times using the names of non-residents. On only two occasions, or about 3 percent of the time, were the agents stopped by polling-place officials. In one of the two cases, an investigator was stopped only because the felon he was trying to vote in the name of was the son of the election official he was dealing with.

Clearly, O’Keefe has overstepped the bounds of…

…wait.  I said O’Keefe, didn’t I?  What did the article actually say?

The New York Department of Investigation’s report doesn’t address the serious issue of absentee-ballot fraud, where at least a paper trail to catch fraud can be created. But it does highlight a troubling case indicating that voter impersonation Chicago-style is still with us.

Oh. 

Um…

Fox News!

The Media/Non-Profit Racket

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In past months, I’ve showed you how not only big-media-alum group-blog MinnPost, but “No Rant, No Slant” Minnesota Public Radio are on the take from the Joyce Foundation – which funds “Protect MN”, the anti-rights group run by Rep. Heather Martens.  I speculated that it might be the reason that MPR has been so incurious about Martens’ astroturf group, and why the MinnPost – with all its pretenses to legitimate journalism – spent the past year giving Martens a public tongue bath.

I asked – does this involvement go any higher in the Twin Cities’ “progressive” political world?

I asked, and Bill Glahn answered – ten months ago.  Joyce is a huge financial backer of “Take Action MN”, a non-profit that verges on being a political party in its own right, a descendent of “Progressive Minnesota”, which had its own unseemly connections with “non-partisan” institutions.

Glahn:

The Joyce Foundation of Chicago, Illinois, was founded by Iowa lumber heiress Beatrice Joyce Kean.  This $760 million foundation has been involved with TakeAction since near the beginning of the Minnesota non-profit’s existence.  Joyce’s 2006 Annual Report (p. 25) shows a grant of $350,000 to be paid out to TakeAction over two years, “To develop and promote a political reform agenda focused on campaign finance, judicial, and voting rights reforms.”
Joyce’s 2009 IRS Form 990 reveals that the $350,000 grant to the 501(c)(3) TakeAction Minnesota Education Fund was renewed in 2008 for two additional years, “for ongoing efforts to reform and strengthen democracy in Minnesota.”[12]
Joyce’s 2011 IRS Form 990 reveals that, yet again, the $350,000 grant to the TakeAction Education Fund was renewed in 2010 for two additional years, “For advancing a political reform agenda that encompasses election administration, voting rights, campaign finance, redistricting, and judicial independence.”[13]

The Joyce Foundation’s website indicates that the TakeAction Education Fund received an additional $150,000 in 2012 for one year, “For advancing a democracy reform agenda using legislation, community organizing, movement building, coalition work, and unexpected alliances.”
Unexpected alliances?  In any event, the seven-year total of grants from the Joyce Foundation to TakeAction equals $1,200,000.

So let’s break this down:  The Joyce Foundation heavily sponsors “Progressive” non-profits, including “Take Action MN”, “Protect MN”, and (I strongly suspect) “Common Cause MN”.

And they pour money into at least two “non-profit” Minnesota media outlets that have pretensions to respectability; Minnesota Public Radio and the MinnPost.

I’ve sought comment from both organizations in the past, without success.  I’ll try again.

All of this carefully obfuscated money going to support “campaign finance…reforms” is one thing.

Going to buy friendly media coverage?

And finding willing takers, in an industry whose “code of ethics” tells journalists who avoid financial entanglements in their “journalism?”