At that point, each must do what they think is right, and each can only do justice in their own eyes.

I’d start with Martha Coakley day after she loses this election; but there are dozens of union organizations which have been running advertisements all but accusing Brown of being a serial rapist himself.

There must be a cost imposed on such groups, or our democracy surely is doomed.

As for the media, it wouldn’t hurt for the GOP to educate some in the media on precinct rules and procedures…and WHY the rules are important. For example, every election we read news reports about discrepancies between # of ballots cast and # of signed-in voters. Where I vote the ironclad rule is that discrepancies must be resolved BEFORE the ballots leave the voting precinct (not after they arrive at election central). I think these rules are pretty universal (why have counts if they’re not going to be “balanced” at the end of the day?).

Yet reporters never bear down on election officials to explain why ballots were allowed to leave their precinct without a full (and credible) accounting for discrepancies. I think reporters simply do not understand the principal of dealing with discrepancies at their lowest level (the precinct) before they are folded into a larger pool (county-wide ballots).

Whether it be “balancing” signed-in voters with ballots cast, or walk-in absentee ballots, or same-day registrations: there are clear rules on how to account for them AT THE PRECINCT LEVEL. Reporters do not seem to know or care about those rules. The GOP needs to re-educate them on why those rules are so important and why they must be enforced at the precinct level.

I do know I helped to insure at least one honest polling place on election day, and that is good enough.

Indeed it is…thank you for your service.

It doesn’t require a few saving souls,it requires an Army of Davids.

Just like all the last gods-know-how-many ‘close’ elections that the Dems have somehow managed to ‘win’ in the past two or three years. They find ballots in abandoned cars. They find boxes of ballots that were ‘misplaced’, they have folks in other countries cast ballots because they’re all registered in the same house in Ohio. They have judges appoint them. Whatever.

If you seriously believe there will be an election – as was defined in decades long past – in Massachusettes(!) you are fooling yourselves.

I hope I’m wrong. I fear I am not.

Orion

The point here is not partisanship. The point here is that we do not live in Albania, or the Congo, or Red China. We supposedly live in a democracy where the citizens vote, and their votes are counted fairly.

Unfortunately, the history of the US shows many examples of corrupt elections. “Landslide LBJ” is probably the most infamous. Chicago and New York have formidable machines who have turned many elections into Third World jokes. Nevertheless, by the end of the 20th century it appeared that the war against corruption was rendering these as isolated exceptions.

But with the rise of ACORN – an organization whose sole reason for existence is to perpetuate voter registration fraud on a vast scale – the US is sliding back into the corrupt past. And rather than expose corruption, most of the media is either silent or openly complicit.

Already in the past decade we have seen elections stolen in the Washington governor’s race (2004), the Minnesota US Senate race (2008-9), the Virginia US Senate race (2006), and the NY-20 House special election (early 2009). In 2000 the Presidency itself was nearly stolen. What used to be confined mostly to cities run by crooked machine politics seems now to be going nationwide.

Amy lawyers who agree to go to Massachusetts for Tuesday’s vote must realize that it is in some ways like being asked to monitor elections in a Third World kleptocracy. You will be under the eyes of a wrathful ruling party that will lie, cheat, and steal to stay in power. For the most part the media will either ignore you or be openly hostile. Do not be surprised if the authorities simply brush you aside – or even try to legally threaten you if you become too big a pest.