Margin Of Fraud

Ballot harvesting: In Orange County, an estimated 250,000 harvested ballots were reportedly dropped off on Election Day alone. County Republican Chairman Fred Whitaker claimed the 2016 law “directly caused the switch from being ahead on election night to losing two weeks later.”

Read it all. Insane.

28 Replies to “Margin Of Fraud”

  1. The recent occurrences of ballot harvesting reminds me of a similar situation during my last year of teaching.

    I taught a service course to a different department. One day, I gave a mid-term exam which I quickly graded and returned. In one class section, I went through the solution and almost immediately after I was finished, one twerp comes up to me with his paper.

    “Sir! Sir! You missed marking these parts of my exam!” What the swine did was copy my solution down almost exactly and claim that he had written it on his paper during the actual exam session. I asked him how it was possible that I would have missed something like that, which, until that day, had never happened in all the years I had been teaching.

    He stood there with a straight face and said “I don’t know.”

    I knew he was lying. He knew he was lying, but he also knew he was going to get away with it. My problem was how to prove that, particularly since the department head was such a pantywaisted milquetoast who caved into student demands, despite telling me otherwise. That useless cull was close to retirement and he simply wanted to slide into paid idleness without any hassles. I knew he wouldn’t have backed me, so I had no choice but let that useless kid get away with it. Fighting it wouldn’t have been worth it. I gave him what he wanted and walked away from it.

    I don’t remember whether he passed the course or not. If he did, it would have been marginal as he was not only lazy and useless, he just wasn’t all that smart.

    I quit several months later. A few weeks after that, a local newspaper published the graduation list and guess whose name just happened to be on it? When I read that, I knew that I was right to resign.

    So much for integrity in our educational system. Then again, I was told by my own department head that any cheating that occurred was my fault because I made the “learning” do difficult.

    What should I have expected form an institution that guaranteed that acceptance was equivalent to graduating?

    1. It’s too bad greed motivates some educators and their administrations while bridges collapse due to miscalculations on the part of engineers. You did your best, Sir. I respect you for it, surely many others do too.

      With all due respect, if I may, in the spirit of the Season, let not your heart be troubled any longer.

    2. when I was in school all exams, or tests were done the day of and that was the end of the story. to allow such a thing as you suggest would be laughed at.

    3. Back in the day, an offspring had a group project and discovered that one member of same had seriously plagiarized from whatever was available online at the time. Said offspring spent the weekend muttering swears while re-writing that particular offering. Said offspring also formally complained to the faculty, but nothing was done and the offender even got some sort of award, which did not improve offspring’s sense of respect towards that particular faculty, though that attitude was somewhat mitigated when offspring won the gold medal as top of the faculty in graduating year.

      Long gone; said offspring has done very well. All the offsprings have, and I am certain it is in part because we really pushed to inculcate proper standards of honesty, decency, and respect. It shows in their work and we are very proud of them.

  2. I am fortunate to work in a department where we stomp on that sort of crap. First off: NEVER, EVER return their midterms. They can view them anytime in your office. But they are formal exam records. I explain that we need them as a backup in case if a general database failure, or a student medical emergency. You, know so they don’t lose all their current “progress”. Second, comment the CRAP out of all the stupid crap they write, and write out the missing answers in red! With comments.
    Third, NEVER go through the midterms until they’ve handed them back to you. Only then do you work over them. And they are now safely in your bag. Lastly, have a requirement that they pass the final to pass the course. No exceptions. Also without a priori medical notification of a bladder or bowel condition, no bathroom breaks. Period. If I don’t get a bathroom break, and I am in my 40’s, why the fuck should you? The CSC/CFP/CPA is no different.
    Penultimate, explain the economics of education. Something that absolutely EVERYONE has is utterly worthless. Degrees are no different. Ask them where they think the “win” is in coming to college. Why should an employer choose YOU out of 100+ candidates?
    Lastly, assignments only in third year and up. Everything else is live, in class testing. Oh and give brutal exams. YOU are the SME. Not the Dean. It’s that simple.

    1. Bdsm – back in the day, I wiped out of a lab exam. Couldn’t figure out why so went to doctor and discovered was pregnant. Told no one, and wrote all the finals sans spouse who was out in the bush (and had – as I was inadvertently told – been thrown off a helicopter but he was okay: just the news a newly expectant mum needs to hear about her husband when she’s going into finals). Got my degree. Had the offspring. All good.

    2. ” Also without a priori medical notification of a bladder or bowel condition, no bathroom breaks. Period.”

      That’s retarded. Are you going to expect them to get catheterized?

  3. U.S. elections are so rife with fraud that it is impossible to know if someone has in fact been legally elected.

    1. I’m reminded of what happened to me with another service course I taught (re: my earlier comments). To make a long story short, while I was collecting the final exams, I was talking to one of the better students about why there was wide-spread cheating on the midterm. She told me that if she hadn’t cheated, she wouldn’t have passed.

      That, in essence, is the justification for ballot harvesting. Win at all costs, even if it means doing something improper. Then again, to paraphrase a line from the movie The Last Picture Show, it’s not cheating if it’s for a good cause.

  4. This kind of election fraud makes me despair for the future of democracy. And this is supposed to be the example of democracy for the rest of the world to emulate…

  5. May I suggest secret balloting itself is the problem, and all voting should be done by voice, in person, in front of a sworn official, with a confirmation of your vote given to you for your records to be signed by the official and one other witness. Then, and only then, would there be no doubt how any citizen voted.

    Ballot boxes can be stuffed. Ballots sent by mail can be stolen by fraudsters, or by faithless wives able to forge their husband’s signatures.

    1. I would disagree somewhat. Some unions are big on that voice or show of hands. It becomes a peer pressure thing.
      But ‘ballot harvesting’ should not be legal anywhere. People who feel they are entitled will cheat because they believe they are doing it for everyone’s good … or because they’re a POS.

  6. This is not common in Canada due to our system but it happens here also.

    We had a case in a Saskatchewan provincial election a few elections ago in which a certain candidate got more votes than there were registered voters and each of the other candidates also got some votes. It was on the radio news for a few days and then dropped like a hot potato, probably because of the constituency in which it occurred.

  7. So people have stories about schools being gamed, elections being gamed, degrees being gamed, …

    And yet, I suspect none of you would ever vote to end public education, or public health care, or public pensions, or employment insurance, or welfare, or food stamps, …

    If you have never supported limiting or shrinking the power of the state in any way, why do you act surprised when con artists grab the levers of power?

    Always remember, you have exactly the government you deserve. You have always believed everyone who told you Maxime was not electable, or Goldwater, that you could not afford to vote split, …. So suck it.

    1. none of you would ever vote to end public education

      After what I’ve seen in the system as an educator, I’d gladly vote to abolish it and start again from scratch. Corruption and ineptitude are mild terms for what actually goes on.

      Always remember, you have exactly the government you deserve.

      I, and many of my fellow Canadians, didn’t vote for the governments of Alberta or, for that matter, Canada. We clearly didn’t deserve either of them.

      1. It is rare that I disagree with you but in this case please consider the responsibilities (and therefore the deserts) of those who failed to explain to the cheaters, that if they continued to cheat, they would be found hanging from a nearby tree.

    2. Kevin – I might not vote to end such, but I would vote to limit such. Dad was a school teacher and a really good one at that. He fully earned his pension and – at his retirement – had a whole class lamenting they would not have the benefit of his wisdom. Knew a woman on welfare whose husband had died suddenly leaving her with four youngun’s. She was on welfare, but brought them up to be good workers and contributors to society. Actually, my comment about that particular woman was that Welfare should have hired her to go out and teach others how to budget and make do (the middle class social workers were too often clueless).

      One of the big problems I am hearing of today is long term disability, particularly with teachers. I think there should be a minimum number of years before a teacher can qualify for same. Merely realizing that teaching is SERIOUSLY NOT your thing shouldn’t allow a B.Ed grad to claim LTD indefinitely, but some are.

  8. Number of times, a few years ago working as deputy returning officer, the guy that issues, collects and counts ballots.
    This was for federal, provincial and municipal elections.
    In the last elections that were municipal, all of the higher ups were enrichment people.
    The interesting thing the returning officer, from the enrichment class, at the voting station said that if the enrichment people come and were not enumerated and had no ID that would be no problem. All we had to do get the enrichment people that talked English vouch for the enrichment voter since they did not talk English and write up oath paper.
    It was unusual though those were the instructions.
    So anybody and their grandmother from the enrichment class could just come in, no citizenship proof, no driver license ID, no nothing and vote.
    And they did.

    It would seem that democracy, however flawed up to now, is being destroyed further by the politicians and their helpers in the media cartel.
    Unfortunately this is how democracy self-destructs, it is inevitable, it is as though a law of nature.

    And of course the ruling class will always point to some s-hole how corrupt their elections are.
    Guess it depends on the degree of sophistry that the ruling class decide on the degree of corruption.

  9. Once you destroy the mob’s faith in the civic institutions,do not expect civil behaviour.
    Unfortunately such a simple concept is light years beyond a parasites logic.
    We are rushing to embrace the madness.
    In a democracy voter fraud is treason.
    In a kleptocracy voter fraud is a state tool.

  10. Lyndon Johnson would be proud of the Democrats. For a long time they forgot how to win (rig) an election. Now they have caught up to their old ways. All my life’s a circle.

  11. “County Republican Chairman Fred Whitaker claimed the 2016 law “directly caused the switch from being ahead on election night to losing two weeks later.”

    Oh yeah, sure it did.

    There’s still no proof of systemic fraud. You’ve had YEARS to turn anything up, and there’s nothing.

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