Kudos again to 9NEWS' excellent reporting in the last 24 hours, discrediting a flurry of alarmist nonsense from conservatives about Colorado's mail ballot system. Last night, reporter Brandon Rittiman debunked another truly bizarre lie about Colorado elections, broadcast to millions of FOX News viewers across America yesterday by lead anchor Megyn Kelly:
Tuesday's episode of a Fox News host Megyn Kelly's program incorrectly told viewers that Colorado voters are now able to print ballots using their home computers and vote by turning them in…
The host described it as a "first of its kind election law: a set of rules that literally allows residents to print ballots from their home computers, then encourages them to turn ballots over to 'collectors' in what appears to be an effort to do away with traditional polling places."
While traditional polling places are a thing of the past because of the law, the claim that it allows for home-printed ballots is simply false…
Once again, none other than Republican Secretary of State Scott Gessler is obliged to confirm the news that any voter conversant with the process already knows: this is completely bogus. Other than overseas deployed members of the military, who had the option of being emailed a ballot before last year's election modernization bill, nobody can "print a ballot from their home computer."
It's important to remember that this was not intended to cause controversy locally, since locals know that you can't print a ballot from your computer. The purpose of this very deliberate lie from FOX News is to generate even more vote fraud mythology to reinforce the beliefs of a segment of the electorate who already believes it's happening. Just like James O'Keefe's baiting low-level campaign workers to recite an unworkable fraud proposal, the facts simply do not support the hysteria. Because we think FOX News either knows or should know such elementary facts about Colorado voting law before broadcasting them, the only reasonable conclusion is that the hysteria is an end unto itself.
Watch the video above and tell us we're wrong.
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The closed right-wing information feedback loop is a scary, scary thing, created, promulgated and internalized by very scary, emotionally and possibly mentally disturbed individuals.
Nice to see someone in the media finally starting to stand up and unequivocally debunk this sordid, despicable teabag BS.
I heard all you need to do is write the name your good mama gave you on a napkin or some such now that them DemocRAT fellas (and ladies) passed the voting fraud act and all. Or on a mariHUANA receipt from one of them pot shops you liberals love so much. If you love your vaporizer so much why don't you marry it?? Huh? I expect that's next anyways.
Yep, printing out your own ballot is SO 20th century! Good thing Faux News hasn't found out about all the Democrats with chips embedded in their brains allowing them to cast UNLIMITED ballots telepathically!
You're not supposed to reveal our secrets!
No, no! Everything you say is true! To quote Fox News: "Literally!"
Seeing all this shit with O'Keefe and all the voter suppression nation-wide, I think it's time for me to dedicate a lot of time and energy into registering voters. If it's what these hate-mongering assholes don't want to see, I better make it a reality.
For their own good, I'd like to suggest to conservatives to give up on this "voter fraud" nonsense.
The reality is – the "voter fraud" "issue" that leads to GOPers pushing for Voter ID is the real voter fraud. It is called voter supression and several studies done in states that have passed Voter ID over the pas 6 years or so are showing Voter ID supresses Democrat voters – minorities, young.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg in her most recent dissent on the Texas Voter ID case, called the measur a "POLL TAX"
If the GOP wants to try to re-institute Jim Crow era tactics to maintain power – it will backfire.
Pushing Voter ID and "voter fraud" has and will only continue motivate even more Dems to get out and vote.
It is plain as day, Voter ID and "voter fraud" is in truth a voter suppression tactic by the GOP, the last attempt to stop the wave of minority voters from exercising their constitutionally protected right to vote.
And, it is quite sickening to see Faux News going along with this as the new voice of Jim Crow America.
And don't forget that in the Texas Voter ID case, those 600,000 disenfranchised voters were legally registered and had voted in prior years. So adding the new photo ID requirement nullified their right to vote ex post facto. Justice Ginsburg was justifiably outraged at the actions of the Roberts-led court in allowing that clearly unconstitutional law to temporarily stand during the current election.
Yep, tragically, there is a long history of voter suppression via the courts – case after case after case after case, and why not if you are a rich white man with nostalgia for the 1700s. Just keep putting up as many hurdles as you can to suppress the vote for as long as you can.
At least they have to be more discrete about it now – can't run around with hoods on their heads any more burning crosses and such … Jim Crow Jr. Esquire is who pushes for Voter ID.
For all the right-wing bloviates about political correctness, the masking of those same old racist, classist and other destructive sentiments behind kinder words has done more to keep those ideas alive than anything else. I wonder if the radical right actually likes political correctness because they can believe horrible things, but through saying it just so, they won't get chased out of politics with pitchforks.
That might work, except that you forget . . .
. . . today's right wingers absolutely have no concern about truth, or even truthfulness.
They just broadcast crap to gin up some immediate squeals from their base. Lather, rinse, and repeat.
Their target audience doesn't remember and doesn't care that they were lied to. They are truly WIFs.
And speaking of ballots, here's some more of that fine GOTP "outreach" to Latinos. Looks like they're "reaching out" with a crowbar:
A Hispanic man delivers absentee ballots, and now conservatives want him dead
Looks like this might be a coordinated GOP meme – if they lose, they will try to make 2014 the year the Dems stole the election. With O'Keefe up to no good in Colorado, and Faux News playing along, and this story out of Arizona and Joni Ernst in Iowa prepping her legal team for a recount battle … it seems they want to turn the Dem turnout effort on its head and call it Dems stole the election, which accomplishes two things: 1) gives them a chance to win seats in closes races, and 2) helps catapult the propaganda about the need for "Voter ID" to stop "voter fraud" which further helps them win seats.
Man, they are desperate.
And they can point to all the polls predicting a GOP sweep as "evidence" of vote fraud. You're right, they know they are on the downside of an ugly demographic trend, and are desperate to hang on by any means necessary. No wonder they are talking about secession and civil war (did you see the story about Georgia, South Carolina and Florida banding together to form a new country called "Reagan"?). Totally berserkoid nuts!
That certainly explains ACHole's multiple daily posting of polls. He's the propaganda whore for the GOP here in Colorado.
Besides laying the ground work to claim the election results aren't valid just in case they lose, Republicans are also going preemptive on any efforts to spread mail-in ballots to other states. More people voting makes it imperative that Republicans seek centrist candidates who can win with a diverse electorate which is something that they can't do because of their racist and fearful base. Since by design they can't change the only alternative is to keep as many people from voting as possible. Mail-in ballots are going to be the new boogey man for them. "Elections are being 'stolen' from us with these new fangle voting rules. Don't bring mail-in voting to my state or I'll really go off and you don't want to see an angry, bitter old white racist with bulgy eyes screaming about being a 'victim' again." Mail-in ballots are the wild card this election. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out. Probably nobody is going to be totally happy with the outcome on November 4th which is probably how real elections in Democratic countries should turn out.
Agreed, and in addition to voter ID, voter suppression and voter nullification, the John Birch Society controlled GOP is putting their candidates through a crash course in how not to stick their feet in their mouth while also being a Tea Party loon that has to campaign in public – literally, they are going to school so that they don't become the next Todd Akin and actually tell the truth about the extremist positions they hold.
So we get Cory Gardner's 24/7 evasiveness/lies about personhood, about his so called healthcare plan that was taken from him by the ACA, etc.
We see this with Joni Ernst in Iowa and most other John Birch Society-sponsored GOP candidates – smile, be affable and warm, folksy, and dump billions into TV infomercial ads with the candidate with family and the Rocky Mountain or the Iowa corn fields – it's appeal to emotion while behind the scenes they push extremists ideas.
They aren't modifying their positions to try to adapt to a more moderate electorate. They are bull shitting the electorate with big shit eating grins on their faces and taking away their right to vote to boot.
But they have no good ideas for good governance so ultimately they will find out like Obama that having to make decisions leaves you open to get criticism heaped on you. You don't get to keep the halo when you have to start pissing off people to accomplish things. If Udall loses he will move on to his next life with new goals (aside: There is a get interview in the documentary "Man on Wire" where the interviewer asks Philippe Petit if he was scared of falling from such heights and his reply was that he would fall into a new life. No fear. He is the only man to walk between the World Trade Towers and was a man on a wire for 40 minutes). Udall would be awesome working for Nature Conservancy. If he wins then he gets to continue to defend the right for every American to possess affordable health care and for every woman to be able to decide her own destiny. Either way he is the kind of candidate that I can appreciate and support.
Exactly. If the wave doesn't materialize they'll cry voter fraud which won't change a thing but will be a good fund raiser and more grist for the Fox feedback loop.
I guess there's nothing scarier to a Republican than a dark-skinned man with a loaded ballot in his hand…
And a white woman on his arm.
What's baffling about this is that Fox News is lying to its own base, i.e. people who only watch Fox news. Of course, the Fox broadcasts in many public venues, so it will also catch many low information voters.
The only purpose must be to perpetuate the myth that liberals have no election rules. But those ballots, if anyone is deluded enough to print some weird crap off the internet, vote it, and mail it in, will absolutely not count as provisional ballots. Those poor souls will be disenfranchised.
Military voters deployed overseas are the only exception to that rule – they actually can access a ballot online, vote it, and mail it in. Nobody else can.
The NRA spread similar misinformation in Pueblo during the recall election. They printed out special "hunter orange" voter ID cards to take to the polling places – but they put the wrong dates and addresses on their special day-glo orange voter ID cards. You have to wonder what they were thinking. Fortunately, Pueblo's Clerk was on the case, and mailed all those voters the real yellow ID cards.
It's like the right wing media hacks don't want people to vote – even their own viewers.
It's a GOPer thang, like Brownie said the other day: stupid people shouldn't vote!
Modster and Piss Ant don't seem to have much to say here. It must be especially painful for modster when his hero, Gessler keeps having to agree that these ridiculous rightie claims are untrue. Almost as painful as it must be for Gessler,