Memorial Day, and what it means

Today is Memorial Day.

Today is the day we honor and acknowledge those who died in military service on behalf of this country.

Today is the day we honor and acknowledge that sacrifice in defense of our nation, our form of government, our Constitution.

The core premise of our government, what is established by our Constitution, what was so beautifully articulated by Abraham Lincoln, president during the Civil War which inspired this holiday, is "government of the people, by the people, and for the people". 

That is what those men and women, all of them back to the American revolution died to protect and defend and to ensure continues.

That government of the people, by the people, takes place through the function of one man (or woman), and one vote.

That is NOT one vote ONLY for a few, special, privileged people who have the 'right' color, ethnicity or origins, the 'right' religion, or the 'right' economic status, or the 'right'  political ideology.

That is the opposite of one person/one vote.  That is the opposite of legitimate representative government - the form of government that defines our nation. 

That was what those wars where those people died we honor today were fought to oppose - to prevent control of government by the few, to prevent human beings from treatment as second class citizens.

I think about that every time I see an effort by conservatives to suppress or limit or restrict or in some way impair or make more difficult the right of people - American citizens - legally to exercise their right to vote.

The National Report recently ran this headline, reflecting an ugly moment of honesty and candor:

Secret McConnell Recording: Tea Party Lost Primaries Because It “hasn’t learned to conceal its racism”

“They have their strong base, their core. But, they don’t have success courting the middle. You know why? It’s their overt racism. The Tea Party hasn’t learned to conceal its racism. That’s where they fail. The Republican party knows better. Want to keep minority voters from the polls? Fine, set up hindrances to “prevent voter fraud”. Want to cut social services? Fine, but do it for “fiscal conservatism”. These Tea Party idiots and their supporters are out hollering the N word, calling Obama an ape, suggest Michelle is a transvestite. That alienates the middle. That’s what costs them. You want to think those things? Think them to yourselves. You want to legislate against that them? Come up with an excuse. The Tea Party will remain an also ran unless they work on their poker face a bit more”.

It should be obvious to Mitch McConnell and to all conservatives that keeping minority voters from the polls, or keeping anyone from voting as easily as others vote that he is dishonoring what those veterans fought and died to protect by voter suppression.

By voter suppression I mean:

• creating long lines by reducing polling places or making them inaccessible, 
• reducing early voter days, 
• not providing bathrooms to people who come to a location to vote, 
• purging legitimate voters from voting rolls, 
• voter ID when there is not a problem with voter fraud that would be solved by that solution-in-search-of-a-problem, 
• laws which disenfranchise criminals who have paid their debt to society so as to disproportionately disenfranchise minority ethnicities
• laws which make it more difficult or expensive for people to register to vote
• laws which privatize voting, and which require voting machines that result in 'hanging chads' or dubious electronic results vulnerable to tampering

Think of that today. Think about what people died to preserve, think about the ideal, think about Lincoln's words (a liberal), think about Jefferson's words (another liberal) in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

All men (and women) are created equal, have equal rights, all men - and women - NOT some second class citizens.  Men and women have bled and died for that.

Concealed Carry as the Solution for Voter Fraud!

Sarah Silverman has it sussed!  What are those voter suppression laws really meant to do?

Why, get more guns on the street, of course!

Government of the People, By the People, For the People Is Under Attack by Conservatives

The United States has the highest rate of people who are incarcerated in the world.
By that definition, having the highest number of imprisoned citizens, we are NOT the freest nation on earth. We do not have more crime than any other nation in the world.

By the definition that we are free because we have representative government, government as when Lincoln said, of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.....we have an appalling level of voter participation.
We are not free when those people who CAN vote DON'T engage in that civic exercise of governing.
We are free, as other nations are free, when we have the power to vote our government into and out of office, not when we are allowed to use lethal force on each other.  Courtesy of the excellent group, Why Tuesday, I discovered that we ranks 138th out of 172 nations in voter turnout historically, and DEAD LAST in voter turn out since 1945, with an average rate of voters participating of 47.7% since 1945.
A few of the many many countries which vote at a higher rate of participation than we do:

Italy (92%),
New Zealand (86%),
Canada (82.6%),
Thailand (82.1%),
Greece (80.8%),
Germany (80.2%),
Israel (73.8%),
Japan (68.7%)
Costa Rica (68.1%),
France (67.3%), 
India (61.55),
Jamaica (58.6%),
Russia (56.6%),  

As a comparison, in Iraq in 2005, their voting turnout rate was 79.63%, with a 1.66% of invalid votes cast; by 2010 that rate had dropped to a still very healthy 64%, with no available rate of invalid votes that I could readily find (but no indication either that the percentage had gone up), and a 3 million+ increase in registered voters, as context to the percentage of voter turnout.  Especially given the problems with their infrastructure, I find this voter participation rate still certainly acceptable as a legitimate election.
Libya had in their first election, over 60% voter turnout, but that would have been higher if it were not for some extremely adverse conditions in some areas:

Libya’s first election in six decades reportedly had a high voter turnout, but the day was plagued by still-formed rebel militias committing acts of violence and sabotage and preventing over 100 polling stations from opening.
There have been reports of protesters storming a few polling stations in the eastern city of Benghazi and in the eastern town of Rad Lanuf, militias prevented voters from voting.

With nobody shooting up our polling places, we still manage less than 50% average turnout for elections?  And our response is to continue to disenfranchise MORE legal voters? In the context of a nation founded on representative government, of government of the people, by the people, FOR THE PEOPLE -- how does that make sense?
Egypt had a 62% voter turnout for their primary, and as with Libya, they had some polling place obstacles. Tunisia had a voter turnout of over 90% at their first election since ousting a dictator. 
In contrast, the Minnesota 2012 primary had a voter turnout of 9%, one of the two lowest primary voter turnouts since 1950; in 2004, it was 7.73%.  A small but possibly mitigating factor, the state did change the primary dates; this was the second election on the earlier date.
The only highlight in that regard was the news about the CD6 area primaries, per MPR News:

Bachmann scores weakest Minn. GOP US House incumbent primary win in 50 years
Smart Politics: "Michele Bachmann's 80.4 percent primary vote total on Tuesday was the smallest vote percentage received by a Republican member of the U.S. House from the Gopher State since 1962 spanning 75 incumbent reelection bids."
Over the next 25 cycles since the Election of 1964 - which includes 75 Republican incumbents running for reelection - no Minnesota GOP U.S. Representative received a lower vote total than Bachmann's 80.4 percent on Tuesday.
In fact, most candidates never even faced a challenger, with 63 of these incumbents running unopposed during this span.
The last time a sitting GOP U.S. Representative from Minnesota faced two challengers at the primary stage was 1956 when 8-term incumbent Joseph O'Hara was opposed by Alf Swenson and Walter Muhlenhardt.

Add to that this info from the STrib on Bachmann's fund raising, I have to look at the 2012 elections as a possible victory for government by the governed, instead of by--- or buy --- the bought and sold:

A Star Tribune analysis of her most recent financial reports shows that up to 80 percent of her reported contributions came from individuals outside Minnesota, up from 63 percent in a similar study done in April 2010. 

The prevalence of outside money in elections seems to be a new development, one that allows large special interest donors, both corporate and private individuals, (who expect favors after elections) to use their larger amounts of money-as-speech donations to try to dominate elections through media influence, both by donating directly to campaigns, and indirectly to PACs and SuperPACs. 

I find myself wondering, but cannot find direct research to support or refute it, if this has so discouraged the individual voter as to their capacity to participate in government as to contribute significantly to our voter apathy.  It certainly suggests that for a variety of reasons, Michele Bachmann has a diminished base, but also that this is reflected in part in lower voter turnout beyond her district, as was the case as well in the 2010 election which had an increase in voter turnout for some states, but a decrease in others, ending up around 43% voter participation.

Specifically, there were significant declines in voter participation among some groups more than others - notably younger voters and minorities, where there had been an increase in voter participation in 2008.  This is one of the currently under-represented demographics from which we should look to improve our voter participation percentages:

But the bad news is what voices are being heard or not heard. Voting turnout rates were down among young voters (18-29) and blacks made up a lower percentage of voters in 2010 than in 2008 when Obama’s candidacy excited African-Americans to vote. For example, blacks made up 12% of voters in 2008 and appeared to make up just 10% of voters in 2010 (based on exit polls). This drop, if it holds up in more authoritative numbers like the Current Population Survey would negate this encouraging finding reported in 2008 that the black-white voting gap had disappeared. [Exit polls suggest that Hispanics maintained their share of the electorate, rising from 7% in 2008 to 8% in 2010, although one would have to compare this rise against their expanding voting-eligible numbers to truly understand whether their political voice was diluted, and if so, how much.] It wasn’t a simple story of the richest folks’ accounting for more of the votes, since those earning $100,000 or more accounted for 26% of the votes in both 2008 and 2010, but due to the elimination of restrictions on corporate campaign contributions in the wake of the 2010 Citizens United case, the wealthy disproportionately had chances to influence election outcomes even before voters got to their polling places.

If you look at the  changes and attempted changes to voter laws, this is also the demographic that the Republicans and Tea Partiers and other conservatives are most seeking to dispossess from their legal voting rights through voter suppression.
But it goes further than that.  As was noted in the Citizens for Election Integrity Report:   

There is a great racial disparity in disenfranchisement of the voting-age population in Minnesota. One out of 10 voting-age black Minnesotans cannot vote because of a felony conviction while one out of 100 voting-age white Minnesotans cannot vote for that same reason.

Since 1974, the disenfranchisement rate for felons in Minnesota has increased over 700 percent.

That latter figure, the increase in felon disenfranchisement of 700%, is not unique to Minnesota; it is as high or higher in other states.  Beginning with Richard Nixon era, there was a significant change in the categorization of crimes through legislation.  The result of those changes was to make what had previously been misdemeanors into the more serious criminal category of felonies.  This change, usually under the guise of getting tough on crime, resulted in a hugely disproportionate effect on different demographic populations (see above).  But more significantly, it began to affect election outcomes by drastically changing the population base of legal voters.  Effectively, this made felons out of individuals who previously had only committed misdemeanors, even though the crime was the same, and the degree of seriousness in terms of harm or frequency was essentially the same.  In other words, the crimes themselves did not become more serious, only the level of penalty did. 

This legislative trend continued regardless of an increase or decrease in crime.  There are scholars who argue that the trend to make more crimes felonies, because the pattern does not appear to have a causal correlation to increases or decreases in crime rates, was not really about being tougher on crime, it was an attempt to reverse the gains made by blacks and other minorities in voting rights.

The use of disenfranchisement to target specifically removing the voting rights of minorities, particularly blacks, goes back a long way.  This example provides an overview of Virginia legislation, but it is true in varying but significant degrees in all 50 states and DC.  In Virginia it affects 1 in 5 blacks, in Minnesota it is 1 in 10:

...the state’s modern history of felon disenfranchisement dates back to 1870 when, after the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guaranteeing the right to vote to all, Virginia lawmakers added the felon disenfranchisement provision to the Virginia Constitution. At the time, scores of former slaves were being arrested and convicted of crimes, and the lawmakers knew that the felon disenfranchisement provision would have an adverse impact on black Virginians.

Efforts to disenfranchise minority voters continued with the 1901 Constitutional Convention when legislators, who were still intent on denying the vote to African-Americans, also mandated the poll tax and a literacy test as requirements to vote. And, as the policy’s originators intended, felon disenfranchisement continues to disproportionately impact minority communities today. In Virginia, one in five African-American adults is disenfranchised. (pdf)

The number of disenfranchised people continues to grow, and our current “tough on crime” justice system contributes to that increase. Each year, legislators classify more and more crimes as felonies, ensuring that more individuals are denied the right to vote, potentially for the rest of their lives. A quick search of the Virginia code shows that there are over 240 references to a class 6 felony, which happens to be the penalty if someone were to steal a chicken valued between $5 and $200, or a goat valued at less than $200.

The majority of people convicted of felonies are not murderers, and many may not even serve time in prison. The vast majority of disenfranchised persons are no longer incarcerated, have “paid their debt to society” and are tax-paying citizens with jobs and families who are involved in their communities. They deserve the right to vote and have a say in who represents them.

In addition to being the just thing to do, restoring voting rights is sound policy. Restoring voting rights reduces crime. Research shows that individuals who vote after completing their sentences are half as likely to commit another crime as those who do not vote. (pdf) Additionally, law enforcement officials have recognized that successful offender re-entry and civic participation are connected. The Brennan Center for Justice reports that the American Probation and Parole Association released a resolution calling for restoration of voting rights upon completion of prison, finding that “disenfranchisement laws work against the successful re-entry of offenders.”

While other discriminatory measures aimed at barring African-Americans from voting, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, have been repealed, felony disenfranchisement continues.

The studies done by Uggens and Manza, notably their 2002 study, was an extraordinary analysis of the results of disenfranchisement on elections.  The results of that study are built upon in subsequent studies:

Uggens and Manza (2002), for example, recently found felon disenfranchisement policies have significantly altered U.S. Senate election results, and may have influenced presidential elections as well. Clearly, by depriving 2.4 million people of their right to vote, election outcomes are impacted. ...Many disenfranchised voters are Democrats, and as Uggens and Manza (2002) note, Al Gore would have likely beaten George Bush in 2000 had any of a number of disenfranchised groups had the right to vote in that election, not to mention numerous competitive elections at lower levels of government.....The prison population has a disproportionate number of minorities, uneducated, and poor, compared to the general population (Irwin, 1970, Schmallenger, 2005).  While the 2000 U.S. Census reports that non-white population in the United States is fewer than 20% of the total, ethnic and racial minorities account for two-thirds of the prison population (Sentencing Project, 2004; see also Kennedy 1997; Mauer 1999).

Although I do not have the studies to hand in order to quote their meticulous analysis, it would also be likely that Al Gore would have defeated George W. Bush in 2000, if LEGAL voters had not been improperly denied their right to vote through voter roll purges.  The distinction here is between long term changes to the population of legal voters, versus last minute quick and dirty attempts to alter elections by changes to the legal voter rolls.
Other studies, like the above Political and Demographic Explanations of Felon Disenfranchisement in the States, seeks to understand how this happened, by looking at two factors:

Specifically, our model examines the internal characteristics in the scope of felon disenfranchise policy along two substantive areas: 1) POLITICAL (government and citizen ideology, party competition, and political culture) and 2) DEMOGRAPHIC (size of prison population, size of minority population, proportion of population over 65, average state education level, and urbanization).

The Abstract of the above scholarly analysis notes a change in numbers; when Uggens and Manza had done their analysis prior to 2002, (quoted in this research), the number of felons was 2.4 million; now it is approximately 5 million, and growing.

Nearly 5 million Americans are currently deprived of their right to vote as a result of state laws which prohibit voting by felons and ex-felons.  With the exception of Maine and Vermont, every state denies incarcerated individuals the right to vote, and in 12 states felons are permanently banned from voting (Sentencing Project 2004).  This research explores the political and demographic factors that influence the probability of a state adopting more or less stringent laws regarding a felon's right to vote.
So there is clearly a direct connection between our clearly legal voting citizens who are allowed to vote, our minority citizens who are disproportionately denied the right to vote by Republicans in a manner which alters election results in favor of Republicans, affecting both legal and previously legal voters.
From the Review of Policy Research, the Wiley On-line Library

Voter Disenfranchisement and Policy toward Election Reforms

1. Anne Kiehl Friedman

Article first published online: 29 NOV 2005

DOI: 10.1111/j.1541-1338.2005.00176.x

Issue

Review of Policy Research

Volume 22, Issue 6, pages 787–810, November 2005

Abstract How did poverty, race, population density, and other demographic characteristics affect disenfranchisement in the 2004 presidential election? I argue that there are two types of disenfranchisement: partisan disenfranchisement, which targets Democrats, and structural disenfranchisement, which targets members of low-status groups. Drawing demographic data from the United States census in 2000, and voting data from the secretaries of state websites, I use a negative binomial regression to correlate these variables with the incidence of voter disenfranchisement as collected by the Election Incident Reporting System, for the three “swing” states of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, with the “safe” states of California and Texas as controls. The results of this analysis indicate that disenfranchisement increases with population density, Black population, Democratic loyalty, and as the margin of victory decreases. Income and education also correlate with an increase in reported incidents of disenfranchisement, but that likely reflects the failings of self-report data.

We are not the land of the free that we aspire to be, that we like to claim to be.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, as proclaimed by the great Republican President Abraham Lincoln is under attack --- from Republicans.

We are the land of the disenfranchised and the incarcerated, we are the land of the apathetic citizen who does not vote, in alarming numbers in contrast to other nations, even when we can vote in honest elections. The change we need to make is towards more and better representative government, by encouraging and enabling a greater number of our citizens to vote, not by discouraging more of them from voting. The last thing we need is by more voter suppression; we need the opposite, voter encouragement and a renewal of faith in an effective system.

Another Example of Republican Bait-and-Switch Deliberate LIES about Voter Fraud and Voter ID

This article says it all; I couldn't have identified the bait and switch or the deliberte, calculated lies any better.

The next time someone claims the Republicans and the Tea Partiers are racist, point to this.  This is the same contiuation of racist strategies, like Nixon and Pat Buchanan's 'southern strategies' to disenfranchise people of color.  There is no requirement for an expression of animosity towareds a race or ethnicity for racism to exist; wherever there is a significantly disproportionate effect in a law or policy that affects a minorty, in this case blacks and hispanics, RACISM EXISTS.  This is intentional racism.

From 'This Can't Be Happening' by way of Laci :

Voter ID Laws Expose GOP Vote Fraud Scheme

Fri, 08/03/2012 - 08:25 — Anonymous

by:

Linn Washington Jr.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, the same conservative Republican who recently cut 70,000 from receiving their meager welfare payments in order to cut government costs, is ready to spend millions of bucks to implement a voter suppression scheme that evidence indicates is a blatant partisan measure designed to help Mitt Romney gain a presidential election victory.
Earlier this year Corbett and his confederates in Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled legislature approved one of the nation’s most restrictive photo Voter ID measures to squash what they claimed was frequent voter fraud particularly in Democratic strongholds like Philadelphia – the state’s largest city.
However, Corbett Administration officials now admit that the fraud their Voter ID measure seeks to corral – persons falsely impersonating someone else on Election Day – is virtually non-existent in the state.
Corbett Administration officials, during a state court hearing on a lawsuit to block implementation of this Voter ID law, acknowledged they had uncovered no evidence of past impersonation fraud and found no evidence that it will occur in the 2012 presidential election.
In fact during the eight years Corbett served as Pennsylvania’s attorney general before his election to governor in 2010 he never prosecuted a single voter fraud case.
Republican-led states are setting up new Jim Crow voting obstacles in a desperate effort to win in November

“When we argued against this measure earlier this year we said this was a solution seeking a problem because there was no such ID fraud in the state,” Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent Hughes (D-Phila) said. All Democrats in the stata legislature voted against the ID measure.
“We knew the only purpose of the bill was to impact the November election,” Hughes said. “There is no question this is purely about partisan politics.”
Persuasive confirmation of voter suppression charges from Hughes and others came in late June when the Republican House Majority Leader proudly announced during a Republican Party meeting that the true intent of Voter ID was helping Romney win Pennsylvania.
House Leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny), when listing 2012 GOP legislative accomplishments said, “Voter ID which is going to allow Gov. Romney to win Pennsylvania – Done!”
During the 2008 presidential election, Democratic candidate Barack Obama won Pennsylvania by 600,000 votes.
Corbett Administration officials, during that week-long court hearing, testified that 759,000 Pennsylvania residents do not have the kind of state-issued ID (a driver’s license or DMV issued ID) the new law demands for voting, rendering those otherwise eligible voters suddenly ineligible to vote. Many, if they are not paying attention, won't even know this until they step up to the table at a voting place to sign in and cast a ballot.
Officials also admitted that another 500,000-plus state residents are now ineligible to vote because their drivers' licenses have expired.
“The number of people that lack the required ID is staggering,” Advancement Project lawyer Penda Hair said. The Project, the ACLU and other organizations filed the lawsuit seeking to stop implementation of the Voter ID law.
During the rushed passage of the Voter ID law, GOP proponents falsely declared the measure would impact about one percent of Pennsylvania's eligible voters. But during the court hearing election officials admitted the measure would ensnare nearly ten percent of the state’s eligible voters.
Pennsylvania’s Voter ID law requires a photo driver’s license to vote. Persons without a driver’s license can obtain a non-driver’s photo ID. However, to obtain the required ID, a person must produce specific documentation such as a certified birth certificate or Social Security Card. A college student photo ID and even military ID is not acceptable.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Carol Aichele, the official charged with overseeing Pa elections, testified at the hearing that she doesn’t “know what the law says.”

What I Learned from My First Day as an Election Judge

Less than a month ago, I took the training offered through my county to become an election judge. I signed up for that training by contacting the county auditor/treasurer who has the duty to administer elections, and I also had to go through our township clerk, who administers the precinct in which I live, because I had indicated I wanted to work in that precinct, but some election judges end up serving in other precincts, for a variety of reasons.
The regular training was two hours long, of pretty compressed content; by that, I mean every possible topic was covered, thoroughly, but it moved along pretty briskly.  There was time allowed for questions and answer.  Many of the people in our class were previous election judges; some of them with decades of experience, including two who remarked on one questionable voter they had known personally, and reported to the County Attorney for voting in the wrong precinct after the election, but who was allowed to vote in the last election.
There were roughly 40 people in my class, which was one of I believe 18 sessions of the training offered by my county.  It is my understanding that every election, no matter how experienced, EVERYBODY goes through at least the basic 2 hour training.  I didn't get the impression there was a lot of turn over in election judges, but rather that the overwhelming majority do it every election.  There is not a high turnover rate, apparently, and this is apparently fairly typical across the state as a general observation.  Some of the people I actually worked with, but who were not in my class session, had served as election judges for decades, between thirty and forty years.
I took the extra hour of training which was required to be a head election judge; most of that training involved hands on experience with trouble shooting the equipment used in the election.  That involved the ballot counting equipment, and a device that is an auto-marker, which allows disabled people to mark their ballots without an individual assisting them if they so desire.  It can provide ballot assistance by voice, it has keys for Braille, it has a screen that can enlarge the type face on the ballot to gi-normous, and it can reverse the type so it shows up white on a dark background, which is apparently helpful for people who suffer from a particular type of vision difficulty associated with macular degeneration.  It has a lot of bells and whistles, but it is a pain in the butt to actually use.  We were given the advice however that for the primary election, where one cannot cross over between the two parties in voting, when someone is having problems repeatedly spoiling a ballot so that it cannot properly be counted by the ballot counting equipment, to steer people to the auto mark because it only lets them choose one or the other party, and will prevent additional spoiled ballots.
We also had a magnifying glass available for any individual who found a ballot difficult to read.
During my shift, we had five spoiled ballots.  One person didn't get their ballot properly marked until the third try; two others simply made mistakes.  Spoiled ballots are kept in a separate file, but ALL of them are kept. 
The day of the primary, I had the early shift - I was assigned to be at our polling place at 6:30 for polls opening at 7 a.m., along with one other person.  A few other people were assigned at 6, to prep the polling place.  Two of us were not necessary for that part, but our shifts overlapped the majority shift change, so that transitions would be easier, if we were really busy at the shift change hour.  Two of our judges were a husband and wife couple.  It used to be that they couldn't serve in the same precinct in an election, so one of them would go to the next nearest town, some 5-8 miles away.  Now they are allowed to serve in the same precinct, but not on the same shift.  The wife was the other judge with whom I counted and initialed ballots.  She and her husband have been election judges for decades.  I was the only new person, the first addition in quite a while.
My contribution to the opening of the polling place was to count the ballots in the package, and to then be one of the two judges to initial each ballot.  They are slightly heavier than regular typing or copy paper, so it often feels like you have two stuck together.  One of the election judges helping to open the polls recalled an election a few years earlier (few being more like 8 or 10) where two ballots HAD stuck together, resulting in the ballot count being off by 1, which took them 4 hours longer to resolve than would otherwise have been necessary to close the polls and go home after the election, so I and the other election judge entrusted with initialing ballots were told to be very accurate, and take as long as we needed to do so to be sure every pack matched up properly in number.
Yes, THIS is the exciting kind of jobs entailed in election judging. If you dislike detail work, it will drive you nuts.  If you have a low threshold for boredom, you will be climbing the walls very quickly. If you're not a people person........don't do this, you'll hate it.  But the people who volunteer to do this work were very pleasant, and that made it much less tedious to do.
I learned that the past two primaries, since the dates were moved back into August from September have been significantly lower in turnout, and ours was from the September numbers.  It was a gorgeous day, and I'm sure there were voters who preferred to head for the golf course or other activities if they could get away from working etc.  I learned that the number of ballots we were provided expanded by 10% on the previous primary, to account for possible increases in population of people who had turned 18 in the interim.  I don't know if that is the formula used by other areas, but I do know that a shortage of ballots has not been a significant problem.  I haven't found any election judges personally who have experienced that problem in Minnesota but I don't claim to have met every election judge, obviously.  However unlike other states, a ballot shortage isn't a significantly reported problem.  In states where ballot shortages do occur, they have tended to be Republicans shorting Democratic leaning voting districts, btw.
So after the ballot counting and initialing took place, and the official declamation of the polls being officially opened after all appropriate signage inside and out had been installed, including the flag put in place - a requirement - we unlocked the doors and ........waited.  I had indicated that I would like to rotate through the different tasks, but instead I ended up spending the entire day checking people in with the voter roster. 
The top ranking head judge/township clerk, a veteran of decades of elections, took care of same day registration, of which we had zero.  Although one elderly couple was brought in by their daughter to register.  Maps were brought out, precinct boundaries were checked, and every possible bit of minutiae was verified.  Our polling place was actually closer to where the elderly couple lived, as they were near the border between the precincts, which was why their daughter made the mistake of bringing them to our location.  The essence of the registration was resolved quite efficiently, but due to the low turnout, the clarification was in some small measure, part of the social aspect of the community as well as just the business of voting.
I had one of the books, the registered voter roster, for the first part of the alphabet.  Part of familiarizing myself with it, prior to the anticlimactic opening of the doors, was to go through it page by page.  The point was to check to see if we had any names which included indicators of the numeric identifier for a different school district.  Some precincts included parts of four school districts; ours was almost entirely one school district, with a small area that belonged to another school district that overlapped our jurisdiction.  After checking every entry on every page in the roster, we concluded that every name was in the same school district.
But because voter turnout was low and slow, we also checked all of our maps.  The conclusion of the combined judges who had, with the exception of myself, each lived in the area for multiple decades, was that the area was definitively farm fields, without any residence on it that would belong to the other school district.  There wasn't a ballot issue for the school district or any school board elections etc. on the primary ballot, but this was in part in anticipation of there being something on the general election ballot in November.
The other purpose in going through the roster was to look for notations of a voter challenge.  In my book, the one covering the first part of the alphabet, there were four.  One was a married couple, listed at the same address, with the notation of mail returned.  Several of the judges had seen the couple in the past week, and could verify that they still lived at that address.  A third entry was also a notation of mail returned. And one entry had a felony notation.  Special verification was required if one of those individuals presented themselves to vote; none of them did, during my shift.  That verification by the head election judge would have required some questions to clarify the challenge to affirm appropriate legal voting status, and in the case of the felon notation, confirmation would be sought from the county auditor's office, which would verify with any other office or agency whatever was necessary.
None of those people, or anyone with a notation in any of the other voter roster books showed up during my shift, which covered the first half of the day.  However, the notations DID present the opportunity to bone up on some of the finer points of getting people signed in on the rosters before they were directed to the person handing them voters their ballots in the secret ballot plastic sleeve.
Again, out came the various maps with the official boundaries of the precincts outlined on them.  It turns out that there were a few houses that had changed the precincts in which they fell.  We had very badly damaging storms since the 2010 election.  The houses hadn't moved; there wasn't any Wizard-of-Oz activity, but one house in our precinct that was located on a corner lot HAD changed where their garage was rebuilt, and where their driveway came out to the road.  This changed the street on which their address was located.  They had not moved, but when that address change had occurred, they had not updated their voter registration.  I don't think that would have occurred to me to do either if I hadn't moved from the same house.  That was the explanation for one registration with a returned mail notation.  Another house was right on the dividing line of the precinct boundary; while those people had previously voted in the adjoining precinct, this year they had to vote in our jurisdiction, because someone with more patience than I have made the legal distinction that where the bedrooms are in the house, rather than living rooms or other rooms are located, was the determining factor in assigning them to their voting precinct.  (Our head judge had gone to a further special training session as did other clerks or persons with his responsibility, in St. Cloud.)
By the time we worked through those several notations, and heard some of the highlights of the minutiae covered in the other training session above and beyond the head judge training I took, I can perfectly understand the kinds of challenges to proper versus improper voting that can occur, including people voting accidentally in the wrong precinct on some technical change.  I can see how some kinds of clerical errors could occur as well, but none of those would constitute errors that would invalidate an election, or constitute theft of an election, or any form of voter fraud, deception, or outright illegality.  I have a much better understanding now of exactly what kind of challenged voter registrations for previously registered voters or even same day voters can occur.
What I learned from my participation in a low turnout primary, but one that uses the same voter registration lists as the larger general election, and which operate in exactly the same way by the same rules and procedures in larger elections, is that we have very careful, accurate, and sometimes technically complicated by-the-rules elections.  What we don't have is voter fraud, or any election problem that would be improved by voter ID or the other very partisan changes that are being pushed on Minnesota.  What each of those changes would do is to harm the integrity of one voter / one vote elections, and would consistently and exclusively help Republicans by eliminating Democratic voters --- along with disenfranchising some Republican voters as well.

It doesn't particularly surprise me that a group that starts out with a preconceived assumption, and no particular qualification in training to interpret data or to understand proper scientific processes, like the Minnesota Majority and the other voter fraud promoting groups; they get their facts wrong. 

I would suggest anyone taking an objective view of their work first familiarize themselves with cognitive bias.  Here is a short list from the wikipedia entry for cognitive bias, which provides an excellent introduction to the topic:

Framing by using a too-narrow approach and description of the situation or issue.
Hindsight bias, sometimes called the "I-knew-it-all-along" effect, is the inclination to see past events as being predictable.
Fundamental attribution error is the tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions; this is related to the concept of cognitive dissonance.
Self-serving bias is the tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than failures. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests.
Belief bias is when one's evaluation of the logical strength of an argument is biased by their belief in the truth or falsity of the conclusion.

This list is only a partial one of cognitive bias; but as wikipedia noted, these are some of the most commonly studied, and therefore better documented examples of it.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist or some other kind of genius to understand that the organizations trying to find voter fraud in Minnesota are wrong, that they are not proficient or well trained, they are not authoritative in election law and election procedure, and that they are distorting data, and in some cases just plain making shit up, to try to support their claims, not because there is election fraud - there isn't.  I don't consider 1 in 15 million to be worth considering as election fraud.

But because they desperately want to believe there is, they will do anything to try to prove the non-existent.  These are the same people who tend to be birthers, tenthers, truthers, deathers, and all the other conspiracy theorists.  It wouldn't surprise me if the believed there were Aliens in area 51, that the moon landing was faked, or that they believed in Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, or that Elvis is still alive either.
Believing in voter fraud is that kind of crazy, wrong, factually inaccurate, and lacking in a basis in objective reality.  Sadly, that now makes it right wing, that now makes it a conservative ideology-driven delusion.
If you have any prayer of being taken seriously on the topic of voter fraud, do your homework on the subject, don't get your information from the lunatic fringe.  If you sincerely care about this country, if you want our elections to be honest, get corrupt money out -- and go vote, and go volunteer in your own community to be an election judge.  But don't disenfranchise others. Don't spend millions that could be better spent on much more legitimate issues like repairing bridges before they fall down.
Be part of the solution, not the problem.

Latest Study: More Proof There's No Voter Fraud

The only fraud in elections is the claim of voter fraud, made pretty much exclusively by the Republicans in order to try to justify voter suppression and to legalize election tampering by Republicans.

I am particularly pleased with the timing of this study, because it addresses the crazy extremist nut jobs who have made unfounded claims about 200 convictions for voter fraud in Minnesota elections, saving me from having to fact check them AGAIN.  They have not ever delivered on their fraud claims; this proves that their failure record remains unbroken. (The claim by Minnesota Majority/Election Integrity of 200 convictions for voter fraud in Minnesota is a giant load of dung.)

The report below comes on top of the state of Pennsylvania, going into court over Voter ID stipulating there was no voter fraud, there is no voter fraud, and there is no expected voter fraud.  Wherever voter ID has been enacted, a Republican campaign claiming voter fraud or the dangerous potential for voter fraud, has been used to justify the change to Voter ID - the EXPENSIVE change that disenfranchises voters and makes voting less efficient by adding an additional step and requirement.

In case you can't read the small print, depending on what size screen you're reading this on, it reflects a study done in WISCONSIN, by the Republican Attorney General, as well as the Brennan Center. I don't believe anyone in Wisconsin, on either side of the political aisle, would consider their AG a moderate Republican.

It is not just Pennsylvania; it is EVERY state that does that bait and switch, EVERY state where conservatives have used that propaganda to lie, to cause fear, and pretty much to justify the UnAmerican action of denying legal voters the right to vote in ways which are racist in their effects.  In every case Voter ID is used to prevent voters from minorities from voting as a group because they tend to vote Democratic.  There is NO justification for taking, in the case of Minnesota, an estimated 20 million dollars away from better use, like repairing falling down bridges.

This was true under the Bush administration where the distinctly right wing Ashcroft tried to find voter fraud - but didn't. This has been true of the Brennan Law Center which has done exemplary studies on voter fraud over many years.  NO ONE finds any voter fraud; the only groups making those claims from crazy incompetent fringies who can't back up their claims, and the GOP and Tea Party ONLY during their campaigns to enact disenfranchising voter ID, to try to win elections through voter suppression.  No one finds voter fraud, not conservative attempts to do so, not bipartisan attempts to do so, not NON-partisan attempts to do so  (including academic research),  and not investigation by more liberal entities.  Only crazy amateur extreme fringies claim to find it, and they can't produce any credible proof when held to account, (certainly our Minnesota version of the nutjobs can't).

News21 appears to fall squarely into the non-partisan academic category of research.  If anything, the University of Arizona can be considered a conservative leaning academic institution.

News21 is a program of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation that is helping to change the way journalism is taught in the U.S. and train a new generation of journalists capable of reshaping the news industry. It is headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Since 2006, nearly 500 top journalism students in the U.S. have participated in the landmark national initiative

I would point out that this study precedes and includes our contested Minnesota 2008 elections.  I couldn't help but notice that they make note of yet one more in-person-with-ID case of REPUBLICAN voter fraud, in addition to our 2008 case of a Coleman/McCain voter, and the Secretary of State of Indiana.  Now we have this one as well, which suggests a certain projection by Republicans of voter fraud onto others.

The News21 database shows one of the rare instances of voter-impersonation fraud occurred in Londonderry, N. H., in 2004 when 17-year-old Mark Lacasse used his father’s name to vote for George W. Bush in the Republican presidential primary. The case was dismissed after Lacasse performed community service.

And that there are some interesting questions about the GOP presidential candidate's voting integrity. Somehow I just don't see Mittens as the unfinished basement living kind of guy.... do you?

The crazy fringe groups are notorious for just plain making stuff up. The   far right wing media and blogosphere claim it, regularly and often, but they can't show it they just know it in their gut.  In other words, these are the same conspiracy crazies who like to embrace the birthers, truthers, tenthers, deathers  and secessionists, and a lot of the other right wing hate groups.  This is really just a thinly disguised hate bias for trying to legalize discrimination.  Hate movements always claim patriotism and saving the country, as we have seen from the white supremacist rhetoric connected to the Sikh temple domestic terrorist attack.  The uglier the position or the act, the more often you can expect to see claims of nobility and high mindedness used to try to disguise the reality.  Protecting elections from non-existent voter fraud is a classic example of fake claims of patriotism to undermine the premise of we the people representative government and one person / one vote.

It is singularly ugly, UnAmerican and profoundly dishonest.  It is deliberate and calculated, and it is profoundly conservative in its racist intent to only allow people to participate who are perceived to be 'us' and not 'them'.

A classic example is the attempt in Ohio to restrict voting days and hours for Democratic leaning precincts, but expand voting in Republican leaning precincts.  The political right has become tragically dirty and corrupt and ugly in their desperation, giving the lie to their claims of representing ethics and values.  The right should be ashamed of being this desperate to win, and of being this morally and ethically bankupt.

The study was done from all 50 states, and the elections officials responding included those REPUBLICAN election officials in the 37 states which enacted voter ID claiming voter fraud when they knew it did not exist.  This is further proof the GOP and Tea party LIED to constituents about voter fraud to sell voter ID, and knew all along there was no voter fraud.

Here is the latest evidence that there is absolutely no need whatsoever for voter ID.

From News21:
New database of US voter fraud finds no evidence that photo ID laws are needed

By Natasha Khan and Corbin Carson, News21

A new nationwide analysis of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases since 2000 shows that while fraud has occurred, the rate is infinitesimal, and in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tough voter ID laws, is virtually non-existent.

In an exhaustive public records search, reporters from the investigative reporting projecdt News21 sent thousands of requests to elections officers in all 50 states, asking for every case of fraudulent activity including registration fraud, absentee ballot fraud, vote buying, false election counts, campaign fraud, casting an ineligible vote, voting twice, voter impersonation fraud and intimidation.

Analysis of the resulting comprehensive News21 election fraud database turned up 10 cases of voter impersonation. With 146 million registered voters in the United States during that time, those 10 cases represent one out of about every 15 million prospective voters.
“Voter fraud at the polls is an insignificant aspect of American elections,” said elections expert David Schultz, professor of public policy at Hamline University School of Business in St. Paul, Minn.
“There is absolutely no evidence," Schultz said, that voter impersonation fraud "has affected the outcome of any election in the United States, at least any recent election in the United States."

The News21 analysis of its election fraud database shows:

• In-person voter-impersonation fraud is rare. The database shows 207 cases of other types of fraud for every case of voter impersonation. “The fraud that matters is the fraud that is organized. That's why voter impersonation is practically non-existent because it is difficult to do and it is difficult to pull people into conspiracies to do it,” said Lorraine Minnite, professor of public policy and administration at Rutgers University.
• There is more fraud in absentee ballots and voter registration than any other categories. The analysis shows 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud and 400 cases of registration fraud. A required photo ID at the polls would not have prevented these cases. “The one issue I think is potentially important, though more or less ignored, is the overuse of absentee balloting, which provides far more opportunity for fraud and intimidation than on-site voter fraud,” said Daniel Lowenstein, a UCLA School of Law professor.
• Of reported election-fraud allegations in the database whose resolution could be determined, 46 percent resulted in acquittals, dropped charges or decisions not to bring charges. Minnite says prosecutions are rare. “You have to be able to show that people knew what they were doing and they knew it was wrong and they did it anyway,” she said. “It may be in the end" that prosecutors "can't really show that the people who have cast technically illegal ballots did it on purpose.”
• Felons or noncitizens sometimes register to vote or cast votes because they are confused about their eligibility. The database shows 74 cases of felons voting and 56 cases of noncitizens voting.
• Voters make a lot of mistakes, from accidentally voting twice to voting in the wrong precinct.
• Election officials make a lot mistakes, from clerical errors — giving voters ballots when they’ve already voted — to election workers confused about voters’ eligibility requirements.

Mary Kiffmeyer, "I don't know who the Koch Brothers are" is a liar

Mary Kiffmeyer is the state ALEC chair.  She could not be in ALEC, and not know the relationship of the Koch Brothers within the organization.

One of the core leaders, founders. and funders of ALEC, more prominently since the corporate defections this year, notably WalMart, are the Koch Brothers who are among those that run ALEC.  They are prominent inside ALEC, they are prominently linked outside ALEC to the organization.  It used to be a secret, but it hasn't been hidden for quite a while now, unless perhaps one relies on Fox News for their information.
In the case of Kiffmeyer's claims in the Strib article below, her support for voter ID became a public issue on which she acted ONLY after ALEC made it a priority; and the amendment passed by the legislature, which she supports, does not appear to differ in any significant way from ALEC model legislation for voter ID. 
Add to that one of the major sources of funding to support the voter suprressive Voter ID legislation is funded directly and indirectly by the Koch Brothers, and it is clear that Ms. Kiffmeyer knows very well who the Koch Brothers are, and is acting at their direction and arguably benefits from the Koch Brothers support through ALEC.

In other words, it appears that Ms. Kiffmeyer is hoping that the good citizens of Minnesota are mostly low information voters who don't know the connection, and who don't read and compare ALEC model legislation with proposed ALEC legislation in Minnesota.
Thsi reminds me of an earlier exchange I had a few months back when Governor Dayton vetoed the Shoot First legislation.  My conservative blogger friend Mitch Berg insisted, and claimed to have verified it wth Rep. Cornish, that the Shoot First legislation was not ALEC legislation.  However he was unable to explain then how it was that Cornish had attended ALEC events and meetings, and that afterwards, the legislation Cornish proposed and which was passed in the legislature was so very similar to ALEC drafted legislation that it was almost word for word the same.
What this shows us is that we cannot believe the false assurances by ALEC members about whose bidding they are doing -- it isn't ours, it appears to be the Koch Brothers, and other ALEC special interst shady dealers from outside the boundaries of Minnesota. 
Corruption is defined by the world bank as public office used for private profit.  Kiffmeyer and Cornish could pose as model poster children over that definition.
Shame on Kiffmeyer, shame on Cornish and shame on every damned one of the Republican ALEC corrupt politicians.  And shame on anyone who promotes their lies about writing their own damned legislation or having their own independent ideas, or worst, the lies about who their significant influence is.  And double shame, shame on those who lie to help them do it; a willful failure to check out facts and multisouce is a lie by ommission, and that is still a lie.
With that much money and that much mendacity gong on, to borrow a phrase emphasized by Tennessee Williams in "A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", we should be wondering who has to spend that much money and be that dishonest --- it certainly isn't for the greater good of Minnesota.  In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, we have the characters Big Momma, and Big Daddy; in the Minnesota adaptation, we apparently have not only the other liars, but Big Oil Koch Brothers trying to run things for us through mendacity.
This appeared in the June 26, 2012 Star Tribune:
"This is an outside force, coming to Minnesota, telling us how our Constitution ought to be designed," added Carlson.
"Minnesota has the best record of openness, of honesty, of voter participation, of any state in the union," said Mondale. "This is a clean, solid, exemplary state. This constitutional amendment is designed to discourage voting."
The Republican-backed proposal, which is to be submitted to voters in November, would amend the state Constitution to require all voters to show a government-issued photo ID, would create a system of two-step provisional voting for those without proper ID on election day, and would mandate uniform registration requirements for all voters.
Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, a former election judge and secretary of state who has long pushed the amendment, said it is a homegrown movement to improve Minnesota's voting system. "I have no clue what the Koch brothers are," she said.
"It's ludicrous that I'm a blind little follower. ... My position on photo ID was an independent decision of my own, legislation that I worked on in my own way."
Carlson and Mondale said they became involved after reading about the proposed amendment and the push to get it on the ballot. Carlson blamed the issue on the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of conservative legislators and business leaders that offers model bills to state legislators. Kiffmeyer is listed as the state chair for ALEC in Minnesota.

"We pride ourselves in two parts of an election,'' Carlson said. "One is high voter turnout. The second is integrity. We've led the nation in both. Now we're subject to a campaign of total disinformation."

Kiffmeyer said she developed her support for the photo ID concept after years as an election judge, secretary of state and legislator, not by ALEC formula. She said that although Minnesota is correctly praised for the way it counts ballots once they are cast, the combination of same-day registration and no requirement of a photo ID creates opportunities for fraud.
                                                                      *  *  *

Except of courst that there aren't those documented instances where any voter fraud occurred that wuold have been prevented by voter ID.  And while it is an oft-repeated mantra on the right that the 2008 election for Senator was stolen by Democratic voter fraud, the only convicted instance of voter fraud was a person who voted for Republican candidate Coleman. 

When challenged to explain how Republicans know how anyone else voted, to identify the means they know not only that voter fraud is occurring where close and careful investigation can't find it, but that it was FOR a Democratic candidate, they have no answer.  Which means they don't want to answer, because that would be to admit that where we have secret ballots, they do NOT know that; it is just one of the fantasies and myths they embrace while rejecting objective reality and fact.

Greece and Egypt are voting on Sunday - Should We? Why do we always vote on Tuesday anyway?

Ok, so when I first kicked around writing about this topic -- I didn't know why we voted on Tuesday either. But I like history, I had heard of this bill and this movement, so I became curious. Blogging is where you all get to see the outcome of what makes me curious. But this video is a better explanation than anything I could write:

Two More Corpo-rat-e Members Flee the Sinking ALEC ship!!!

Just as the momentum of advertisers gathered speed, the number of corporations leaving ALEC over their promotion of Shoot First laws and Voter Suppression ID laws is growing.
Two more corporations left ALEC today - Mars candy, and the largest energy corporation in AZ.  Can an organized effort to repeal that extreme and oppressive legislation be far behind?  Finally, the push back appears to have risen up and begun to coordinate.  I expect this to be further sustained by the various legitimately grass roots - as opposed to astro-turfed - populist Occupy movements.
From Think Progress:
Two More Companies — Including Candymaker Mars, Inc. — Sever Ties With ALEC | The American Legislative Exchange Council, a right-wing corporate front group that helped passed “stand your ground” laws and voter suppression initiatives in states across the country, lost two more member companies. In an email sent to Color of Change, a progressive group organizing the petition against ALEC, Mars, Inc., the maker of M&M’s and Snickers, announced that they have “decided not to renew the ALEC membership in 2012.” Arizona’s largest energy company, Arizona Public Service, has severed ties with ALEC as well. Following pressure from progressives, a host of other companies announced they would no longer contribute to ALEC in the past two weeks, including Coca Cola, Pepsi Co, Intuit, Kraft, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wendy’s.

How ALEC works --- or did before that corporate component began to fracture and disintegrate

Dirty Election Tricks: Canadian Conservatives Use U.S. Republican Tactics

If they cheat to get elected, how can you expect those people from that kind of a party to give you honest government?  Clearly, you can't expect honest government, and the conservatives who do it won't deliver it to you - and neither will those who don't engage in corruption, but still are perfectly willing to work with the manifestly corrupt people in their party.
As it becomes clear to the Republicans that they face low turnouts and lower voter interest in many of their candidates, and as their 2010 majorities slip away in recall elections, I expect to see more of the kind of voter suppression and illegal activities from conservatives like those over the border to our north....what you might call the not-so-true north.
Canada is facing protests over the validity of last year's elections, citing unprecedented levels of 'American REPUBLICAN style dirty tricks' that could invalidate the election of politicians from the Prime Minister on down:

Second Rally to Protest Voter Suppression in 2011 Federal Election

TMTVNEWS.COM, Nelson BC Canada --- (submitted)

In response to Democracy Canada’s call for a second day of action to protest voter suppression in last year’s federal election, concerned citizens in Nelson will be meeting on Saturday, March 31, at 12:00 at City Hall. The previous day of action on March 11 saw people from 32 cities in Canada converge to call for a public inquiry into the robo-call affair.

Jean-Pierre Kingsley, a former chief electoral officer at Elections Canada, has called the scope of the illegal robo-calls unprecedented and says that jail time should definitely be considered if the allegations can be proven. The allegations must be dealt with swiftly and transparently because they erode our democracy and cast real doubt on the legitimacy of the Conservative’s claim to a majority government. Regardless of who might be behind the scandal, protecting democracy is a non-partisan issue.

Thirty-one thousand Canadians have reported irregularities in the last election, and 700 incidents are under investigation by Elections Canada. While some like to portray the misleading robo-calls as trivial and characteristic of the dirty tricks that all politicians take part in, harassing voters at odd hours of the day or night and deliberately misleading voters by telling them to go to incorrect or non-existent polling stations is not a case of politics as usual. Harassing voters and misleading them are voter suppression techniques and they are unjust and illegal.

According to a recent Postmedia News poll, 75 per cent of Canadians support a call for an independent inquiry with judicial powers to look into the robo-call affair. Prime Minister Harper has countered by saying that Elections Canada is invested by law to investigate and must continue in its role. But Elections Canada will not obtain all of its promised new investigative powers for at least another six months, when required legislation might be passed. Moreover, Canadians have seen with the in-and-out fraud of 2006 how seriously and for what length of time Elections Canada can become bogged down in acrimonious litigation, right up to the Supreme Court. For these reasons, Canadians need a public inquiry into the Robocall fraud, and we need it today.

I am ashamed that it is the tricks used by Republicans and other conservatives in my country that were used.  THESE are those same people who claim they are so concerned about the security and purity of our elections that they need to force through any way they can voter ID laws.  Those laws don't make elections more secure, but they DO make it more difficult specifically for voters they target as likely to be opposition voters, and generally they prevent large groups of people who can legally vote, but who they believe won't vote for THEM from casting their ballots at all.
Over and over, those in Canada who engaged in this, their conservative party, suggest this is just normal politics  the way conservatives do it south of their borders.  It is illegal there, and it is illegal here.  New laws or new constitutional amendments wouldn't change that it is the REPUBLICANS, it is the CONSERVATIVES - those dirty people who like to give lip service to religion and 'family values' and talk up morality - that are doing this, over and over, in place after place, to win elections. 
In Maryland it led to arrests, convictions and jail time.  It was widely reported in last year's Wisconsin elections from a Koch Brothers funded entity.  The Koch Brothers have their hands in a lot of what is arguably corrupt organizations, from robo-calling front groups to ALEC.
Every time a conservative politician or other spokesperson, like right wing bloggers, make the patently demonstrably false statement that elections have been stolen from the right, every time you DON'T see them making mention of the numerous efforts on the right to rig elections - from the Indiana Secretary of State, the person RESPONSIBLE for honest elections, being arrested and convicted for voter fraud, perjury and other crimes, or the Maryland conviction for voter suppression by the Republican candidate's campaign, or the misinformation mass mailings from Americans for Prosperity, funded by the Koch brothers, and robo calls directing people to vote at the wrong place and /or on the wrong day.

If there is any question that this is organized, well funded CONSERVATIVE voter suppression and election fraud either here  or in Canada, this is evidence to the contrary, from conservative political operatives to conservative bloggers (emphasis added in large, bold other than title, and underline are mine - DG):
UVic professor claims voter suppression promoted at conservative campaign school

By Andy Radia | Canada Politics
 Wed, 7 Mar, 2012

While the Conservatives continue to deny their involvement in the robocall

The latest link is courtesy of John Fryer, a member of the Order of Canada and an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria.
In the wake of the robocall scandal, last week, Fryer penned an open letter describing a campaign school he attended two years ago, at the Conservative-aligned Manning Centre for Democracy.
"In January, 2010, my UVic inbox had an e-mail invite from a democracy centre to attend a campaign school. Intrigued, I signed up for the three-day event," Fryer wrote in the letter published in the Globe and Mail.
"Topics covered included voter identification. Discussion ensued about suppression techniques. Instructors explained voter suppression tactics were borrowed from those used by the U.S. Republican Party. Many kinds of suppression calls were canvassed. Another instructor gave detailed explanations of how robo-calls worked, techniques for recording messages, plus costs involved.
"Instructors made it clear that robo-calling and voter suppression were an acceptable and normal part of winning political campaigns."
In a later interview with Emma Pullman of the Vancouver Observer, Fryer claims that in a question and answer session, attendees discussed voter suppression tactics. They talked about posing as a member of another party, and about making rude calls at inconvenient times as a strategy to get the supporter of another party to not go out and vote for their candidate.
Pullman did some research into the so-called "campaign school" and found several Conservative links.
"The event's star-studded slate of speakers included former Press Secretary to Stephen Harper (and current President of Sun Media) Kory Teneycke and David Akin, the National Bureau Chief for Sun Media," Pullman wrote in a column published Wednesday.
"Other headliners were Stephen Taylor, founder of the Blogging Tories, and Dimitri Pantazopoulos, a former pollster for the federal Conservatives, the Canadian Alliance and the Reform Party who is now the Principal Secretary to Premier Christy Clark."
Pullman claims the school was organized by Fraser McDonald of the Manning Centre in addition to Richard Ciano and Nick Kouvalis, both founding partners of Campaign Research Inc.
According to a recently Ottawa Citizen article, Campaign Research did work for at least 39 Conservative candidates in the last election, and was paid nearly $400,000 for the work.
Campaign Research was also the firm implicated in the campaign against Irwin Cotler.  In December, the company allegedly placed misleading calls to the Liberal MP's  constituents falsely claiming he was resigning his seat.
There is no indication, however, that Campaign Research was in any way involved in the robocall scandal.
For their part, Liberal blogger Warren Kinsella says Kouvalis is denying Fryer's story.
"Some [that were] present [at the campaign school] are calling Prof. Fryer a liar," writes Kinsella.
"Check out [Fryer's] C.V.  I'm not sure I'd want to play a battle of the reputations with this gentleman."