Wondering where to vote in the primaries on June 5th? Well this time around Sioux Falls residents can vote at their precinct.
Why no e-polling? Why can’t we vote at any precinct? Good question, that is because the auditor’s office is handling this election. Well, didn’t they handle the last election to? Well kinda.
In the last election, you know the school board/municipal election, where it doesn’t matter, or so you may be thinking, they experimented on us, but this election is different.
Enough of the musical chairs, set a standard already. The County, the City and the School District need to sit down, talk to each other, and set a standard when it comes to elections in Sioux Falls. Either we open ALL of the precincts all of the time or we don’t. Enough of the back and forth. This creates so much confusion.
Is it intentional? One is starting to wonder, so I asked our voting rights advocate, Guest Poster to comment.
As you can see, Stormland-TV covered the SOS’s office debacle with finance reports and Auditor Bob Litz had this to say about the musical precincts;
April’s Sioux Falls city and school board election moved to the voting centers city-wide. County Auditor Bob Litz says his office is considering the change, but not yet.
“Now we’re going back to precincts. Is it confusing? Yes. Is it an issue? Yes. But it’s always been an issue,†Litz said. “Would we like to go there? Yes, we would. But it’s with some trepidation, and it’s a lot of steps to get between here and there. Meanwhile, we know what we have works,â€Â Litz said.
Exactly, McFly! So standardize it and leave it alone. If something isn’t broke, don’t fix it.
A historical perspective:
Democracy requires sunshine to survive. The more light shone onto an issue, waste, fraud and abuse will be exposed. Citizens, your neighbors, are involved in all the steps of the election process, verifying the voters, counting the ballots and tabulating the results ensuring an accurate election process.
American electoral democracy requires this neighborhood control to survive. Neighbors know their neighborhood. They know who was likely to vote. The people usually are volunteering to sit all day and most of the night to count the ballots. This citizen process left us with the assurance the vote was reasonably accurate. A multi-step, follow-up legal process is performed within days by different citizens / officials to certify the accuracy of the counts. This decentralized hand count system worked.
In our decentralized federal style of government, control of elections was kept at the precinct level for over 200 years to prevent top down corruption. The only incidents recorded in history of vote tampering has been attributed to Election Fraud. Election tampering is accomplished when a partisan or group has taken control of the process. This partisan control was usually limited to a locality such as a town, county or precinct.  A location controlled by a political boss, business or crime boss.
With Centralized Voting, partisan Election Fraud will be accomplished on a grander scale than ever imagined.
The April Sioux Falls City / School Board election was a test for electronic processes. The test proved the system is not ready for prime time. Citizens of Sioux Falls were disenfranchised by the “Test Run†engineered by the City, County and Secretary of State. Why should we care?
Consider the problems experienced by Sioux Falls 2012 polling stations and voters:
- Ran out of ballots: the early voters have enough ballots, late day voters are usually arriving after work or school when there are no more ballots left, hence no way to record votes.
- Long lines: wage earners, poor, disabled, voters on a schedule and more, will leave due to time constraints
- Electronic Poll Books did not work: look at the voter roll purges be performed nationwide, primarily targeting Democratic registrations
- Not enough polling booths: keep lines and waiting long, last voters (usually poor) are unable to vote
- Location confusion: moving polling sites will keep the less informed voters from finding their polling stations
When each of the points above are taken individually it would be considered mismanagement of the process but taken as a whole, US Attorney General Holder and voting rights advocates are looking at as criminal Election Fraud.
Now South Dakota, get ready for more citizen disenfranchisement. “Three different counties that are going to be using the system on June 5th: Potter, Sully, and Hyde counties,†said Gant.
Consider allegations of out of town, former residents voting in the 2012 Sioux Falls City election. If it was one or two former residents who doing this, Voter Fraud, a misdemeanor offense. If someone or group was encouraging or assisting in this process, it is a conspiracy to commit Election Fraud, a felony crime.
The confusion created using constantly using different polling locations is not accidental. For each election moving a polling place or two in a neighborhood is to be expected. It is normal for our elections officials to find and rent available space from churches, schools, libraries or private homes. Successful Election Fraud requires public confusion or frustration when it comes to where and how to vote. Changing locations, ballot types, ballot design and methods are classic methods to add confusion.
To determine the extent of Election or Voter Fraud audits are attempted. It usually takes years to audit the election results. By the time the audits are finished, the perpetrators of the fraud have been certified the winners and are in control of the processes of government.  Florida (2000) and Ohio (2004) are examples of systemic Election Fraud where GOP operatives used variations of the 5 bullet points above to control the election results.
Vladimir Putin won Russia’s recent presidential election amidst allegations of fraud through the use of centralized voting systems. The worldwide electronic centralized voting systems now in use are owned and controlled by less than a dozen privately owned companies. Most of these companies are foreign based firms.
With the Citizen’s United decision, we are able to have foreign individual, companies and governments funding campaigns. These foreign companies count the our ballots in secret. Through centralized voting, Election Fraud gives a complete package. Our SOS office gives this process the air of certified legitimacy.
To summarize:
- With centralized polling stations, the poor, disabled, carless, elderly and other disadvantaged will be restricted in voting opportunities
- It is easier to rig an election when you have fewer locations
- There must be confusion, confusion allows those in control to manipulate supplies, activity and results
- With confusion, the organizers of the confusion will win
- The organized confusion, Election Fraud