Law Enforcement will have to seriously gear-up for what’s next, or quit.
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I think primary elections are part of the problem. Candidates play to the farthest sides of their party, in order to generate excitement and donations. When the general election comes, it’s “clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.”
It wasn’t perfect, but there were some advantages to the old conventions, where parties selected the candidates that they hoped would win the general election.
I used to be a true believer, until I had multiple instances where my vote didn’t count. I could only take so many blatant violations of election law before I gave up. If someone would have at least pretended to care, I might have hung in there, but no one did- not the press, not election observers, not law enforcement, and certainly not elected officials.
100% agree, and this is an important thing to say.
This is why elections are so important in midterms. Do you think JB is coming to get them? Or even Brandon Kelly and the State Police? No. It will be enforced, or not as it were at the county level. Just like the Covid nonsense. I foresee it being best in court, and in the mean time, the majority of the southern counties sheriffs won’t enforce it.
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Here’s the actual bill if you want to read it.
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Don’t give up. The political system we have needs reform, but that won’t happen until and unless good people get engaged.
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So now you’ve given up on the American political system because you’ve seen “blatant violations” (and what, if anything did you do about it?) and were disappointed by the response of others. Not be disrespectful, but that does not sound like much of a commitment to defending the Constitution or working to fix/protect the American system.
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Primaries are a big part of the problem because the rank and file of Americans don’t vote in them. The last stat I saw suggested than around 18% of the eligible electorate vote in primaries. They are left to single issue – usually social issues – voters.
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It not just that I’ve seen them, it’s that I know elections are manipulated. For example, I was overseas one year and had a state employee call me a week before the election to tell me that my team’s absentee ballots had been received but could not be counted, because they “didn’t have time” to do it. I contacted the local press, some candidates on the ballot, and even an attorney. I shared the story online, too. No one was interested. That’s when I learned that my votes wouldn’t necessarily count.
Oh, here’s a good example: I went to vote in-person, and was asked at the door who I would be voting for. I declined to say, and said that such questions were not permitted at the polling place. She then said she had to know who I was voting for, so that she could direct me to the correct voting machines. No lie, she said that to my face. When I declined again to say who I would vote for, she frowned and directed me to an old, dusty, mechanical voting machine, instead of the electronic voting machines on the other side of the room, which were plastered with campaign signs for one of the local candidates. I called everyone I could think of about this one, because I wanted those people caught red-handed and prosecuted. Neither the police nor the state election commission could be bothered. I talked to the local TV station, who simply laughed and said that was standard operating procedure in my congressional district.
Don’t make me out like I don’t vote. I do. I’m simply no longer believe that my vote counts. I support and defend the Constitution in other ways. I don’t think it’s enough to simply say “I voted” and pretend that makes me a good citizen. I wish it were that easy.
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I get that and have experienced similar election issues, mostly centered around my local REPUBLICAN clerk and recorder, who will tell everyone that: (1) her office is efficient and (2) nothing is ever amiss in her election handling. My experience is that clerk & recorder offices are staffed by the least qualified, most incompetent individuals.
Here’s my parade of horribles:
- I had to sue my clerk for refusing to recognize signatures on a petition for a candidate for sheriff, even the signatures of people she knew personally. She lost.
- My clerk required people to submit to a metal detector TSA-like search as a condition of casting a ballot in her office, even if you were simply dropping off a ballot. She said “Oh the court made me do it since we’re located in the court house.” That was a lie. I complained to the chief judge and, wadda ya know, a ballot drop off box suddenly appeared outside the courthouse.
- My clerk regularly sent me two ballots – one to my house in Colorado and one to my house in Topeka. I regularly told them, I was registered in KS not CO and they said “Oh, we could never send out two ballots.” I regularly stood up at the local CO Republican primary county assembly to tell my tale in front of the 150 Republican delegates about the performance of the clerk they were about to nominate for office.
This does not get better if people throw up their hands and declaring voting a meaningless exercise, It’s actual work for which you will be castigated, but if you’re not willing to do that, then that oath you took doesn’t mean much. A couple suggestions:
- Run for office, specifically clerk and recorder. Make your election experiences a campaign issue. I ran for state representative and spent around $35,000. I guarantee, you, too can run for clerk for less. It’s money, but what’s your oath worth?
- If you don’t run for office, give money to and help your clerk’s opponent in the next primary where candidates are actually elected.
- Sue your clerk when the snafus are not resolved. My court case worked and made me persona non-grata in the clerk’s office. It cost me some money, but my oath was worth more than sitting on the sidelines.
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I admit, it was after becoming an owner, I became motivated to start voting again, and have done so. Know I gotta help more.