I was just thinking<div>about how a voter ID would not stop someone from voting multiple times</div><div><br></div><div>If you are registered in multiple sates, and there are places back east that you could make a day of it and vote in many states</div>
<div>As long as you had previously lived and registered in each and showed your Passport (the ultimate ID)</div><div>You could vote multiple times</div><div><br></div><div>So WHO would do this?</div><div>In order to actually effect the election, you would need many to do this</div>
<div>Even imagining someone doing this seems like a joke.</div><div><br></div><div>Most people don't vote once</div><div>How many people would have to vote twice to actually effect the election?</div><div><br></div><div>
all this reminded me of a story I heard about...</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://blog.itv.com/news/billneely/2012/03/how-about-this-for-a-landslide/">http://blog.itv.com/news/billneely/2012/03/how-about-this-for-a-landslide/</a> <br>
</div><div><h2 style="margin-top:10px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:4px;padding-left:0px;font-weight:normal;line-height:1.1em;font-size:1.6em;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
HOW ABOUT THIS FOR A LANDSLIDE?</h2><small style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-size:0.9em;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Posted by <a href="http://blog.itv.com/news/author/billneely/" title="Posts by Bill Neely" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;text-decoration:none;color:rgb(37,57,111)">Bill Neely</a>. 6 March, 2012</small><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:17px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span><div class="entry" style="margin-top:5px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:5px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;clear:both;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:17px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">So,Vladimir Putin won a landslide. This is normally defined as an overwhelming margin of victory over your nearest political rival- say,65 to 35.</p>
<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">But here are the results from Chechnya, a Russian Republic.</p>
<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">These are the real number of votes cast, not percentages.</p>
<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">Putin got 611,578. His nearest rival the former Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov got 182. The three others got even less than that.</p>
<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">What that gave Putin is a thumping majority- a 99.82% share of the vote.<br style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px">
A fine win.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">It’s remarkable, because Putin attacked Chechnya twice in appallingly brutal wars with its separatists, wars marked by massacre and murder. All that is clearly blood under the carpet.</p>
<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">The turnout was interesting too.</p>
<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">For example, look at Precinct 451 in the capital Grozny,where Putin got 1,482 votes and Zyuganov got one. Terrific vote. Except that only 1,389 people were registered to vote in the precinct. That means the turnout was 107%.</p>
<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">Chechnya is a place where fraud and corruption is rampant. Challenging powerful local men (and they are all men) might be the last thing an election official does. Independent and foreign election observers did not go to Chechnya for security reasons.</p>
<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">Obviously it’s a blatant example of electoral fraud. But it’s not so unusual. It’s clear many provincial officials and governors felt under huge pressure to return Putin to power. Election officials clearly turned a blind eye when a large group of men in leather jackets suddenly gathered around a ballot box with a thick sheaf of marked papers.</p>
<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">And so Chechnya,and Dagestan and many other places recorded votes of over 90% for Putin.</p>
<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">And since Chechnya is so extraordinary here’s another district; the votes for Naurskaya are…Zhirinovsky 4 votes, Zyuganov 6, Prokhorov 6, Mironov 7, Putin 28,584.</p>
<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">So,what is that word for something beyond a landslide?</p>
<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">-------------------------</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0.8em;padding-left:0px;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden">
All this makes our election woes seem meaningless</p></div></div><div><br></div>