Crop of QC Times photo
In coming days we will post articles regarding election performance in Scott County. What follows is a brief commentary on voting integrity matters.
Note the sign that greats election day voters in Scott County. It helps put fraudsters at ease.
Will the Republican majority in both houses of the Iowa legislature do what is necessary to insure voting integrity?
We served a shift as a Republican poll watcher in our own voting precinct and talked to a couple of others who also volunteered their time in their own precinct or as assigned by the powers that be. A sign like the one above was as prominent as could be at entrances to precinct voting places in Scott County. Think about the implications, including the convoluted purpose of such emphasis. We will get back to that subject after these observations about the days proceedings.
A poll-watcher counterpart from the Democrat party was not present during my shift but may have been during earlier shifts. Mine is a Republican precinct so to the extent that Democrats did poll watch, mine was one they may have skipped. It seems they have less concern about Republicans cheating then over the prospects of Republicans stopping cheating in Democrat precincts.
So Democrats concentrated their polling station efforts in selected precincts and concentrated other personnel in get out the vote efforts. The Republican plan was to have a party observer for every hour of every shift of every precinct. With yeoman effort and organization that was achieved.
In past years, besides observing the integrity of the voting and reporting, the Republican and Democrat efforts included keeping track of each registered voter and crossing their names off tear sheets as they voted. The list was then couriered after each shift to a call center or door-knock effort to eliminate unnecessary calls or contacts.
For the last four years or so, due to an incredible amount of repetitive contact and extensive voting before election day, the Republican effort on election day has focused on observing the integrity of the voting process, reporting anomalies and delays and concerns to the precinct judge and to Republican authorities, and if necessary, challenging evident fraudulent voting, as difficult as it has been made to detect.
It should be emphasized that a challenged vote for any qualified reason does not result in a vote being denied, but rather being placed in a provisional pile for further investigation. Certainly no one is denied a vote on the authority of a party poll-watcher. The judge for that precinct is in charge of enforcing voting integrity at the precinct location, such as they can. Even the judges “ruling” is subject to allowing a provisional ballot.
The main “takeaway observation” of poll watching in Iowa is that the state is very lax as far as prevention of fraud at the polling precinct. And with little imagination, vote by mail is even more open to fraud. We have addressed specifics of the situation in previous posts. But as the picture above starkly indicates the emphasis when Democrat auditors are in charge, is not one person – one vote, but more like, fraud prevention is secondary, let no one even be slightly inconvenienced even if it means illegal voting is facilitated.
Would that the sign above read “we protect the integrity of every vote” or “we insure one man one vote.” with the helpful subtitle “Please show your free government issued voting ID”
Government has a duty to take reasonable precautions to insure the integrity of the vote. Properly structured photo ID requirements do not prevent honest people from voting, they only give fraudulent voters second thoughts, or make fraud more discernible. Anyone with a right to vote in a situation where a free government issued ID picture does not seem to match the person in possession of it, if they want, can still be allowed to vote provisionally for timely verification. The legitimate vote is still assured while being no more burdensome to the voter than what is required of them in so many other exigencies of everyday life.
Incredibly, what passes as due diligence for poll workers in Iowa, indeed what they are limited to, is to, as the voters present themselves, ask each their name. If the name is on the list of registered voters they may be asked to state the associated address. That is the normal check. Some may be asked the date of birth. Now consider what idiot fraudster presenting themself as “John Doe” would not know John Doe’s address and birth date, as readily available as such information is?!
Not at my precinct, but as reported to me, incredibly some of the poll workers, bless their hearts, asked when given the name by the voter,”do you live at such and such address?” All they had to do was answer yes. The doubly incredible insufficiency of that “diligence” was challenged and revised at that precinct.
Requiring a free government issued photo ID to establish eligibility to vote has widespread bi-partisan support. Such a law has been prevented in Iowa by the Democrat hack, Michael Gronstal in his role as majority leader in the Iowa Senate. He was defeated on November 8th and Republicans will be in charge in that chamber as well as the House come January. Passage of solid voter integrity requirements including a requirement of photo voter ID should be among the first orders of business.
R Mall
