“FOUND VOTES?”
Richland County, S.C. election officials – who as far as we’re concerned are the modern day inverse of Jim Crow – are claiming to have “found votes” and “found machines with votes” in the wake of last week’s clusterfuck of a general election.
For those of you keeping score at home … there is no score. That’s because Richland County has yet to complete an initial count from last week’s vote – in which the county flagrantly violated state law by failing to place enough operational voting machines at specific precinct locations. And given that the machine shortages were almost exclusively confined to precincts that opposed a $1.2 billion tax hike proposal, the county’s failure to follow the law has prompted allegations of voter fraud – as well as calls for a new election.
So where did these new “found votes” come from?
“Several voting machines were not closed by poll workers on Election Day,” a source familiar with the ongoing debacle tells FITS.
In fact Richland County Election Commission officials are currently huddling with executives at the Chernoff Newman public relations firm in an effort to cobble together a press release detailing the “found votes.”
Chernoff Newman, of course, is the agency that has been aggressively pushing the $1.2 billion sales tax hike – so we should obviously trust whatever they tell us, right!
We’ve seen rampant corruption in South Carolina over the course of the last decade – a.k.a. the “Lost Decade” – but up to this point that bad behavior has been confined exclusively to the administration of government, not the electoral process.
The “Richland County Rigged Vote” of 2012 is the first time we’ve seen this state’s shameless appetite for government growth actually violate the sanctity of the ballot box.
UPDATE: The S.C. Supreme Court has just issued an order instructing Richland County to complete its initial count (and certify the results of that count) by noon on Friday. At this point, we view these impending results – and Richland County’s electoral integrity – with roughly the same level of confidence we would ascribe to a friggin’ Somalian or North Korean election.
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36 comments
Where were the votes found? Republican or Dem location and will it affect the house race for Kirkman?
But I Had my Id Card…so how could there be fraud?
This whole thing has been a banana republic-level clusterfarg. And these people want us to trust them with an additional $1.2 billion transfer from our pockets into county coffers?
The vote for sales tax increase should be nullified, and then put on the ballot for the 2014 election.
The votes for Finlay should be validated since this is one defined precinct.
McBride should be fired and then prosecuted for deliberately interfering with the election – criminal and civil judgements for each and every violation (and prison time if applicable).
Otherwise, Richland County voters got screwed, as in the “Royal Screwing” (to express it politely).
Sounds good to me….
Based on the results posted on Richland County’s election website:
The margin of victory for the sales tax increase was 9,016 votes (75,406 – 66,390).
The difference between the Yes and No votes from absentee ballots was 8,958… (16,994 – 8036)
meaning the difference on election day was only 58 votes!
Absentee voters voted yes by a 2:1 margin while election day voters were essentially tied.
A FOIA request should be made to get the data on who voted absentee. You have to have a specific reason for voting absentee.
You don’t need a FOIA request to know who voted absentee. It’s public.
What are you Republicans gonna do?
Send a Tea Partier dressed like Uncle Sam to harass them?
Great quote from The State, seems like nobody is at the wheel-
Harpootlian said. “The election commission should be able to audit the results of that race”
Matt Moore, SC Republican Party executive director, said in response, “I find it hard to believe there are machines out there that haven’t been counted. We can’t file lawsuits when we don’t like the outcome of an election.”
These are the ten precincts with the highest percentage of NO votes against the sales tax increase.
Longcreek 32.9%
Kelly Mill 32.7%
Blythewood #2 31.8%
Satchelford 31.0%
Ballentine 30.9%
Dutch Fork #1 30.0%
Blythewood #3 29.8%
Springville 28.5%
Spring Hill 25.8%
Blythewood #1 24.7%
And these are the ten highest precincts voting Yes:
Ward 9 83.0%
Ward 31 82.4%
Ward 19 81.3%
Ward 8 76.5%
Ward 32 76.4%
Edgewod 74.6%
Ward 2 74.3%
Ward 21 73.1%
Ardinca 71.9%
Ward 29 71.7
It would be interesting to see how the voting machines were distributed in terms of the required machines in the majority No districts.
Dutch Fork – 4 machines initially, three working (8 after 4pm when Nathan Ballentine threw a fit for us).
Per the election people quoted in The State, there were 3020ish registered voters for DFMS. If that’s right then 12 machines were required by law (1 machine per 250 voters).
There were more than 3020 people waiting to vote. That’s not even counting those from this district who absentee voted.
Edit :
These are the ten precincts with the lowest percentage of yes votes against the sales tax increase… i.e. only 24.7% in Blythewood #1 voted yes, 75.3% voted no.
A total con job. I’ve heard the ter clusterf—more in the last week than in my lifetime. I will bet anybody that given the legislative lineup that does the hiring and firing, nobody gets fired but maybe transferred. Heard the FBI is in town.
The FBI may be in town for a seminar at the Robert Stern designed Hollings Federal whatever building at USC. They are laughing their collective butts off at Garibaldi’s and Cola’s at this post indicating they give a rat’s ass about a corrupt Richland County election commission. Unless they are finally acting on whether or not your Chief Justice in ass deep in the cover-up – which she is and will be.
I think we are going to see some people face jail time on this one and there are some prominent names in Columbia that will be sullied in the process. It seems as if, in SC, some of our citizens need to learn a lesson every 30 years or so.
Nothing’s gonna happen. It’ll be just like all the other blatantly unlawful and unethical cases that seem to get swept under the rug recently.
Who was the famous SC politician who said of an election in the 1930s something along the lines of, “I’m shocked that there are that many Republicans even in South Carolina [just a few percent of the vote] and I’m more shocked that the votes were counted.”
Coleman Blease
Liberals own the courts, the federal gov’t, healthcare, the media, schools, welfare…and now the ballot boxes…
Stalin ain’t too far behind….
Relax, don’t get in a tither, they will just be re-education and forced-labor camps, not like the kind you guys built.
What if they KILL you liberals like the Millions Stalin, Mao and Hitler killed…???
Of course, you are the Killers…so you likely think they will spare you…
But when the economy breaks…they’ll kill the atheists (liberals) just to keep you from trying to steal their grand lifestyle…
“The S.C. Supreme Court has just issued an order instructing Richland County to complete its initial count (and certify the results of that count) by noon on Friday.”
The penny tax will pass and McCullough will be elected. Toal has given the election back to the very people who were trying their best to rig the election. Now, there are an uncounted number of “found” votes.
This must have been as Jake Knottsie wanted it. Jean Toal dances to the tune that Knottsie plays. Maybe not for much longer, but for now at least.
I agree Raspy. Knotts was Jean’s ace in the hole on the Senate Judiciary Committee. I bet he’s been deleted from her private cell phone contacts list already.
??? – she has “privates” – ???
Ewwwww…
Who’s in charge of supervising Richland County election commission? The Richland County state legislators actually appoint damn commission and director, according to The State! Bet Kirkman was elected as fair and square as his BFF Bobby Harrell can make it. Starting to see helicpoters? Yeah, those are real. And they’re the expensive kind, too….
Knottsie, hell….the Duke of Harrell handed down that order. Follow the money, FITS…
Is it me or do we citizens deserve what we get if all we can do is quote a corrupt newspaper as far as understanding how our government works. One does not have to be a lawyer or The State reader to know how commissions are appointed or how many machines are in a precinct election.
If we want to hold them buy the nose and kick them in the ass, we need to understand with the internet, ignorance is no excuse.
Finally, our host has seen the light as far as voter fraud is concerned. He no doubt has the attention of politocos, perhaps it is time to up the ante and empower the people further more.
Embed a Forum on this web site for the citizenry to post and exchange information as a depository of insights and information to stay above the bullshit we have in our government. Call it the Liberty Post and Exchange. This way, if we have permanent info related to an article, we can post and exchange it on a seperate forum. Examples being links to particular websites to find information. This way, one does not have to fish through articles and comments to find a pearl.
Here is a starter link for the webmaster:
http://weblogs.about.com/od/addonsandplugins/tp/Tools-To-Add-A-Forum-To-Your-Blog.htm
As far as Richland County, look here for info:
http://www.richlandonline.com/departments/elections/index.asp
The State published precinct data and there is no correlation between precincts that have voted against the tax and shortage of machines. The problem in Richland County is simply a problem in competence and diligence, not a conspiracy. I know that doesn’t make for sensational reading, but that is where all of the real evidence points.
There was a time when screw-ups were more likely to have been caused by innocent incompetence, but you’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.
I agree with Lance. “Like.”
Never assume malice when simple stupidity will suffice — Hanlon’s Razor
The conspiracy, if there is one, is with the absentee ballots which provided 99% of the “yes” vote margin of victory.
The incompetence is in the allocation of voting machines in a way that did not meet the legal standard.
The election results are invalid because of the voting machine allocation. The election results are suspect because of the absentee ballot responses compared to the election day responses.
Does anyone have a source for the voting machine counts by precinct so I can tie them to the previous data I posted under user DR?
Once the election is over, an analysis will be done detailing by precinct which voting machines failed, which voting machines were collecting votes past 7 p.m., and a ranking of machines by votes cast.
Read this link detailing the problems ES&S, the private company that runs our elections, found with Riohland County.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/113167633/Richland-County-SC-General-Election-review
The voting box should be kept sacred. The most important right given to us by our constitution should not be mis-handled. We all make mistakes, however, this one should have no lead way. Those responsible, starting at the top on down, need to be investigated. Those found guilty need to be punished. Whether it be criminal or loss of a job. This type of situation does nothing but give South Carolina another black eye. I do not know about you, but I am tired of the black eyes given to our state by incompetent people. We are better than this. Remember it only takes a few rotten apples to spoil the batch. Time to remove the rotten apples.