Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton
(image by MOXNEWSdotcomARCHIVE, Channel: MOXNEWSdotcomARCHIVE) License DMCA
Alert!
California poll workers have been told to give all independent voters
“provisional” ballots if they want to vote in Democratic Party. That’s
illegal – and will insure that Sanders voters’ ballots end up in the
garbage, uncounted.
A special bulletin for
California voters. And for the rest of you, how this same trickery –
shifting voters to provisional ballots which are rarely counted – can
steal the White House and Congress for the GOP in November.
Here’s
the 411. If you’re registered as an independent voter in California,
you have the right to vote in the Democratic Presidential Primary. Just
ask for the ballot. But look out! Reports out of Orange County are that
some poll workers have been told to give “No Party Preference” (NPP),
independent voters, PROVISIONAL ballots as opposed to regular ballots.
Voter,
BEWARE! Do NOT accept a PROVISIONAL BALLOT! They’re really “Placebo
Ballots” – they give you the satisfaction of feeling like you’ve voted,
without the inconvenience of anyone actually having to count them!
And
for our readers in the other 49 states: You can bet that the GOP will
be shunting voters to these placebo provisional ballots in November. In
the last election, over two MILLION voters, overwhelmingly voters of
color, were shifted to these rarely-counted ballots. That’s how you
steal elections.
No,
I’m not promoting Bernie, nor Ernie, nor anyone. I’m promoting
democracy. Let’s make sure your vote counts. Read on (or listen in)
while Dennis Bernstein and I take you through that ugly sausage factory
calling the American voting system….
Transcript
Dennis Bernstein:
Greg, welcome back. This week we’ll focus on what Greg calls placebo
ballots, which are incredibly relevant to the upcoming California
primary.
Greg Palast: Glad to be
here for the bulletin. But I want to call it the alert, because I want
people to wake up, get alert, and find out what’s happening in
California and nationwide so you don’t lose your vote.
DB: You’ve done a lot of research on the provisional ballot.
Palast:
If you don’t know what a provisional ballot is, you are probably white.
I call them placebo ballots. They were created by George Bush and Karl
Rove after they swiped Florida in 2000. The Congressional Black Caucus
was very upset that people were not able to vote because they were
falsely removed from the voter roles for all kinds of cockamamie
reasons. So they said, “If your name is not on the voter roles, you
should still be able to vote provisionally. They can check your records
and count your vote later so you don’t lose your vote.” They passed the
provisional ballots through the Help America Vote Act. You can imagine,
Dennis, what happens when George Bush says he’s going to help us vote.
People won the right to a provisional ballot, but we didn’t win the
right to have them counted. They rarely are. That’s why I call them
placebo ballots. They say you can’t vote here, but you can fill out a
provisional ballot. You think if you filled out a provisional ballot,
sign it and stick it in the envelope, it’s counted. It isn’t. The
chances they’ll count it are minimal. It’s like voting, but it’s not
voting.
What does that have to do with California? I
am currently reporting from Southern California, and there’s an Ashley
Beck, who is a poll worker in conservative Orange County. She was being
trained with other poll workers, and they were given some very strange
information. In the California primary, the independent voters
registered as NPP, or no party preference, can vote in the Democratic
primary. They can ask for a ballot and they are allowed to vote. The
Orange County poll workers were told if NPP voters ask for a Democratic
Party ballot to vote for Bernie or Hillary, they are not to be given
regular ballots, but provisional ballots. This shook up Ashley:
“I
was told that all NPP voters are to be given provisional ballots. I was
bothered by that, because I was always told that NPP voters in
California can vote for Democrats and their vote would be counted. I was
a little worried that he was telling all 18 of us poll workers to give
all NPP voters provisional ballots. We all know what happens most of the
time with provisional ballots. They are not being counted.”
They
are not being counted. Here’s the trick: Overwhelmingly, all polls show
that NPP, or independent voters, are Bernie Sanders voters. Regular
registered Democrats tend to slightly favor Hillary Clinton in the
polls. So if you knock out the NPP voters by giving them placebo ballots
– provisional ballots – that’s one way to steal the primary in
California on June 7.
DB: The poll
worker says that everybody knows these ballots don’t get counted, so
there’s some awareness this is another Bernie fake-out.
Palast:
The polls show an overwhelming preference of NPP/independent voters for
Sanders versus registered Democrats who slightly favor Clinton.
And
listen up: If you are in Nevada, Utah or Florida, you are not safe
going into the voting booths either, because provisional ballots are
everywhere in the USA under federal law. People are being given
provisional ballots like candy. In 2008, 2.1 million voters were shunted
to provisional ballots. They might as well have written their vote on
bubbles. 2.1 million voters.
Who gets these ballots
normally? I was on a book tour in Palm Springs and there were about 200
white folk and two people of color in the audience. I said, “Has anyone
here ever gotten a provisional ballot?” The only two Black voters in
the room both raised their hands, and that was it. Black people know
what provisional ballots are, and they probably know that if they fill
one out, the chance of it getting counted is slim. If you are given a
provisional ballot, don’t take it. Demand adjudication – say that
independents are entitled to regular ballots in the Democratic primary.
This is a nationwide problem.
DB:
Give us some history. Tell us about the Laguna and Acoma pueblos in New
Mexico, south of Albuquerque. Tell us about what happened to this
indigenous community and those who called this into question and
defended people’s right to vote.
Palast:
I went to the Acoma pueblo in New Mexico with my investigations team.
The Native Americans who live in the pueblo were voting for city council
in droves because they are very concerned that their land is being
poisoned by the uranium mines – which are going to expand.… Because they
didn’t want their lands poisoned, they had a motive to vote. There was
also a reason for people to not let them vote. The people that wanted
the mine didn’t want the natives to vote. What did they do?
They
told the pueblo residents, “You are not properly registered.” In Native
American communities, they say things like “Your address is incorrect
because it says ‘home next to the Post Office.’” That’s often the only
address in a pueblo, but it’s not a street number, so their registration
is challenged.
There were 200 people in the pueblo
who had their registrations challenged, and they were given provisional
ballots. “Don’t worry. If you overcome the challenge, we’ll count your
vote. Fill out the provisional ballots and put them in the envelope.”
The
county took the ballots and threw them all away because they said they
were in the wrong envelopes. They were the envelopes the government had
given them, knowing they were the wrong envelopes they could then throw
out. That’s how this game is played.
No one is hit
with more provisional ballots than Native Americans. They are one of the
most Democratic Party-leaning groups there are. If you are wondering if
this is a one-party steal system, it was the Democrats who took away
votes of their fellow Democrats at the pueblo because they didn’t like
who they were voting for in the primary. This is typical, as we are
seeing in California right now.
DB: In Arizona, you write about a John Brakey, who worked with Audit Arizona. What happened to him?
Palast:
He’s a great vote theft and election manipulation investigator. He’s
well known in our field and works with a great team of attorneys. He was
a poll watcher in Arizona, and they were taking Hispanic voters,
especially young men, and automatically sending them over to provisional
ballots – which wouldn’t get counted.
They’d say,
“What’s your name?” “Jose Juarez.” “Well your name isn’t on the voter
roles.” Why? When they looked for Juarez, they looked under “W” – I kid
you not! When Brakey complained, the state of Arizona called in the
state cops, not to stop the theft of the vote but to arrest John Brakey,
the poll worker. This is the type of games that are played.
In
California, with the attempt to steal votes by giving independent
voters provisional ballots, for the first time there are a lot of white
people, Bernie voters, who are being treated as if they are Black,
Hispanic or Native American voters.
This is the
typical treatment for voters of color in America, under our apartheid
provisional ballot system we have. Two million ballots in 2008 were
provisional and most were thrown in the garbage. We are heading into a
primary where poll workers are going to try to shunt the independent
voters to the provisional ballots and get their votes thrown away. If
you take a provisional ballot and you are an NPP voter, it will 100% be
thrown away because you’re not allowed to use that ballot even if they
give it to you.
Protect your vote. Go to
GregPalast.com and download 7 Ways to Beat the Ballot Bandits. One is
don’t vote provisionally. You can say, “I want a polling judge to
determine that I get a real ballot.” In California, an independent NPP
has a right to vote in the Democratic primary.
DB:
Is there somebody like a polling judge around? Do they legally have to
produce that person? How does that process work? Many people might want
to fight for their vote but they might be intimidated. They might be
threatened that they are causing problems. They could be threatened with
violations of getting in the way of the vote that’s taking place. How
do you fight this at the front line?
Palast: You do have a right to ask for an adjudication of your vote. There should be a poll judge who is assigned to each poll.
I
would give advice that everyone should have a lawyer, but that’s not
possible. This is how it’s coming down in America. It’s unfortunate and
sad.
Also, outside California, if you can, do
“early voting” in November. If your name is not on the voter rolls,
don’t wait until Election Day to find out. It’s better to vote early so
you can find out if there’s a problem. In California, you don’t have
that choice in the primary. You’ve got to go in and stand up for your
rights. The ACLU and Rock the Vote and others will have numbers for the
general election. We’ll find out what’s available for voter protection
in the June 7 California primary. I was hoping California would be a
little bit cleaner, but it looks filthy already.
DB: How many votes could be at stake in California?
Palast:
There are well over a half million NPP independent voters in California
who all have the right to vote in the Democratic primary. Over half a
million is real numbers in my neighborhood. The Republican Party is
closed to the NPP voter.
DB: The
difference in New York is that the independents were not allowed to vote
in the Democratic primary. Hillary says she has more voters, but it’s
because independents can’t vote. But in California, independents have
the right vote in the Democratic primary, and nobody should tell them
differently.
Palast: 100%. If you
are in the American Independent Party you need to vote for them. But if
you are truly an independent voter, registered as an NPP, you absolutely
have the right to a real Democratic Party ballot to vote in the
Democratic primary for the president of the United States. That’s
California law. There is no reason for a provisional anything. In
California, please check and make sure you are registered. If not, you
will get a provisional ballot that will go to the shredder.
Dennis J. Bernstein is the executive producer of Flashpoints, syndicated on Pacifica Radio, and is the recipient of a 2015 Pillar Award for his work as a journalist whistleblower. He is most recently the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom.
Greg
Palast has been called the “most important investigative reporter of
our time – up there with Woodward and Bernstein” (The Guardian). Palast
has broken front-page stories for BBC Television Newsnight, The
Guardian, The Nation Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Harper’s Magazine. He
is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, Armed Madhouse, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, and the highly acclaimed Vultures’ Picnic,
named Book of the Year 2012 on BBC Newsnight Review. His books have
been translated into two dozen languages. His brand new film of his
documentary reports for BBC Newsnight and Democracy Now! is called Vultures and Vote Rustlers.
0 comments:
Post a Comment