I just voted.
First of all, RFK is on the ballot. I could have voted for him. When I asked here on the blog how come the ballot included a candidate who’d withdrawn, people told me it was going to be changed. Well, it wasn’t. RFK is still there on voting day, splintering the Republican vote.
Another issue is that I had two ballots in my envelope. I’m a registered Democrat, female. When I brought the additional ballot to the attention of the election judge, she said, “Ha ha, this keeps happening today.” I have no idea if it “keeps happening” to registered Republican voters.
Yet another problem is that in the very short time I spent at the poll, a woman came in asking to vote. She was told she’d requested and received a mail-in ballot. She claimed to know absolutely nothing about it. This was an immigrant woman with poor English skills. Whether she voted already, or somebody did on her behalf, or something else took place, nobody can unravel.
I spent maybe 10 minutes total at the poll and it was enough to observe all this stuff. It’s disturbing, is all I can say.
Clarissa's Blog 
Congratulations. I have just done the same. They got RFK off the ballot in my state, at least. I’m registered as independent, so no double ballots for me. Everything looked calm and orderly.
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I’m shocked by what I saw today. These are third-world shenanigans that are shameful to observe in this country.
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What is strange is that your state is voting democrat overall. They should not need to resort to those types of tactics. Or, is it the other way around and your state votes D because of such things?
I live in a swing state, and did not observe anything strange. The part that makes me uneasy is the widespread early and mail-in voting, they say that over 50% of registered voters already voted before the Election Day.
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Yeah, I no longer even know how Illinois actually votes after what I saw today. It’s very depressing.
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After our current governor did a mop-up of corrupt elections offices in Miami/Palm, suddenly that area was more red-voting than ever before. I think I’m not the only one who wonders if it wasn’t way more conservative all along, except for the hijinks going on in the vote counting.
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That’s exactly what I’m starting to suspect. How do people actually vote without all this creative updating of the electoral process? I wonder.
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IT does seem like if they had a real lock on the popular vote, the fraud would be unnecessary, doesn’t it?
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Are there no scrutineers or observors at your polling locations? If not reports this nonsense to somebody in the party you favour, there must be some mechanism to stop or at keast officially record illegal voting. Mind you, our provincial elections has just managed to bugger things with mail in voting and machine counting. If it ain’t broken, stop trying to fix it ;-D
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My home county had more than 50% turnout for early voting, and there has never in my lifetime been even a *whiff* of election corruption there, so… I tend to think it’s mostly people who don’t want to take time off work, wait in line, etc. on the actual Tuesday of… though I’ve heard from people elsewhere that they opted for vote early because they feared election-day violence, because they didn’t want to risk the polls being so crowded they were stuck there for hours, or because they were afraid if they didn’t get their name checked off ASAP someone would take the initiative and vote on their behalf.
Personally… I feel like the cheaters use early voting to gauge how much they have to fraud to get ahead, so I prefer to vote on the day of, to avoid giving them a heads-up. Everybody’s got their own chain of logic.
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The missus and I wound up voting at the same time. She asked me to say, “Did you make the right choice?” after we finished. I did, and she responded, “Sure did, honey.”
A little obvious, but we amuse ourselves.
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I definitely made the Right choice.
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You’re being very elegant about the whole electoral fraud thing, Clarissa.
No matter who wins, I still think it is an absolute disgrace and I’m shocked that not enough Americans feel the corresponding outrage.
But that’s cultural: most native-born Americans cannot really fathom what a great privilege voting is. For most other peoples on earth, on the contrary, the memory of fighting for the right to live in a democracy is still very much alive, and of the blood spilt in order to earn that right.
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I’ve been depressed all day over this. And I need to snap out of it because I’m going on live in a few hours to be upbeat and give people hope.
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Never beat yourself down, Clarissa. Bad times beget strong people, and bad times still have to come for America, unfortunately. There’s hope yet.
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“These are third-world shenanigans that are shameful to observe in this country”
Yes. And I’m mostly convinced it’s by design.
To bring up the name of one cursed by the gods…. *whisper* Noam Chomsky *whisper* once noted that formal appearance of democracy is to engrained in America to simply be done away with. Instead the whole process is turned into a meaningless spectacle.
The goal (according to me) is precisely to create cynicism and apathy in the population so the brazen incompetence and crookedness is part of the plan to convince people their votes don’t matter and voting is overrated and look over there!!!! Is that a seagull! Did you hear the latest about Taylor Swift’s boyfriend?
I tried to explain some of the current realities to a Polish friend (like not having to show photo ID) and they straight up didn’t believe me.
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For all we know, there might be gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over Jill Stein voters tomorrow, so have hope, Clarissa.
Also, if you’re in a state that allows same day registration to vote, that seems…sus.
My state does not, thank goodness. Imagine a bunch of idiots voting under IP Freely and Amanda Hugginkiss.
Voting at my precinct is orderly with no shenanigans. No double ballots, no weird misprints, no strange computer nonsense switching, no drunken fools yelling at each other.
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