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They had read an article from a legitimate news source on
Posted on: October 18, 2016 at 09:50:47 CT
JeffB MU
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the topic being written about... voter fraud.
They included multiple other articles from other news sources in other cities.
It was a blog post, not a dissertation nor an article financed by some news organization. The author cited and linked to an article from the Kankakee Journal and posted an excerpt.
You accused the author of omitting information in the article, twisting the truth as given in the story thereby.
I think that is an unfair criticism in a couple of respects. First of all, the point of the blog post was that there is indeed voter fraud. He posted relevant information from the Kanakaee Daily Journal to back that claim up & gave a link to the article for readers to check out themselves.
Per the article, multiple people had testified that they were offered bribes for their votes. The Kankakee County State's Attorney's office was investigating.
I think YOU are twisting the truth here in claiming that the blog article had done so. Yes, at the end of the article someone else had countered that some people who were registered to vote were turned away at the polls. In the interest of balance, I think that the author could have/should have included that, and yet it was tangential to the point of his article. It was not his focus and it was not the focus of the article he was citing and it was apparently not a part of the State Attorney's office investigation.
That could be for several reasons. People can be registered voters and yet can and should be turned away at the polls. They might not have brought valid ID with them, for instance, or showed up at the wrong polling place, or have moved to a different county or state and did not update their registration. That is not some nefarious fraud, it is a screwup on the part of the registered voter who was turned away.
In reality voters in St. Louis County might be "turned away" at one poll, but given the address of the polling place they are supposed to be voting at. If there is some dispute, such as a claim that they registered at their current address, or moved to another address within the boundaries of that polling place, they can fill out an affidavit for the change of address and still vote there. If their new address is within the boundaries of another polling place they can still fill out that same change of address affidavit & vote at the correct polling place. If there is still some dispute they can use a "provisional ballot" and still vote and let the county election board sort out who is right. If they are entitled to vote in that election for the candidates in that jurisdiction their vote will count. Most don't, however, because the vast majority of times they are indeed at the wrong place or did not register in time for that particular vote.
In my personal opinion the election board should be able to update their records far more quickly than they do and allow people to register in any particular jurisdiction up until the day of the vote, or at least pretty close to it. But that's a function of the inherent inefficiencies of government vs private companies. I'm an insurance broker & had 3 people have an accident after they left our office purchasing a new auto insurance policy. They had all of their paperwork when they left and their coverage was in force and paid the relevant damages with no problem. The company computers systems are updated in real time. For our government, however, the people had to register weeks before the election and if they missed the cutoff date they couldn't vote. That isn't voter fraud, that is just an inefficient government system.
It certainly is no offset to people being bribed for their votes. Ah, they cancel each other out, so don't worry about the bribery? Come on man.
In any event, you railed upon the blog author for not including a couple of paragraphs in their story about people being turned away. But I think you were either being disingenuous or negligent with respect to some of the information you claimed the author had left out. Some of the information you charged him with omitting were not in the Kankakee Daily Journal article at all, but in a different article that you had apparently googled up... and you didn't give credit to that source, much less provide readers a link to it.
For instance, some excerpts you claimed the author was omitting:
You: "The part they left out follows:"
"The same day Boyd announced the investigation, former Democratic state Rep. Lisa Dugan and union reps Gary Ciaccio and Mike Smith alleged they had "noticed illegal and unethical conduct by the Kankakee county state's attorney, Kankakee county clerk and the Kankakee county sheriff's offices" since last Thursday.
"We know many legally registered voters have been turned away from voting over the last few days," they said in a joint statement. "Since early voting for the 2016 general election began just a few short days ago, there have been numerous reports and eyewitness accounts of harassment and intimidation by local government officials of residents trying to participate in the democratic process of voting."
The group said it informed the Illinois Attorney General, Illinois State Board of Elections "and the U.S. Justice Department about the allegations."
The parts in gold were NOT omitted by the blog author, they were not in the article he was citing. The portion in white was a rebuttal by Democratic reps in response to the investigation into the allegations by people that they had been offered bribes for their votes. The entire section you cut & pasted was from a completely different article from an entirely different news organization than the one used by the author of the blog post, though the quote in white was identical in both.
Bottom line, your criticism is overblown and unfair I think. Voter fraud for bribery is a separate issue than whether or not registered voters were turned away unfairly. Both should be investigated, of course, and corrective action taken, including punishment for anyone involved in illegal activities &/or negligence as the case may be.
They included multiple other articles from other news sources in other cities.
It was a blog post, not a dissertation nor an article financed by some news organization. The author cited and linked to an article from the Kankakee Journal and posted an excerpt.
You accused the author of omitting information in the article, twisting the truth as given in the story thereby.
I think that is an unfair criticism in a couple of respects. First of all, the point of the blog post was that there is indeed voter fraud. He posted relevant information from the Kanakaee Daily Journal to back that claim up & gave a link to the article for readers to check out themselves.
Per the article, multiple people had testified that they were offered bribes for their votes. The Kankakee County State's Attorney's office was investigating.
I think YOU are twisting the truth here in claiming that the blog article had done so. Yes, at the end of the article someone else had countered that some people who were registered to vote were turned away at the polls. In the interest of balance, I think that the author could have/should have included that, and yet it was tangential to the point of his article. It was not his focus and it was not the focus of the article he was citing and it was apparently not a part of the State Attorney's office investigation.
That could be for several reasons. People can be registered voters and yet can and should be turned away at the polls. They might not have brought valid ID with them, for instance, or showed up at the wrong polling place, or have moved to a different county or state and did not update their registration. That is not some nefarious fraud, it is a screwup on the part of the registered voter who was turned away.
In reality voters in St. Louis County might be "turned away" at one poll, but given the address of the polling place they are supposed to be voting at. If there is some dispute, such as a claim that they registered at their current address, or moved to another address within the boundaries of that polling place, they can fill out an affidavit for the change of address and still vote there. If their new address is within the boundaries of another polling place they can still fill out that same change of address affidavit & vote at the correct polling place. If there is still some dispute they can use a "provisional ballot" and still vote and let the county election board sort out who is right. If they are entitled to vote in that election for the candidates in that jurisdiction their vote will count. Most don't, however, because the vast majority of times they are indeed at the wrong place or did not register in time for that particular vote.
In my personal opinion the election board should be able to update their records far more quickly than they do and allow people to register in any particular jurisdiction up until the day of the vote, or at least pretty close to it. But that's a function of the inherent inefficiencies of government vs private companies. I'm an insurance broker & had 3 people have an accident after they left our office purchasing a new auto insurance policy. They had all of their paperwork when they left and their coverage was in force and paid the relevant damages with no problem. The company computers systems are updated in real time. For our government, however, the people had to register weeks before the election and if they missed the cutoff date they couldn't vote. That isn't voter fraud, that is just an inefficient government system.
It certainly is no offset to people being bribed for their votes. Ah, they cancel each other out, so don't worry about the bribery? Come on man.
In any event, you railed upon the blog author for not including a couple of paragraphs in their story about people being turned away. But I think you were either being disingenuous or negligent with respect to some of the information you claimed the author had left out. Some of the information you charged him with omitting were not in the Kankakee Daily Journal article at all, but in a different article that you had apparently googled up... and you didn't give credit to that source, much less provide readers a link to it.
For instance, some excerpts you claimed the author was omitting:
You: "The part they left out follows:"
"The same day Boyd announced the investigation, former Democratic state Rep. Lisa Dugan and union reps Gary Ciaccio and Mike Smith alleged they had "noticed illegal and unethical conduct by the Kankakee county state's attorney, Kankakee county clerk and the Kankakee county sheriff's offices" since last Thursday.
"We know many legally registered voters have been turned away from voting over the last few days," they said in a joint statement. "Since early voting for the 2016 general election began just a few short days ago, there have been numerous reports and eyewitness accounts of harassment and intimidation by local government officials of residents trying to participate in the democratic process of voting."
The group said it informed the Illinois Attorney General, Illinois State Board of Elections "and the U.S. Justice Department about the allegations."
The parts in gold were NOT omitted by the blog author, they were not in the article he was citing. The portion in white was a rebuttal by Democratic reps in response to the investigation into the allegations by people that they had been offered bribes for their votes. The entire section you cut & pasted was from a completely different article from an entirely different news organization than the one used by the author of the blog post, though the quote in white was identical in both.
Bottom line, your criticism is overblown and unfair I think. Voter fraud for bribery is a separate issue than whether or not registered voters were turned away unfairly. Both should be investigated, of course, and corrective action taken, including punishment for anyone involved in illegal activities &/or negligence as the case may be.
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They had read an article from a legitimate news source on - JeffB MU - 10/18 09:50:47