One of my big fears about yesterday’s election was that fraud would play a big part in the results. I know that fraud was at work, but I don’t know how much of an impact it had. It is incomprehensible to me that so many things in this world require picture identification – – getting on an airplane, buying liquor, entering a bar, cashing a check… Yet a cornerstone of the democratic process in this great Republic – – voting – – requires no such identification. Any rational person admits that this opens the door to plenty of fraud.

And there was the whole debacle with a Wisconsin judge deciding that we’d ignore a federal election law. The federal law said that voter registrations had to be cross-checked with other records maintained by the state. And a judge said “no thank you.”

No verification of the identity of voters. No checking voter registrations as required by federal law. A situation ripe for fraud… Yet many election officials say, “Fraud has never been a problem!” The truth, however, is that the issue of election fraud has never been investigated or tracked to any sufficient degree, so we don’t really know how widespread it is.

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that voter fraud was put to the bottom of the priority list in Milwaukee. Mike Sandvick has been the head of the Milwaukee Police Department’s Special Investigative Unit, but he says he was told that his unit is being dissolved.

Mike’s work is important because he’s uncovered significant fraud in the voting process. In February 2008, he released a 67-page report on voter fraud in Wisconsin in the 2004 elections. (Note that less than 12,000 votes separated the winner and loser in the presidential race in Wisconsin that year.) What did Mike and company find? Between 4,600 and 5,300 more votes were counted in Milwaukee than the number of voters recorded as having cast ballots.

Yes… About 5,000 fraudulent votes were discovered. How many other fraudulent votes weren’t discovered?

The voter fraud included improper absentee ballots, voting by ineligible felons, votes by non-resident college students, and homeless voters voting multiple times. Same-day registration allows much of this fraud to occur. The report says that 1,305 registrations on voting day in 2004 had invalid information associated with them.

These numbers are only the tip of the iceberg, however. Local radio show host James T. Harris talked with the author of the WSJ article and got more numbers:

55,000 total stolen votes:  15,000 by absentee ballot, 10,000 from college students voting both at home and at school, and 30,000 from illegals and day-trippers from Chicago and Minneapolis primarily showing up in Kenosha and Hudson, WI.

Naturally, officials have their hands over their eyes and are saying, “We don’t see any voter fraud!” Law enforcement officers are no longer allowed to be stationed at polling places because some say that would “intimidate” voters.

I don’t know if voter fraud influenced this election or not. I do know that fraud shouldn’t be part of our electoral process.  My vote means less each time a fraud is allowed to cast another ballot.

But we have our president-elect, Barack Obama. I knew it was likely, but that didn’t decrease the pain and sadness I felt yesterday and today.  I was not a big fan of John McCain, but was thrilled over the selection of Sarah Palin. (I think Sarah’s got a very bright future in national politics, by the way.) John McCain wasn’t an ideal choice by any stretch of the imagination, but he was the much better alternative.

I feel that so many people voted for form over substance. They were in love with the idea of “change,” but didn’t really consider whether that change would be good for our country. I could close my firm Sequence Inc. That would be change. But it would be bad change because it’s not the right move. It’s the same with our politics. I believe that voters chose the idea of change over the real substance of what those changes will be.

I believe the next four years will be incredibly difficult from an economic standpoint, as well from a foreign policy standpoint. Barack Obama doesn’t have the experience to properly lead us, and his values and morals are not strong. The morals of our country have been eroding for years, and there will surely be a landslide over the next four years. (Hopefully not over the next eight years!)

Where is our country headed?

  • A ton of new spending, coupled with higher taxes on all governmental levels to pay for it.
  • A weaker foreign policy, particularly as it relates to terrorists, dictators, and other unsavory characters.
  • Expanding and strengthening of abortion laws – – including giving teenage girls (yes, minors) the ability to have an abortion without parental notification or involvement. (Your child can’t go on a school field trip without a permission slip, but the process of killing a baby and removing it from her body is none of your business, mom and dad!) Partial birth abortion will be more common. Babies who survive abortion procedures and are born alive will be left to die.
  • Unions will expand, even though under the current procedures, employees very often reject the unions. Now there will be no more secret ballots. There will be no true elections. Union organizers can intimidate employees and easily force them to accept the union presence.
  • Health care will be socialized at an enormous cost and a level of incompetence that only the government can provide. Instead of choosing how to spend my health care dollars (and I choose wisely!), that money will be taken away (plus much, much more) and put into an inept and expensive system. Do you think health care is expensive now? Just wait. I won’t have to take responsibility and pay for myself anymore. Instead, I’ll have to pay for myself plus pay for my neighbor’s three kids because she chooses not to be responsible for their costs. (What ever happened to only having as many children as you could provide for?)

Where has the moral compass of Americans gone? It is incomprehensible to me that a large number of people in our country not only support the murder of innocent babies via abortion, they cheer for it! The idea that people will rally for the “right” to murder helpless babies is insane. They give this act a name which sounds empowering – – “reproductive rights” – – but which covers up for the gruesome act of murder that it still is.

Yet we must move forward…

This is our reality, and we have to find a way to deal with it and make things better in any way that we can. This morning on The View, Elisabeth Hasselbeck was so gracious. (Can you imagine the hateful Joy Behar being gracious if the tables were turned? Of course not!) Elisabeth said she recognizes the significance of electing a black man to the office of president for the first time, and that she will support Barack Obama because she feels that Americans should support their president.

I think our country (and the Republican party) needs to go back to conservative values, both socially and economically. We need a “new” Republican party going forward. We need the young leaders to step up and make a change in the Republican party so that we can capture the young voters and win future elections.

We need reform. Political corruption of all kinds needs to go – – and that includes both parties.

And we need to return to the values on which this country was founded. We need to return not only to a higher moral ground, but also back to our roots as the land of opportunity – – in which hard work is rewarded and citizens are allowed to keep the fruits of their own labor.

I don’t believe in Socialistic ideals. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else’s choices and mistakes, and I don’t expect anyone else to be responsible for mine. I don’t want to pay anyone else’s way, and I don’t expect anyone else to pay mine. I don’t expect anyone else to financially support me, and so I don’t want to financially support someone else’s family.

I believe in freedom. We live in the land of opportunity, and anyone who really wants to succeed (educationally, financially, and otherwise) has immeasurable opportunities to do so – – if they are willing to work for it.

I don’t believe it’s the government’s job to take the money that I earn and give it to someone else. I do believe that we need some programs in place to temporarily help those in need. I do not believe we should have the widespread welfare system that we have today. I believe that families have a responsibility to take care of their own, be it their children, elderly parents, disabled sibling, or unlucky family member. It is not the government’s responsibility to take care of people.

I don’t believe that the goal of society should be to have everyone equal financially or otherwise. Why not? Because we are not equal. Some people are smarter. Some work harder. Some have special talents. Some just keep trying until they succeed. Why shouldn’t those people be able to reap the rewards of those things? After all, our country was founded on freedom and opportunity.

I do believe in helping others – – by choice. That means the government should take its hands out of my pockets and let me decide how to spend my money. I will support the charities whose missions are aligned with my values. Government should not use my money to fund things that I do not support.

Our government needs to get back to what it was meant to be: Limited. A government should exist to provide only the most basic services that its citizens cannot or will not provide for themselves. Things like law enforcement, public safety, and national defense should be done by the government. Many other things should be eliminated as government services and offered by the private sector if there are people who need and want them and are willing to pay for them.

Things like health care and a retirement system (Social Security) should not be run by the government. Government is almost always less efficient and less effective in providing services such as these.  Our income tax system is inherently unfair. Families with more children, who inherently use more of the government’s resources, pay lower income taxes.  Those with smaller families pay more income taxes on the same amount of income. Why? Because our system is unfair.

Many taxpayers seem to want the government to provide many things, yet they don’t want to pay for it. “Someone else” should pay the taxes required to expand these programs infinitely.

Mandates and additional taxes on businesses and individuals do not help our economy.  Study economics and look at history. Reasonable tax rates and regulations encourage innovation and the creation of new businesses and industries. Government collections of tax dollars go up when the volume of business being transacted goes up. When unreasonable mandates and taxes are put into place, it depresses our economy and causes jobs to be eliminated.

We are at a time and place in which we will see taxes raised across the board. In Milwaukee, we are set to see huge property tax increases, and many other local governments are doing the same. Local sales taxes are likely to rise. State income taxes are likely going up. Federal income taxes are likely going up. “Fees” (cleverly disguised taxes) are rising all over the place.

Where will those who actually pay taxes find all this extra money? The actions our government is likely to take over the next year or two will strangle the taxpayers and our economy.

It’s interesting that Barack Obama is in favor of “spreading the wealth”, but has personally donates little to charity and does not give financial help to his own family member living in poverty. Doesn’t sound like much sharing to me…. yet taxpayers will be forced to share?

Moving closer to Socialist ideals means there is less incentive for people to work and be productive. Yes, I make more money than some of my friends. Why? In part because I work longer and harder than they do. In part because I sought a career that could offer me these earnings, and I got the education, training, and job experience that would allow me to succeed. And for that I should have more of my earnings snatched out of my hands by a greedy government, to be given to my neighbor who isn’t willing to work as hard as I do?

Yes, it’s a new day in America. But one which scares me, and one in which there is much work to be done.

5 Comments

  1. Barbara 11/06/2008 at 8:12 pm - Reply

    Give it a year and those people who were all for change will be ready to go back to what we had. They will be unhappy when they realize they are not making as much as before and start complaining that the government is taking all their money from them. Well, you knwo what I say to that…. They wanted CHANGE and they got it… Good luck to all those out there realizing their hard work for a quicker retierment will not pay off…

  2. […] this year. Of course the fraud this year is being reported a lot more subtly. Judges are apparently suppressing any investigation into such allegations, while other Judges ask the brains behind 2004 Election Fraud exactly what […]

  3. Duped 11/10/2008 at 10:52 am - Reply

    I, too, am extremely disgusted that people voted for a pretty speech, and did not do the research to discover if the person they were electing had any history of leadership.

    Not only will we see a weaker foreign policy, but also a weaker military. This is not a good thing in our dangerous world.

    Rather than electing the folks who promised to veto pork barrel spending and tackle the lobbyists, they voted in the ones who promise to increase spending and give away more of our hard earned dollars to those are continually holding out their hands expecting something for nothing.

    We definitely have a problem with voter fraud. It must be tackled, along with illegal campaign contributions.

    A pet peeve of mine is the electoral winner-take-all states that skew the results and ensure that hundreds of thousands of votes are thrown out the window. Many states have in place electors who are nominated not by the voters, and they are not required to vote with the majority! I can understand why many voters don’t feel like their votes are considered or even make a difference.

    I can only hope that history repeats itself, and Republicans get back in when the Dems have messed everything up again! Let’s hope we see this in four years, and not eight!

  4. Rick S 11/14/2008 at 1:53 pm - Reply

    Why weren’t you concerned in 2000 when that election was blatently stolen.

    You can stick your head in the sand but it was Conservitives who begged, borrowed and stole. Show me an industry that regulates itself and I will show you a corrupte and bankrupt one.

    A $700 billion bailout, a trillion dollar nation building bill and it’s Barack who is “spreading the wealth”. Are you smoking the Afganistan opium?

  5. Tracy Coenen 11/14/2008 at 1:56 pm - Reply

    Hi Rick – No, the 2000 election was not stolen. Thanks for participating!

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