What could happen if the Republicans steal the election

[olegramps]

I wonder if that could be the straw the breaks the camels'back. The last insult that could bring reprecussions. I welcome your input.

[Selatius]

1. There is a video on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrwmn5agfSc

Fictional? Yes. Disturbing? Probably.

[L. Coyote]

2. What would happen if DEM turnout is too low??

DEMs are famous for losing elections they can handily win.
They do it repeatedly by staying home in massive numbers compared to Rs!!

[dana_b]

3. I would hope so

I was listening to Hartmann in the car and Greg Palast is going to be on. If it does happen, shouldn't the laws be seriously reformed? In a national election, why don't we have law that are Federal - not State - in which the election laws are standard across the land? I'm not talking about machines, etc. - the laws that guide elections?

[laruemtt]

4. i think there would be HUGE trouble -

and i'd be an enthusiastic participant in making it. they don't dare try - not this time.............

[fencesitter]

5. voters must come out in such vast numbers....

that there can be no doubt who wins.

[cliffordu]

6. Business as usual. Killings by the tens of thousands in the mideast.

The war on drugs puts another two million in prison here,

No retirement anymore, ever, support the endless wars with your labor, from cradle to the grave.

[patrick t. cakes]

7. a civil war of epic proportions

[olegramps]

10. Do you think that people would be so incensed violence could breakout

I am of the thought that if there was indication of election fraud that Washington could become a battleground as it has been in the past when troops were called out to put down the demonstrations of war veterans. I can easily imagine masses of screaming people and all hell breaking out. I for one thought that Gore should have never conceded and told the Supreme Court that it had no jurisdiction in a states conduct of the election. The very people that stand for States Rights are those that helped to destroy the states autonomy.

[RedLetterRev]

14. I'm not so sure

the M$M has made it sound like the 20%ers are a lot louder and a lot more numerous than they really are. I refuse to be intimidated.

Let them rear their heads. "Epic"? I doubt it. I already expect the freepers, racists, and other crazy malcontents who were bent on the destruction of the Constitution to start causing trouble the day after Obama is declared President-elect. There aren't more than four brain cells in the whole lot of them put together, and even those four are never in the same orbit. It won't take long to mop the dross up.

That may be just the purgative this country needs to get back on the road to peace, prosperity, and sanity.

[T Wolf]

8. Blood in the streets, and deservedly so. Not this time, god dammit!

[Cheap_Trick]

9. got my Guy Fawkes mask ready......n/t

[riqster]

11. Nothing. The vast majority of Americans are like Winston

...at the end of 1984.

Makes me sick, but there it is.

[billyoc]

12. All across America people will be electrified, anxiously awaiting the results

of the next season of American Idol.

[jobycom]

13. There are a lot of avenues to fight it if it happens (again).

It's not really as easy as it seems, though it's do-able.

First, each state must ratify their election results. There is no Constitutional requirement for the states to use election results when choosing a president, but each state has laws requiring that electors be chosen by election, so the elections have to be followed. If the state is not sure that the election results are accurate, they can challenge and investigate. We saw some of that with Florida in 2000.

So, first of all, for them to steal the election, they'd have to steal it state by state. If a Democratically controlled state felt that the results were wrong, they'd be more likely to investigate, so stealing a state works best when the Republicans control the state. However, when the Republicans control a state, it's a good indication that state will vote for the Republican president, too, so under normal circumstances they wouldn't have to steal those states. Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 were unique cases--Republican controlled, but leaning Democrat. There will be more of those states this time, though, so chances are better for stealing a state or two.

Second, if the election gets stolen at the state level, and there is reason to suspect fraud, Congress can investigate. We control Congress this time. The Constitution doesn't really allow the Senate to reject the election results (which is why Gore went along with the results in 2000), but if they uncover fraud, they could possibly stop the votes from being read to the Senate, or the Supreme Court could declare the methods of the state unconstitutional. There are probably other ways, too.

So the hard part would be catching them, and being sure that the votes were stolen. Around here, it gets kind of silly. You have people before an election screaming that polls don't mean anything, then immediately after an election that the polls show that the election results were rigged. So you'd need more than disagreement between polls and election results, especially since the Republicans have laid the groundwork to explain such differences, with all the talk of the Bradley Effect. Also, with the ACORN nonsense, they've also laid the groundwork to accuse us of fraud if we win--which makes me suspect that ACORN was sabotaged, but that's another story.

Anyway, bottom line is that it's not as easy to steal an election here as it seems. Obviously, it can be done. It has been done. But the Constitution adds several layers of protection, and several avenues of challenging the results. Elections have to be certified at local, state, then national levels, and can be challenged at each of those levels, and can wind up in courts at several stages. So it takes either a really good scam or a hell of a lot of people at all levels of government to do it. And we have a month to challenge and investigate. And we have Congress on our side this time.

And the greater our margin of victory, the harder it will be for them to get away with it, since people will be more suspicious and thus more likely to demand an investigation.

It could still happen. They control SCOTUS, or at least control four votes and half of the fifth (Kennedy is odd, though, and can swing either way. He likes the power). And they could devise ways we haven't thought of yet.

So if they get past the states and the courts and Congress, it will be hard to convince the general public that it was stolen, and likely we will have an angry minority and a complacent majority who just wants to move on, like in 2000. So then, we shout and organize and grow angrier. And I suspect not much else. :( So we have to trust the people we've put into power already to do their jobs properly.