Here's a fashion question: Do you think the Republican who masterminded those deceptive pre-election phone calls in Virginia is a winter or an autumn? That could determine whether he goes with the blue jumpsuit or the orange one.
There are some good signs on the democracy-protection front. Democrats appear to be getting over their timidity about electoral fraud issues, as Nancy Pelosi's leads the rhetorical charge to make sure there's an "honest count." My main fear has been that satisfaction over a Democratic victory might lead to indifference about the GOP's systematic subversion of democracy. Hopefully that won't be the case.
Moveon.org is offering $250,000 for "new material evidence leading to a felony conviction for an organized effort of partisan voter suppression or electronic voting fraud." Prediction: The GOP will hire private detectives to scour the country for any sign of "Democratic" fraud, and when they don't find anything they'll gin up a phony conservative "outrage" or two. (You know - a voter named "Mickey Mouse," or something like that.)
It won't matter if they do. The public is wise to their tricks, and is fed up. The new Congress will hopefully press the matter, even if much of the mainstream media can't bring itself to acknowledge the widespread use of harrassing robo-calls by Republicans as a vote-suppression tactic.
Guess what? It looks like there will be some indictments on the phone-sabotage front. The FBI's already looking into it in Virginia.
Dum-de-dum-dum ...
This one could catch up with the GOP, too: "Inaccurate sample ballots describing Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Senate candidate Michael S. Steele as Democrats were handed out to voters in at least four polling sites in Prince George's County this morning."
Low-income people were brought in from nearby states to hand out these misleading documents. I hope somebody got the license numbers of the vehicles that brought them, since there's a good likelihood they were used in the commission of a felony.
The perps in these various acts have seriously misread the public mood. Neither the general public nor the Congress are likely to forgive and forget the ongoing theft of democracy the way they did in 2000 and 2004, no matter what the pundits try telling them to think. The trickle of indictments that followed the '04 outrages may well become a flood this time around.
That's one reason why the FBI is jumping on the Virginia case. They know that a slow response is going to bring heat from Capitol Hill. (Another reason why they're acting may well be the simple fact that they respect the rule of law and the primacy of the Constitution.)
They're gonna fight the law ... but the law's gonna win.
Catastrophes and technical glitches are sweeping the country as the result of Republican-led voting machine initiatives. (Bradblog's tracking the details.) It's critical that this story stay alive after today's voting, too.
Once the evildoers are all behind bars, the next step will be do roll back the legalized disenfranchisement of the primarily poor and minority voters done in the name of "voter fraud." Despite the fact that the government couldn't find any significant evidence of individuals without I.D. voting fraudulently, the GOP has led the charge to require identification at the polling place. Since drivers' licenses are the primary form of I.D., that effectively disenfranchises many of the working poor who don't drive and don't have the time or money to get alternative forms of identification.
In a karmically pleasing Twilight Zone-ish twist, at least two GOP lawmakers had difficulty voting as a result of these requirements. And this story's more Stephen King than Twilight Zone, but that's just because of the protagonist's identity. (I live in California, and forgot my wallet when I went to vote. Surprise. No problem - and no evidence of voter fraud in my state.)
Let's hope the new Democratic Congress (barring some unforeseen coup) makes the preservation of our democratic rights a major initiative. Anything less than that would be an abandonment of our fundamental rights and liberties.
And now, for the nostalgia buffs among you, we offer today's installment of "Great Moments In Republican History":
"I'm John Bolton. I'm from the Bush/Cheney campaign, and I'm here to stop the vote counting."
(said to poll workers counting ballots in Florida in 2000)