Kitzhaber wins Oregon governor’s race.
Republican Dudley was ahead, but then they slowed down the counting and found 90,000 "last minute" ballots from strongly Democrat districts, and Kitzhaber pulled ahead by one percentage point. How convenient.
Did you know that voting by mail, which is what Oregon does, is the most susceptible system to voter fraud? I'm sure there won't be an investigation though; they only do that when a Republican wins. Still, I have to wonder what the final tally would be, if you subtract all the votes from dead people, and all the votes from illegal aliens with drivers licenses?
And lets not forget to thank the Libertarian and Constitution parties. They each took one percent of the vote. If they had voted Republican... well, they didn't. A perfect example of why I don't support 3rd parties. They are merely vote spoilers. Thanks guys... for NOTHING.
Still, perhaps in an odd way, this outcome might be for the best. If Dudley had got in, he would have been treated like Arnold was in California; blamed for things Democrats have done. As Oregon continues to self-destruct, let the blame fall on Kitzhaber, since much of the trouble we are in came from his previous two terms anyway. Let the Democrats be in charge, and take the blame when the sh*t hits the fan. They've earned it.
If there is a sliver lining to this cloud, perhaps it's this:
Oregon may end up with a tied Legislature next year
Ties all around? The Oregon House could see 30-30 next year, and the Oregon Senate 15-15.
In the Senate, Democrats have already lost two seats, and could lose one more in Clackamas County. In Senate District 3, Sen. Alan Bates, D-Ashland, has lost to Republican challenger Dave Dotterrer. And in Senate District 26, Chuck Thomsen beat Democrat Brent Barton for the seat being vacated by Rick Metsger, D-Welches.
In Senate District 20, Sen. Martha Schrader was trailing Alan Olsen by 300 votes.
In the House, Democrats look to have lost six seats. The race to watch here is House District 37 in Clackamas County, where Republican Julie Parrish leads Democrat Will Rasmussen by 500 votes. Outgoing Rep. Scott Bruun holds the seat, and Republicans need to keep it in order to tie the chamber.
NEW: House Republicans are claiming the race for Parrish, and will put out a statement soon reflecting on a 30-30 House.
In 2003, Democrats gained enough seats to tie the Senate 15-15. But we can't recall a time when both chambers were split at the same time. [...]
After the last term Kitzhaber served as Governor, he declared that Oregon was ungovernable. Lets see how much fun he will have this time, with the new legislature.
As for voter fraud by mail... what's wrong with it? Why is it so easy to do? Let's count the ways:
'VOTE BY MAIL' A FORMULA FOR FRAUD
Quick and easy works for a lot of things. Voting is not one of them.
Making it convenient for citizens to cast their ballots is a good thing, generally, but not if the convenience undermines the integrity of the entire election process.
I live in Oregon, the state that pioneered vote-by-mail. Here, we don’t go to the polls on election day. Instead, the elections division mails our ballots directly to our homes two to three weeks before the election. We mark or punch our ballots at our leisure sitting at the kitchen table and then simply drop them in the mail.
No braving the elements on election day. No fear of an ice storm suppressing voter turn-out. No more waiting in line at the polls or being forced to hurry our decisions because of the long lines behind us. That’s why most Oregonians love vote by mail. It’s quick and easy, the ultimate in voting convenience. But, at what price?
Truth is, vote by mail is a formula for election fraud. The flaw is obvious: From beginning to end, no real human ever has to see the voter’s face. No real person determines that you are who you say you are, or that the person you say you are even exists.
Unscrupulous people can easily mark someone else’s ballot and not get caught. Have any fictitious names you want to vote under? It’s easy. Who’s going to know?Some voter's ballots are mailed to a P.O. Box. The person picking up his mail throws the ballot in the trash if he or she doesn't want to vote on a particular issue. Anyone can retrieve those ballots out of the trash.
In Oregon, anyone who wants to, can have three or four additional ballots mailed to their home. Why vote just once when you can vote early and often? And what about your dog? Shouldn’t he have a say regarding who will represent him in the next legislature? You registered him with the county, why not with the elections division?
Under the old system it was hard to sneak an extra ballot past those ever-attentive little old ladies down at the voting precinct. Unless you were a master of disguises, more likely than not, those gals would recognize you from your earlier trip that same day.
Not so with vote-by-mail. No one has to see your mug in person. Not ever. If you’re a cheat, here’s all you have to do to vote three or four times in the next election: Next time you stop by the local post office or the Department of Motor Vehicles, pick up a handful of voter registration cards. They’re free and there’s no limit on how many you can take. Using your own address, fill in the names of relatives in other states, or easier yet, just make up any names you like. Names that have a minority ring to them are best. With the government’s commitment to political correctness, minority names are less likely to be challenged.
You don’t need to show identification of any kind. You don’t have to demonstrate residency. After all, that would discriminate against the homeless. You don’t have to demonstrate citizenship, either. That would be an attack on minorities and immigrants. All you need is a name, address or a P.O. Box to which the elections division can mail all those official ballots.
When I said you could vote three or four extra times, that was because the folks at the elections division might get suspicious, if you have ten or twenty ballots sent to your little, two bedroom house. If, however, you are the manager of a large apartment complex, the sky’s the limit. You might be able to decide a local election single-handedly. Heck, 500 votes or so in Florida decided the presidency of the United States. Think big!
Of course, I’m not recommending that you actually do this. That would be dishonest, and certainly, there are penalties if you get caught. The chances of getting caught, however, are minimal.
In fact, the only real safeguard in the system is that each ballot has to be signed. All that means, though, is if you’re going to sign lots of different ballots personally, you need to sign each one differently and keep a sample of each signature so you can sign the same in future elections. You can even trace the signatures, so they look identical. (Note: To open a bank account you need two sets of I.D.'s to prove your identity. To cash a check, some banks require thumb prints. Not so with voting.)
There was a case in Oregon recently where a woman traced a dozen or so signatures on a petition. Each signature was examined by a clerk at the elections division and compared to the original signature on the person’s voter’s voter registration card. Every signature was certified as genuine. They weren’t. They were all fraudulent. The woman had traced them from another document, and they only looked genuine. The elections division missed every one of them.
Not too long ago, some renters moved out of a house I own and left the state. Sure enough, a few weeks before the next election, a half dozen official ballots showed up in the mailbox. I could have traced my ex-renters signatures off the rental agreement and onto their ballots and mailed them to the elections division marked any way I chose. Except for God and me, who would have known?
It would have been easy, and the chances that I would have been caught, close to zero. Why? Because there’s simply no way the local elections office can carefully check the signatures on hundreds of thousands of ballots in a short period of time. If the signatures were traced, they probably wouldn’t catch the forgeries anyway, even if they looked carefully at each one.
That’s the problem. Vote by mail is a system designed for honest people. It is predicated on the notion that people are basically good and won’t cheat. Here in Oregon, we hold our elections as if we don’t have dishonest people. Voter fraud happens in Chicago, we say, not here.
Pretty foolish, huh? A pretty naïve way to decide who will be the next president, governor, or mayor and decide the laws the rest of us must live under. I’m sure the founding fathers, with their more realistic view of fallen human nature, would have scoffed at such a system. They designed our entire government to provide checks and balances on man's basic tendency towards corruption.
So, how much voter fraud goes on with Oregon’s vote by mail system? Truth is, God only knows. Literally. [...]
There's more. Read the whole thing... and weep. The question is, what to do about it?
And YES, I am aware that the article is written by Bill Sizemore, who is a controversial figure, to say the least. I'm not endorsing him here. But if anything, his checkered past may actually add credibility to his arguments about voter fraud by mail.
My question is, what reliable safe-guards do we have against the kind of voter fraud he outlines in his article? And who enforces them? This isn't the first time I've seen, where the counting is speeding along, a Republican is winning by a small percentage, then the counting slows down, more ballots are found, then the Republican loses. No investigation, no questions. Am I the only one who thinks it sounds a bit "Chicago style"?
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