How Could Anyone Cotton To People Disrespecting Durango?

In the blog post title above I slightly altered an incoming email's subject line which in reality said...

I don't Cotton to People Disrespecting Durango.

The email was from fellow Washingtonian, Steve A, who has spent some time exiled in Texas, to the point that he had to vote in the last election via the archaic Texas absentee ballot method.

But, Steve A is blessed with spending much of his time in paradise at a place called Ocean Shores on the Washington Pacific coast.

So, Steve A's email included the Facebook screen cap you see here and the following text...

to Durango:

From Facebook, I recently commented that voter fraud IS a problem, though not necessarily in the way people suspect. I'm sorry, but I cited you and got attacked for same. A screenshot follows. Apologizing in advance!

    -Steve A

PS: Eventually, right will be done in the TRWD. Maybe even the Kelleher censure will be undone....

__________________

Well, that is pretty funny. Apparently this guy reacting to what Steve A had to say about Texas voting fraud had no awareness that the State of Texas is in the midst of investigating this. Reading what this guy had to opine it seems obvious he has no clue as to what the vote fraud issue entails in Texas.

I have blogged about the voting fraud multiple times. I think the first time was right after the results became known of the most recent TRWD board election, when it was obvious something was totally screwy with the results.

The more recent bloggings about this subject include the one Steve A cited on Facebook...

Tarrant Regional Water District Board Election Fraud

and

Is The TRWD-Gate Scandal About To Blow Wide Open?

along with

Evidence Corrupt Tarrant County Political Machine Steals Elections

There you go, several blog posts from a guy no one should believe because he offers no evidence....

A Noble Look At Probable Election Fraud In The Recent TRWD Board Election

Ever since a week or so ago I have been thinking about a blog comment made on the first blogging on the Mary Kelleher blog.


That comment was made by someone noble......

Noble made a comment on the post "Devastated!"

Here's some thoughts about taking on the TRWD:

--I believe most of you challenging the TRWD come from the conservative Tea Party wing of the Republican party. (Correct me if I am wrong, my apologies.) I think you can and should do a much better job of reaching out to liberals/progressives and minorities to join in the cause. I am a life-long leftist and am just as disgusted by TRWD as you are.

--Mail-in ballots are the Achilles heel of the voter ID controversy. I've often wondered why all those who insist that voters present photo IDs say nothing at all about absentee ballots -- the barriers to voting that have been put in place have no effect whatsoever on mail-in ballots. 

--About the election itself. How does the percentage of mail-in ballots compare historically to other elections in Tarrant County? In Texas you can only vote absentee if you will be out of town, are over 65, or are sick or disabled. Can you track down some of the people who voted absentee to verify their status? Did the ballots come from certain precincts? If there really were 10,000 absentee ballots, you should be able to find out if there were some organized effort to get those voters to participate -- out of 10,000 people, someone will talk. Churches, community centers, shopping malls -- somebody got out there and met with large groups and gave them mail-in ballots. (Before the next election, you can reach out to those same groups and convince them why they should support change at TRWD.) And you don't have to 'prove' it in a court of law; if you can put together enough circumstantial evidence you will win in the court of public opinion.

I look forward to updates about fighting the Fort Worth Way on your blog. Good luck!

________________________________________

I don't know if being associated with the Tea Party in Tarrant County is the kiss of death it is in other locations in America, but that is not the part of the Noble comment that caught my attention.

It was what Noble had to say about absentee ballots which interested me.

In the May 9 TRWD Board Election Leonard and Lane each got over 17,000 votes. In the ;previous TRWD Board Election Mary Kelleher was elected with the most votes in TRWD Board Election history, getting something in the 9,000 vote zone.

How can the fact that there were around 10,000 absentee ballots not raise the red flag of likely Election Fraud?

10,000 voters over 65, disabled, or on vacation allegedly went through the bother of requesting an absentee ballot.

Over half the votes cast were absentee ballots.

The TRWD Board Directors, other than Mary Kelleher, and others in the TRWD hierarchy, like Jim Oliver, had a lot to lose if they lost control of the TRWD Board.

Contractors getting sweetheart, no bid contracts. The opening of the public records which the TRWD has now been stonewalling on for years. The likely firing of J.D. Granger followed by an investigation into America's Biggest Boondoggle. The firing of Jim Oliver, whose heavy handed behavior has been the source of a lot of controversy. The removal from TRWD operations of all beneficiaries of nepotism.

A lot of people had a lot to lose if they lost control of the TRWD.

When a low turnout election has something so out of whack as 10,000 absentee ballots, why does this not trigger some sort of automatic election fraud investigation?

The Wikipedia article about Electoral Fraud covers all the ways the TRWD  Board Election could have been stolen.

No one should be so naive as to believe such a thing could not happen in Tarrant County in Texas....

Ballot Bandit Tips On How To Steal An Election In Texas

A week ago if you'd asked me if it were possible to steal an election in modern day America I would likely have opined that such a thing would not be possible, what with me assuming there must be a lot of checks in place to assure the validity of an election.

Who could get away with such a thing?

Well.

A week later, methinks something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

I mean Texas.

Regarding rigging an election the following is what The Economist had to say about election day frauds...

With so many possibilities for subtle rigging, it may seem odd that the crude stuff remains so popular. Perhaps election-rigging is a hallmark of ill-run political systems, where corrupt local officials instinctively revert to the malpractice that comes naturally. Or perhaps, since the clever stuff can go wrong, ballot-stuffing is a safety valve. Politicians in shoddy democracies are learning what leaders in real ones have long known—you can fool only some of the people, and only some of the time.

A Washington Post article titled How to Steal an Election has some interesting information about stealing an election, along with a revealing graphic...

It's easier to rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine, says University of Pennsylvania visiting professor Steve Freeman. That's because Vegas slots are better monitored and regulated than America's voting machines, Freeman writes in a book out in July that argues, among other things, that President Bush may owe his 2004 win to an unfair vote count. We'll wait to read his book before making a judgment about that. But Freeman has assembled comparisons that suggest Americans protect their vices more than they guard their rights, according to data he presented at an October meeting of the American Statistical Association in Philadelphia.

Then there is Arstechnica with an article titled How to steal an election by hacking the vote which includes the following disturbing warning...

What if I told you that it would take only one person—one highly motivated, but only moderately skilled bad apple, with either authorized or unauthorized access to the right company's internal computer network—to steal a statewide election? You might think I was crazy, or alarmist, or just talking about something that's only a remote, highly theoretical possibility. You also probably would think I was being really over-the-top if I told you that, without sweeping and very costly changes to the American electoral process, this scenario is almost certain to play out at some point in the future in some county or state in America, and that after it happens not only will we not have a clue as to what has taken place, but if we do get suspicious there will be no way to prove anything. You certainly wouldn't want to believe me, and I don't blame you.

Well now, what to make of all this? Does it explain the inexplicable in the recent Texas election? I don't know.

But, I think we will find out....