An assault on American voters is underway

[China]

America's democracy is failing — and the world knows it

 

A number of non-governmental organizations that have long worked to rebuild communities in countries beset by violent and intractable conflicts — places that have collapsed under the weight of mass atrocities, political assassinations, authoritarian take overs, and widespread citizen violence — have shifted focus to a new subject: The United States.

 

At this moment, our country is in great need of lessons on what it takes to restore crumbling political systems. This week, the United States was added to a list of “backsliding” democracies in an annual report on the global state of democracy, marking a serious decline in international observers’ assessments of our political stability.

 

In naming the U.S. to the list for the first time, the report’s authors — Sweden’s International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) — pointed to the “visible deterioration of democracy” in the United States on several criteria, including unwillingness to accept credible election results, voter participation suppression efforts, increasing polarization, and declines in civil liberties.

 

Click on the link for more

[Larry]

5 minutes ago, China said:

America's democracy is failing — and the world knows it

 

A number of non-governmental organizations that have long worked to rebuild communities in countries beset by violent and intractable conflicts — places that have collapsed under the weight of mass atrocities, political assassinations, authoritarian take overs, and widespread citizen violence — have shifted focus to a new subject: The United States.

 

At this moment, our country is in great need of lessons on what it takes to restore crumbling political systems. This week, the United States was added to a list of “backsliding” democracies in an annual report on the global state of democracy, marking a serious decline in international observers’ assessments of our political stability.

 

In naming the U.S. to the list for the first time, the report’s authors — Sweden’s International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) — pointed to the “visible deterioration of democracy” in the United States on several criteria, including unwillingness to accept credible election results, voter participation suppression efforts, increasing polarization, and declines in civil liberties.

 

Click on the link for more

[China]

Wisconsin Republicans’ Election Investigator Threatens To Jail Mayors Of Green Bay, Madison

 

An attorney leading an investigation of the 2020 elections for Wisconsin’s legislative Republicans has threatened to jail the mayors of Wisconsin’s second- and third-largest cities if they don’t meet his demands.

 

The mayors, for their part, say the attorney is wildly distorting reality, and that their attempts to reach him have gone unanswered.

 

Michael Gableman, a former state Supreme Court justice who’s leading a partisan review of the last presidential elections, filed petitions for “writ of attachment” against the two mayors in county court this week, accusing the mayors of failing to appear for testimony without explanation. But both mayors say they’ve reached out to Gableman’s office and not heard back. 

 

An identical petition also seeks the sheriff’s action against Satya Rhodes-Conway, the mayor of Madison. PBS Wisconsin published the court documents Thursday. 

 

A lawyer for Green Bay reacted forcefully to the filing — which he characterized as “seeking an order to commit Mayor Genrich into custody at the Waukesha County Jail” — saying that it wasn’t legally enforceable and that the mayor would be pursuing legal sanctions against Gableman. 

 

“Based on our initial review, the Petition is not only lacking in legal merit and built upon a gross distortion of the relevant facts, but it departs so greatly from legal standards that Mayor Genrich intends to serve the Special Counsel with a motion for sanctions,” wrote attorney Jeffrey Mandell, in a letter published by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. 

 

Madison Mayor Rhodes-Conway said in a statement Thursday that the Madison city attorney had reached out to Gableman’s office, but that neither Gableman nor his attorneys had responded — “further underscoring the abject lack of professionalism on Gableman’s team.” 

 

“Attorney Gableman apparently missed the October headlines saying that I was proud of and willing to testify publicly about Madison’s handling of the 2020 election,” Rhodes-Conway said.

The Wisconsin effort is a cousin to other Republican efforts to cast doubt on the 2020 election results. Gableman used state funds to visit the Arizona “audit” as well as MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s “Cyber Symposium,” where the bedding magnate failed to deliver promised evidence of Chinese election hacking. A few days after the 2020 election, Gableman said, “I don’t think anyone here can think of anything more systematically unjust than a stolen election.”

 

Officials in both Wisconsin cities said they had not been served with Gableman’s suit, but had seen copies online, the Journal-Sentinel noted.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

 

[China]

Journalist says Republicans now have more reliable ways to overturn election results

 

Atlantic journalist Bart Gellman says the Republican party is increasingly unwilling to accept defeat and, in fact, is "prepared to win by sacrificing the essential elements of democracy."

 

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

So, you know, a lot of people have said Trump tried so many different paths to overturn the 2020 election, but there was always someone who refused to go along with it. So democracy works. But you say in nearly every battlespace of the war to control the count of the next election - statehouses, state election authorities, courthouses, Congress and the Republican Party apparatus - Trump's position has improved since a year ago. And Republicans have identified the weak points in the election apparatus and are exploiting them.

 

Is there a master plan or a group of master planners who are overseeing the big picture? Or is this just a lot of people working independently at whatever level they're on?

 

BARTON GELLMAN: It's much more the latter. It's a kind of accumulation of local and state Republican operatives who are on their own initiative driven by the base going after all sources of impediment and dissent that prevented Trump from stealing the last election. So just for example, there's an obscure and otherwise little-known position on the Michigan Board of State Canvassers which is composed of two Republicans and two Democrats. The last time, in 2020, Trump's strategy was to get both Republicans to refuse to certify the state election results, which was required as part of the procedure before electors could be appointed for the state of Michigan, which Biden won. He wanted to deadlock that panel to save time and to give time for the Michigan legislature to take other actions in his favor.

 

There was one Republican on that panel who refused Trump's entreaties to vote against certification. His name was Van Langevelde, you know, a 30-something Republican functionary. But he said the election results are valid. I'm going to vote for them, and he's now been hounded out of office and he's off the board of state canvassers. That's what the Trump allies have done all around the country. They've looked for everywhere that said no to Trump, and they have tried to remove those people, or they have changed the law so those people no longer have any authority to get in Trump's way.

 

Click on the link for the full transcript

[China]

Georgia Republicans purge Black Democrats from county election boards

 

Protesters filled the meeting room of the Spalding County Board of Elections in October, upset that the board had disallowed early voting on Sundays for the Nov. 2 municipal election. A year ago, Sunday voting had been instrumental in boosting turnout of Black voters.

 

But this was an entirely different five-member board than had overseen the last election. The Democratic majority of three Black women was gone. So was the Black elections supervisor.

 

Now a faction of three white Republicans controlled the board — thanks to a bill passed by the Republican-led Georgia legislature earlier this year. The Spalding board’s new chairman has endorsed former president Donald Trump’s false stolen-election claims on social media.

 

The panel in Spalding, a rural patch south of Atlanta, is one of six county boards that Republicans have quietly reorganized in recent months through similar county-specific state legislation. The changes expanded the party’s power over choosing members of local election boards ahead of the crucial midterm Congressional elections in November 2022.

 

The unusual rash of restructurings follows the state’s passage of Senate Bill 202, which restricted ballot access statewide and allowed the Republican-controlled State Election Board to assume control of county boards it deems underperforming. The board immediately launched a performance review of the Democratic-leaning Fulton County board, which oversees part of Atlanta.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Republicans in Texas county to administer their own 2022 primary, despite officials’ warnings

 

The Potter County Republican Party plans to conduct its own election during the Texas primary on March 1, independent of the county election administration. People voting in Republican races on Election Day will cast hand-marked ballots that will be hand counted, which the party believes to be more secure. Experts say the move will introduce a higher risk of fraud, confuse voters, and likely result in legal challenges.

 

“This introduces a lot of potential mistakes and it also introduces opportunities for fraud,” said Christina Adkins, the legal director of the Texas Secretary of State’s elections division. “The candidates on this ballot really need to think about whether this is how they want their election run.”

 

The plan is the brainchild of county GOP chair Dan Rogers. He said repeatedly that turnout in the county, home to Amarillo, had gone down since the county introduced voting machines and voting centers in 2015. “The more they try to make it easier and add gadgetry, it goes down,” he said. This is false. Historical voting data shows no significant change in county turnout patterns since the introduction of the technology.

 

The decision comes after an Arizona congressional candidate who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection gave an “election integrity symposium” to the party in October. The presenter, Jeff Zink, is a candidate for Arizona’s 7th Congressional District who falsely says that the Cyber Ninjas’ investigation report released in September hid rampant fraud about Maricopa County’s 2020 election results. Around 50 people attended the event and listened to Zink expound on the benefits of hand counting.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Dan T.]

Here's a pretty good summary of the 36-page PowerPoint Coup document that outlined the scheme to overturn the election and which found an audience in the White House. One of the authors, a retired colonel who circulated the memo, said he met with Donald T****'s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows 8 to 10 times in the days leading up to the January 6 insurrection.

 

Traitors.

 

 

[Dan T.]

[Dan T.]

A link to the document itself (the link in Rupar's Tweet doesn't seem to work).  

 

Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 JAN (archive.org)

 

A summary:

 

Seriously.  It says China was in on it.  Venezuela. The UK.  Italy. Spain. Cuba.  

 

These people need to pay for spreading this bull****.

[Dan T.]

 

[tshile]

2 hours ago, Dan T. said:

These people need to pay for spreading this bull****.

That would require there exist someone that would hold them accountable. 
 

the government won’t. The voters won’t. The military clearly won’t. Scotus has no actual power if you decide to not respect what they say. 
 

we get a front row seat and no one can or will do anything about it. 
 

all we need is some good old fashioned dem/liberal apathy in 2024 and then we’ll get the watch the rest of the movie. 

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Dan T.]

^ ^ ^ Their fundamental problem is that they've chosen to believe a pathological liar and his cowering or power hungry enablers.  I hope they get hundreds of doors slammed in their idiot faces.

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

 

[LD0506]

9 hours ago, Cooked Crack said:

 

 

 

Another reason to have a large, loud, angry dog to answer the door

[Ball Security]

8 hours ago, Dan T. said:

^ ^ ^ Their fundamental problem is that they've chosen to believe a pathological liar and his cowering or power hungry enablers.  I hope they get hundreds of doors slammed in their idiot faces.

Those people scare me.  I have the right to protect my property, don’t I?

[skinsmarydu]

21 minutes ago, Ball Security said:

Those people scare me.  I have the right to protect my property, don’t I?

Something similar crossed my mind---invite 'em in, then...

[techboy]

7 minutes ago, skinsmarydu said:

Something similar crossed my mind---invite 'em in, then...

 

 

[Cooked Crack]

Quote

A retired Army colonel who worked with then-President Donald Trump’s outside legal team to claim that the 2020 election results were rigged was an invited speaker Tuesday at a state commission charged with shaping Louisiana’s voting system. 

 

Phil Waldron’s 90-minute talk in Louisiana came just days after revelations that he had circulated and briefed members of Congress on a PowerPoint presentation that urged then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6 to reject electoral votes from “states where fraud occurred,” replace them with Republican electors or delay counting electoral votes until ballots could be seized and recounted with the help of National Guard troops. 

 

Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, a Republican who chairs the 13-member Voting System Commission, welcomed Waldron without mention of his role bolstering arguments that Joe Biden’s victory should not be certified. The commission is to recommend a type of voting system to replace Louisiana’s aging paperless voting machines. 

 

“We’re very pleased to have him here and excited to hear what he has to say,” said Ardoin, noting that the audience included many members of Waldron’s “fan club.

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[88Comrade2000]

I fully expect Democratic voters to be physically assaulted if not in 22, definitely in 24. 

[Dan T.]

12 hours ago, Cooked Crack said:

 

 

 

I can't wait for the identity of this traitor to be revealed  ...a member of Congress, sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

 

Again, this was sent ONE DAY AFTER Election Day.  The ballots were still being counted, for God's sake.  

[JCB]

My money's on Gym Jordan, but it's a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

[Simmsy]

1 hour ago, JCB said:

My money's on Gym Jordan, but it's a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

I'm gonna say...Hawley.