What to do about voting "incidents"...

[salguine]

Greetings...

I've never actually generated my own thread here before, but I thought this was important enough to gather input from DUers from as far and wide as possible, so here goes...

"What should you actually do if you witness incidences of fraud or any other irregularities at a polling place?"

I was impelled to do this by the recent reports from a number of Early Voters in West Virginia who had the voting machines switch their Obama votes to McCain votes before their eyes.

I guess I'm even more concerned than usual about election fraud this time, because I really worry about what will happen this time if this election is stolen.

First of all—I've been driven nearly to the edge of insanity by all the DUers who are already doing their end-zone dances and gloating over Obama's victory. It seems insane to me. I find it staggering that people could have so easily and quickly forgotten just what a completely vicious, lawless, amoral bunch of criminals Obama is running against—the type of people who steal elections and start wars that destroy entire countries. They've already stolen two elections—successfully—why in Hell wouldn't they do it again?

Listen, people...they have a lot more riding on stealing this election that they did the last two. These people have been laboring for thirty years to build their fascist totalitarian dictatorship, and, thanks to the utter failure of far too many Democrats in Congress to lift a finger to hinder it, they've come within 98% of achieving it. Congress has basically allowed itself to be made completely irrelevant, and we have an Executive who has the legal power (thanks to those same turncoat Democrats) to literally discard the Constitution, seize control of all three branches of Government, and make himself dictator. Thanks, Pelosi, Reid, Conyers! I'll tell my grandchildren all about you when we're in line to buy splintery toilet paper.

But, as I was saying—do you really think they're just going to mutter "better luck next time" and walk away if Obama wins this election? They've come this close to achieving their goal of a fascist neo-con Amerika, and they're never going to come this close again in their lifetimes...do you really think they aren't going to pull out all the stops to take this away from Obama? I actually suspect that, if they can't manage to successfully steal it by fraud at the polls on November 4, they might just try to steal it with tanks and helicopters before January 20. You can call me a tinfoil-hat nutjob; I don't care...Plenty of stuff has already come to pass in the last eight years that I would once have found laughable.

But anyway...This is rambling on and losing sight of the whole reason I started this in the first place. As I said, I was impelled to write this after the reports of the West Virginia voters who saw the machines literally switch their Obama votes to McCain in front of their eyes. The article said that, when they alerted a poll worker, they were basically blown off and their concerns dismissed out of hand. I don't know about anyone alse, but if I'd seen a machine switch my vote, and been told not to worry about it, they'd have to hold my ass down or Tase me or something. So I got to thinking...Just what steps should someone actually take if there are such irregularities or other incidents at their polling places? These are things I thought about, and I would love to have others offer their input to cover things I missed.

*Have a cell phone with you. You should also have with you a list of numbers to call:
--The nearest Obama campaign office. This is because they will most likely have a network of legal responders already on the grapevine, and they'll know how to get the word out to whoever needs to be contacted. I'd call them first.
--The local and regional media. Granted, they might ignore it; but, given the number of papers that have endorsed Omaba, they might not—you never know. I would probably contact the nearest big papers—I live in Annapolis, Maryland, so I would call the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun. The local Annapolis paper is a silly rag that is regularly filled with outrageous factual errors and shit that is just plain made up, so I wouldn't bother with them. Also call local TV news stations, and if you can, call the major news networks, or at least the bureaus nearest you geographically.
--Call the cops. Election/voter fraud is a crime. Although I'd call the cops last out of all these options, because I've seen too many incidents in the past where local law enforcement were actually used by the two major parties in such a way as to actually violate the law themselves; in fact, it's not inconceivable that you could be thrown out, or even arrested, for being a "troublemaker". You don't want to be cut off at the knees before you've had a chance to make those other calls. But, I'd like to think that most police would work with you if there were reason to believe the law was being broken, so I'd risk it.
--Make sure to get the names of any poll workers with whom you have any exchange in the matter, and the poll worker in charge at the polling place. If there is fraud going on, and they're just blowing you off or otherwise failing to protect the integrity of the voting process, they may actually be in trouble too. It might not be a bad thing if they, themselves, were made aware of that.

Anyway...these are just some thoughts; a jumping-off point, if you will. If people think this might be useful, then by all means add your own suggestions; and if that proves to be helpful, maybe the whole thing could be passed along to the Obama campaign to be distilled down into a concise "How-To" manual for their field offices.

I just don't intend to put up with another theft, or roll over and "get over it". I hope the rest of you out there feel the same.

Best wishes.

[KaryninMiami]

1. Post them here- put in as much info as possible- then ask that DU forward the report everywhere

We need to be the media folks- every time we read about another "incident"- copy and past it and send it to as many media outlets as possible (Cable, Network, local, etc.)and send a copy to the campaign. The more we bombard the media with these events, the better chance we have of getting someone- anyone-- to pay attention. CNN has a number to call as well- I don't have it here- but perhaps someone can post it?

[CitizenPatriot]

2. also let Video the Vote know

they are doing a documentary for evidence of election "episodes" -- anyone can volunteer to be on call to video the vote as well, so if you have a camera and are willing to go to a local polling place where there is a problem, sign up at video the vote.

http://www.videothevote.org