Where Was Cathy Then?
Most of y’all know about True The Vote, which wants anything but the truth. They simply want to disenfranchise voters.
I want to give y’all a little bit of inside information. The President of True the Vote, a certain Catherine Renee Engelbrecht lives about three miles from my house. She likes to say she’s from Houston, but that’s not true. She lives in Richmond. At least I hope she does because that’s where she’s registered to vote and where she did, in fact, vote in June of this year. Maybe she’s embarrassed that our mayor is an Obama supporter. Well, but so is the Houston mayor so Cathy ain’t got no place to run.
Maybe she could say that she’s from Waco. I frankly don’t care and, apparently, neither does Cathy.
Anyway, Cathy has been here since 1995 and she forgot tell you about the only case of voter fraud that ever happened in this county, and it happened while she was here. It was in all the papers.
There was a white male Democratic county commissioner by the name of Bud O’Shieles. He got elected by the straight ticket black vote in his commissioner precinct. Four years later, Ole Bud up and decides that he’s a Republican. It took about 3 weeks for Bud to start acting like a Republican – by stealing votes from black folks.
Bud drew a Republican primary opponent, so Bud hired a black man to go into the black community and request vote by mail ballots for all the elderly people and, Honey, there was a passel of them. All the requests were all turned in at once, which looked kinda suspicious and it also looked kinda suspicious that fifty elderly black people who had voted Democratic all their lives suddenly up and turned Republican to request a GOP primary ballot by mail.
So, we discover that this hired man was telling elderly black people that he would come back and help them fill out their ballot. About a week too late these people, many who were blind, discovered that they had voted in the Republican primary and were now considered Republicans under Texas law. That meant they couldn’t participate in their Democratic precinct conventions.
They were mortified. One lady, Miss Emma, wouldn’t go to church for a month for fear her friends would find out she voted Republican.
Their vote was flat stolen by Republicans for Republicans.
Bud won the Republican primary and went on to win the seat again. He lost in the next GOP primary when he couldn’t steal votes again.
And where was Cathy while this was going on? Probably trying to figure out where she lives.
And maybe Cathy needs to buy a mirror before she points fingers ever again. Anybody want to buy her a ticket to Florida?
Thanks to Ben over at Big Pepecito’s Bar in San Antonio.
NO, NO, JJ. I am a Texan living in Florida. I assure you that we have enough of our very own fruitcakes (we could out-do Corsicana at Chrismas time) living here. We don’t need to import any. Try Montana. Lots of wide open spaces for someone like this to howl into the wind.
1Over and over, it seems, everything the Rightistas accuse the left of doing, they are doing double, in spades, with the added attraction of having hypocrisy thrown in on top of it, like a sprinkling of arsenic on a ptomaine salad.
Todays GOTP: more projectors than a multiplex!
2There’s a Scripture in the Bible about that–says something like judge not that you be not judged FOR WITH THE JUDGMENT YOU ARE JUDGED YOU SHALL BE JUDGED. So sure, if somebody is fussing about sex, you might snoop around a bit. And if he/she is worried about voter fraud, you might try to find out more about what he/she does with his her spare time.
3Similar thing in Indiana last Presidential election: a friend’s mother, with Alzheimer’s, was in nursing home…friend found out too late that the nursing home administration obtained and submitted absentee voter forms for all residents, (dunno whether that included fraudulently registering those with no voter registration) and then returned them as Republican votes–including for friend’s mother, who hadn’t been aware enough to know there WAS an election. But that wasn’t even noticed by election officials (“old people are conservative” being the filter, apparently.)
4My grandmother always said that if someone accuses you of something that is out of character for you, chances are they are doing it themselves. I can’t tell you how many times I have found this true. Be wary of the Ex that accuses you of an affair when you are not having one!
5Sounds to me like this wouldn’t even be prevented by the “vote fraud” laws the GOP keeps passing.
Oh, wait…. I just figured out why.
6This isn’t voter fraud – I’m legal! But today I turned in my application for an absentee ballot down at the county clerk’s office. I know the Texas ID law isn’t in effect right now, but no one challenged me or asked me for ID to confirm my age. (My reason for being absentee is that I’m 65 – or older!) Now, why is it that those wanting to vote absentee don’t have to prove anything, but everyone else is considered potential felons.
7I don’t believe in the Rapture, but I sometimes wish it were true and would come and take all the crazies. Or, more likely, take those of us who are trying to battle the crazies, leaving them to confront global warming.
Juanita Jean! How can you even think such a thing as to suggest Miss Cathy should come to my state…we have enough troubles with our Governor Rick Scott. Can you imagine a state so stoopid (not all of us of course!) as to vote for a guy whose company was convicted of medicare fraud and fined 1 Billion dollars? Yes, I said BILLION. SweetBabyCheesus! What in the hell is wrong with people?
8My hope is that our President remains in office and can get done what he started.
Amen
Thank you for the link to The Brad Blog. I must have been dithering on another planet the last few days — had read or heard nothing about the Repubs registering only their own & their myriad other shenanigans. The Brad Blog gave the most comprehensive account of all this — & with footnotes, too. Good enough for a graduate thesis I’d say.
9Honest people are more likely to leave their doors unlocked.
Thieves are more likely to have extra deadbolts.
Probably explains why the Republicans think so much fraud is going on . . .
10I’m sure Cathy will call you a liar because she believes only Democrat-looking folks commit voter fraud.
Unfortunatley, the pretextual “hunt for voter fraud” goes beyond registration purging and poll watchers. In states where poll watchers are more heavily regulated, True the Vote and their affiliates/allies are recruiting and training people to be actual election judges. One organizer went so far as to say “Being an election judge is even better than being a poll watcher as you are actually running the election.”
So do you think that driver’s license makes your vote safe?
Any liquor store clerk knows how easy it is to get a fake. Do we expect TTV not to be aware of this fact in their training? Does the state provide adequate guidance for election judges in determining whether an ID’s picture sufficiently matches the person staning before them? What about the signature matching requirements?
These subjective judgment calls concerning a person’s right to vote a regular ballot may end up in the hands of someone trained to be paranoid rather than reasonably vigilant. See http://www.ragingwisdom.com/?p=1146 for some of the flaws in Ohio’s laws protecting voters on election day, and here
11http://www.ragingwisdom.com/?p=1157 for Florida which has a horrific defect in its voter challenge law that is not getting enough attention.
You always know what the Republicans are up to because when the start their fear tactics over what the Democrats are doing…that is exactly what the Republicans are doing…I have watched this for years and never wrong…When all this voter suppression started about voter fraud…I started posting about the Republicans cheating…so far 5 States have been caught and it is just the beginning….Obama taking money out of medicare will hurt the old people…Obama has and will continue to help Seniors…Ryan has the plan to hurt them…on and on the saga goes!!!
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