Stop the Presses, I'm Still Counting Votes in Iowa! by Stephen Wood
(libertarian)
Friday, January 4, 2008
I was honored tonight when C-Span asked me to count the Iowa Republican Caucus votes for them. Well actually, they didn't ask me, I volunteered, well not actually volunteered, freeze framed to be more precise. Here's what happened.
I was switching channels trying to find the best coverage of the Iowa Caucus and low and behold, our good ole U.S. government came through for me.
C-Span is a pretty fascinating channel to watch. They can't advertise this fact, heck they can't advertise anything, nobody buys commercials on C-Span. They really should talk to the guys at Belliburton, maybe offer them a no bid advertising contract.
I can see their ad campaign in Iraq now. Iraq does have TV you know. They have one TV station and it is conveniently broadcast in english since we own it, I mean we are managing it for them while they are being trained to run Democracy's newest franchised store in Iraq.
The ad campaign would be something like: "We here at Belliburton want to thank the Iraqi people for supporting us as we serve your country. Our first task was to get rid of your old infrastructure so that we may rebuild a better and more profitable future. For Belliburton, I'm Rich Cheney, thank you." I think the commercial would go over very well and at only 42 times the cost of a similar ad in America.
Anywho, C-Span set up some cameras and asked me, ok allowed me to watch as the Caucus votes were read over the phone by an official looking man who was reading very loudly into his phone, the results of the caucus. Upon further examination, I think he must have been ordering chinese take out for the volunteers. Why else would he be looking at a menu and shouting into the phone? "No, 7 Royal Ron Pauls, ok? Now a new order, ok? No, I didn't say New World Order." I have the same problem with my local chinese takeout.
Back to the election though. While he was on the phone ordering more Chicken Huckabee and Romney Noodles, the camera zoomed in on the ballots. Thats when I did it! I froze the picture and there it was, in all it's glory, the totals. I looked carefully at the ballots and candidate's names and noticed one glaring detail.
The smoking gun if you will!
Ron Paul beat Guilianni! That was Awesome! Remember the heated debate where Rudy lectured Ron Paul about the middleeast? In your face Rudy! Oh sure he can say he wasn't trying, but isn't that like saying; "You can't fire me, I'm not a match." I never did understand that argument, but I think beating Guilianni is like way cool if you ask me.
Now back to the caucus votes. Some will complain about the way the votes were counted, some will complain about the fact that Iowa is a rural state and doesn't represent all of America. My uncle will say, "What time is Walter Cronkite on tonight?" I say hooey to all of the nonsense.
I can honestly say that the following statement is 100% true and verifiable, I did a fact check. All of the Presidential Candidates dating back to George Washington have all had their caucus votes called in by cell phones. I know it is true because I did a gut check and my gut tells me that I'm right on this one.
Does anybody really think that this race has been decided by the Iowa Caucus? Not a chance. The Iowa Caucus is like going to the paint store and picking out paint samples for the restoration of your old home. You are trying colors out, that is all. The work is still ahead of you.
As you finally decide on some colors, you find that in some cases it takes a lot more paint to cover over the old colors. It is very difficult to go from one extreme color like black or navy blue to Tuscany yellow and yes that is a color now.
But this is like picking our President; lets say Mitt Romney used to be Blazing Orange and he decided that people no longer like blazing oranges so he went to his political people and said what's the hot new color this year and they said "this year, it's Patriotic Pumpernickel." So they slap 4o or 50 coats of PP on him to get ready for the race.
No matter how much they cover him up, the color he used to be will always show through during the storms.
Ok seriously, there is but one candidate running who hasn't attempted to change colors to be the new "IT" color this season.
Ron Paul has been the same man you see now. As boring as it sounds, he has run an honest campaign. But be honest, wouldnt it be nice to have a President who hasn't been whitewashed to look more attractive? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to introduce your new President to your friends and countrymen with pride? It's been a long time since anyone worked in the Oval Office who could remember the meaning in the colors of our flag, not to mention the oath he took to get there.
He may be as bland as milk toast but he has always been the same color in his policies and beliefs, so no real drama and not that exciting if you ask the pundits and the color analysts on the news shows.
But the color of his character matches perfectly, the place to which he desires to reside. Why do you think they call it the White House?
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Black Box Voting is throwing red flags on the Iowa Republican Caucus.
And with the Republican race, I wouldn't look first at fraud in the number one position. I'd look for it in the area of repositioning candidates in the second through sixth spot.
- The delay in results is a red flag. - The vote totals going down during the count is a red flag. - The failure to release county results in live time, as promised in a Republican Party press release on Jan. 2, is a red flag. - The failure to release precinct totals at all is a corrupt procedure. Note that the day before the caucuses, after much pressure, the Republicans did (belatedly) promise to release the precinct results on election night. They didn't.
In addition: I'm trying to get information on whether the public was kicked out of the room during hand counting in all locations, or just some.
Iowa runs a very open caucus. Votes are taken on ballot. One supporter representing each campaign is invited to supervise the count. One supporter representing each campaign is invited to observe the chariman or secretary call in the vote totals to ensure they are all read correctly.
All of this occurred at my caucus site and the caucus site of family and friends that I compared notes with afterwards. In addition to this, many precincts called the Ron Paul HQ and conveyed the counts to them as well as a separate check/balance. So if there was a discrepency, we'll should be hearing from Dr. Paul shortly.
Also, a slightly unique aspect of the current caucus is the fact that there are so many Republican candidates. It would be difficult and unbelievably ballsy for one of your neighbors to try to sway a vote (especially given the above process) as it would not only piss off Ron Paul supporters...but it would piss off all of the other candidate supporters as well.
Lastly, a Washington D.C. representive of Dr. Paul's campaign told a pre-caucus meeting crowd last week (of which I was a part of) that if we could take at least 10% of each precinct, that would be a success.
Now if we can just up that by 1 % every (or every other) state...we should be sitting pretty.
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