Voter Fraud Alert: North Carolina

Project Veritas, the brainchild of muckraker James O'Keefe, has done excellent work in exposing America's almost criminally lax voting procedures that are tailor-made for vote fraud. The investigation recently moved to North Carolina, which doesn't require a photo ID to vote:



The problem is hardly restricted to any one particular state. Florida officials have found over 50,000 dead people and some 180,000 non-citizens on the voting rolls.

9th Circuit: Photo ID Okay--Kirsten Powers Agrees

Sorry vote fraudsters: Even the super liberal U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concluded that the requirement to show a government-issued photo ID to vote is legal.

Earlier this week, the full (i.e., "en banc") court ruled in favor of 2004 Arizona ballot initiative--Proposition 200--requiring photo ID to cast a ballot. in Gonzalez v. Arizona, the appellate panel concluded that the mandate to show a driver's license or the equivalent was not discriminatory, as every common-sense person irrespective of ethnicity already knows.

As the Arizona Daily Star explains:

...the judges rejected arguments that mandating would-be voters show a driver's license or other identification unfairly discriminates against Latino voters. Judge Sandra Ikuta, writing for the majority, said while challengers made that claim, they failed to present any credible evidence.

The court disallowed one provision of the Arizona law that requires proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote using the federal form because it was inconsistent with the federal "Motor Voter Law," one of the worst pieces of legislation signed into law by then-president Bill Clinton. This issue will eventually find its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Kirsten Powers, one of the few liberal TV commentators who doesn't rely on propaganda and disinformation, says Democrats and liberals are trapped in the past with their obsessive opposition to photo ID laws:

Poll Worker Gives U.S. Attorney General's Voting Ballot to Complete Stranger

Eric Holder's politicized Justice Department is on a vendetta against laws to prevent vote fraud such as showing a government-issued picture ID at the polls. Playing the phony voter suppression card, Holder and his politicized minions claim that there is no evidence of voter fraud, despite indictments for same all over the country, most recently in Indiana (although the latter involves petition fraud).

James O'Keefe of Project Veritas shows how anyone can apparently walk in and vote in the name of none other than Eric Holder.



John Fund adds the following on National Review Online:

State Senator Harold Metts of Rhode Island got a photo-ID law put on the books in his state last year after he was told by several constituents of a pattern of voter fraud in his home town of Providence. Indeed, his own state representative and her daughter had their votes stolen by someone voting in their names in one election...Metts, the state senate’s only African-American member, says that he took a lot of heat from national Democrats for getting the ID law approved by an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature. But he says party loyalty only takes him so far. “It’s time to stop crying wolf and make the voter-ID law work for those on both sides of this issue who want to ensure the integrity of the system, while guarding against disenfranchisement.”

As one of the commenters writes under Fund's article, "It's clear to pretty much everybody that the reason the Dems are against voter ID is that they perpetrate most of the voter fraud."

Photo ID for Voting: What's Wrong with this "Picture"?

The left seem seems to be addicted to vote fraud in the same way that crackheads are drawn to the white powder.

How else to explain the all-too-predictable Justice Department blocking Texas' voter ID law for mythical violations of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, while a Wisconsin judge issued a ruling setting aside a similar Wisconsin law. Now the corrupt United Nations, an organization dominated by human-rights-violating dictatorships, wants to engage in a phoney-baloney investigation of U.S. photo ID laws.

Liberals worried about make-believe voter disenfranchisement cling to the fantasy that voter fraud is not a problem. Here is another video from James O'Keefe of Project Veritas that demonstrates otherwise.

Study: Nearly Two Million Dead Voters Still on Rolls

Leftists (including seemingly corrupt U.S. Justice Department officials) who claim that vote fraud isn't a problem act like isolated soldiers who many years later still haven't heard that the conflict has been settled.

The Pew Center on the States found in a new report (titled "Inaccurate, Costly, and Inefficient,") that nearly two million dead people are still registered to vote, about 24 million registrations are either "invalid or inaccurate," and 2.75 million persons who are improperly registered to vote in more than one state.

Our lax voter registration procedures are obsolete. The report maintains that "Voter registration in the United States largely reflects its 19th-century origins and has not kept pace with advancing technology and a mobile society. States’ systems must be brought into the 21st century to be more accurate, cost-effective, and efficient."
 
How about as a start deploying similar technology to that implemented by MasterCard or Visa?

The study also provides more common sense justification for photo ID in all states, as Investor's Business Daily explains:

Yet Democrats are pummeling states trying to impose picture ID laws to protect against this kind of fraud. They vetoed such laws in Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire and North Carolina.

The Justice Department blocked South Carolina's new photo ID law...

Democrats make two bogus arguments. First, that ballot fraud isn't "widespread" enough to merit the new requirement, as though there's such a thing as a tolerable level of fraud. Second, that picture ID laws would suppress voter turnout among minorities.

In fact, states with picture ID laws go out of their way to make sure everyone who needs an ID can get one. Plus, turnout in Indiana and Georgia swelled after their laws went into effect, and  the Supreme Court already ruled that picture ID laws don't infringe on anyone's right to vote.

Given this, it's hard to escape the conclusion that Democrats count on exploiting an inept and tattered registration system to help them win close elections. If that isn't the case, they should prove it by backing a reform that would do much to protect the sanctity of the ballot box.

Addendum: In a column about the Pew study, National Review's Deroy Murdock writes:

 For its part, President Obama’s Justice Department exacerbates these problems.

As former federal prosecutor J. Christian Adams explains in his superb book Injustice, Section 8 of the Motor Voter Act “requires voter rolls to be kept free of dead and ineligible voters.” As Justice attorneys were poised to investigate eight states rife with non-living and otherwise unqualified voters, top Obama appointees balked.

Adams heard Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes tell headquarters staffers in November 2009: “We have no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It has nothing to do with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to do it.”

Non-Citizens Voting in Lee County Florida

Right-of-center politicians have to overperform in elections because Democrats tend to feast on vote fraud, which was made easier by the so-called Motor-Voter law enacted during the Clinton administration (which does not require proof of citizenship).

Cape Coral, Fla., in the Ft. Myers area, is a beautiful place to live or visit. But like communities all across the U.S., the integrity of the ballot is at risk because of lax laws and poor oversight as revealed by this local TV investigation about non-citizen voting. In the meantime, head-in-the-sand (or worse) liberals insist vote fraud isn't a problem and fight tooth and nail against reasonable photo ID requirements.

New Hampshire Primary Vote Fraud

New Hampshire's motto is "live free or die." It could also be "vote even you're dead."

In this video made on primary day, muckraker James O'Keefe reveals how easy it is to commit vote fraud in that state--and in other states that require no photo ID to vote or that fail to scrub the voter rolls of ineligible voters.

Only the Alice in Wonderland Democrats (including New Hampshire's governor who vetoed a voter ID bill) oppose reasonable efforts to prevent shenanigans at the polls.

Corrupt or incompetent state officials, aided and abetted by the U.S. Justice Department, are turning a blind eye to vote fraud--although in this case the New Hampshire attorney general claims he will conduct an investigation.



Requiring voters to show a photo ID before voting is one issue; fraud-prevention reforms also need to be made in the distribution of absentee ballots.
 

Justice Department: Vote Early, Vote Late, Vote Often

In daily life, we in general have to assume good faith in our transactions with others, otherwise as a practical matter we'll be consumed with doubt and unable to get things done.

But can anyone attribute good faith to th U.S. Justice (so-called) Department?

The latest outrage is that DOJ rejected South Carolina's voter ID law on the basis of alleged "racial disparities" according to Assistant AG Thomas Perez. Relying on the provisions of the Voting Rights Act, the agency will likely block similar measures recently enacted in other states.

This phony-baloney decision really amounts to the DOJ under Eric Holder simply wanting to make vote rigging and vote fraud easier just in time for the 2012 presidential election. Again, as we have mentioned previously, if you need to show a picture ID for mundane activities such as getting on a plane, buying booze or cigarettes, picking up a package at UPS or the Post Office, or in some cases completing a credit card transaction, why in the world should any reasonable person oppose showing a driver's license or other valid photo identification at the polls? And isn't it an insult to any individual or group to assume that they can't get it together to obtain a photo ID?

Presenting a picture ID at the polls was "endorsed by the Commission on Federal Election Reform headed by President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker in 2005 to protect the integrity of the ballot," the WSJ adds.

The DOJ action based on make-believe discrimination defies common sense. But it comes from the same fantasy world federal government that fails to enforce immigration law but sues states that do.

Earlier this week (before the South Carolina decision was announced, although the handwriting was on the wall), The Wall Street Journal decried Holder's use of the race card to oppose voter ID in a recent speech:

Mr. Holder says the Civil Rights Division led by Thomas Perez will review the policies and impartially "apply the law." If that's true, Mr. Perez's job should be easy: In 2005, Justice approved a nearly identical law in Georgia. In 2008's Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the Supreme Court likewise ruled 6-3 that an Indiana law requiring photo ID at the ballot box was constitutional....

That isn't good enough for Mr. Holder, who says his department's priority is to "expand the franchise." But expand it for whom, exactly? The vast majority of voters already have the necessary photo ID, which they need to get through airport security or register for a grocery-store savings card.

Plaintiffs put up by liberal lawsuit shops routinely claim that ID laws endanger the rights of hundreds of thousands, but lawsuits in Indiana and Georgia were dismissed because they couldn't produce a single eligible voter who'd been turned away due to the ID requirement. Turnout has risen in states that have passed the voter ID laws, with no adverse impact on minorities.

Texas is apparently next on the chopping block. DOJ whistleblower J. Christian Adams recommends that "The way to save Texas voter ID is to withdraw the objection, immediately, and file in federal court on Tuesday.  The way to save South Carolina voter ID is to file in court immediately.  Stop wasting time with the corrupt leftist bureaucrats at the Justice Department."

Hopefully South Carolina, Texas, and other similar situated states will immediately use all the legal means at their disposal to overturn the DOJ bureaucracy.

Artur Davis: Democrats Cooking the Ballot Box

Organizations similar to ACORN allied with the Democrats are likely gearing up to commit vote fraud in the 2012 election. Former Congressman Artur Davis says that the real problem in voter fraud, at least in his home state of Alabama, is in the absentee ballot process, and that no "progressive" should oppose voter ID laws.

Again, if you need to show an ID for mundane activities such as getting on a plane, buying booze or cigarettes, picking up a package at UPS or the Post Office, or in some cases completing a credit card transaction, why in the world should any reasonable person oppose showing photo identification at the polls?

Finally: A Democrat Who Supports Voter ID

What's more bogus in contemporary politics--made-up stories about Tea Party transgressions or the delusional reasons that the Democrats and the ACLU types use to justify their opposition to reasonable requirements for showing a photo ID before voting?

Former Congressman Artur Davis, a Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for Alabama governor, no longer buys into the left-wing mythology (which is just a smokescreen for voter fraud) about the latter according to this opinion piece in a Montgomery newspaper:

I've changed my mind on voter ID laws -- I think Alabama did the right thing in passing one -- and I wish I had gotten it right when I was in political office.

When I was a congressman, I took the path of least resistance on this subject for an African American politician. Without any evidence to back it up, I lapsed into the rhetoric of various partisans and activists who contend that requiring photo identification to vote is a suppression tactic aimed at thwarting black voter participation.

The truth is that the most aggressive contemporary voter suppression in the African American community, at least in Alabama, is the wholesale manufacture of ballots, at the polls and absentee, in parts of the Black Belt.

Voting the names of the dead, and the nonexistent, and the too-mentally-impaired to function, cancels out the votes of citizens who are exercising their rights -- that's suppression by any light. If you doubt it exists, I don't; I've heard the peddlers of these ballots brag about it, I've been asked to provide the funds for it, and I am confident it has changed at least a few close local election results.

To his further credit, Davis apparently was the only black Democrat to vote against Obamacare.

Tom Foley Fails The Voters Of Connecticut

Americans have a lot to be thankful for on this day.

On a macro level, the November elections halted this mad rush toward socialism (although there are rumblings about executive orders that could circumvent the will of the people).

We have to wonder how many more seats could have been won in Congress without fraud committed by ACORN wannabes and union operatives with the complicity of government officials? In a way, it's almost like an occupying army comes in and steals close elections. U.S. Department of Justice whistleblowers have testified that the agency won't enforce the section of the Voting Rights Act that requires states to remove deceased voters from the rolls or othewise lift a finger to combat ballot fraud.

For a technologically advanced, industrialized nation, the U.S. has incredibly lax registration and voting procedures that are ripe with fraud, including allowing illegal aliens to vote. One of the first orders of business for the new Congress should be to tighten procedures for voter registration and absentee ballots and to require photo ID in elections in all 50 states.

Back in September during primary season, Maryland resident Rory Cooper addressed this issue on NationalReviewOnline:

Maryland is one of 23 states that maintain the most minimal standards for voter identification, only requiring that you show ID (photo not required) when you register, and never again after that. This allows anyone who knows your full name and polling location to vote in your place with no recourse. ..

Liberals led by the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, and the NAACP contend that voter-ID requirements are designed to suppress minority and Democratic votes, but that has been proven wrong time and time again. ..

A Rasmussen poll in August 2010 found that a full 82 percent of Americans believe all voters should show photo ID before they are allowed to vote, representing a majority in every single demographic group. ..

In ruling after ruling, strict voter-ID laws have been found to be constitutional and not in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Yet that doesn’t stop liberal activist groups from spending countless court hours and taxpayer resources working towards an end goal that invites voter fraud. ..

The point here is not that people should be denied their right to vote. Quite the opposite: Legal and registered citizens should not be denied their right to have their votes fully count by illegal ballots cast mere feet away. ..

It’s time for all 50 states to have commonsense voter-ID laws that require photo identification every time you vote. It is the only way to protect the integrity and security of this sacred obligation for millions of legally registered Americans. Please, will someone check my ID?

Connecticut is fortunately on of those states in which photo ID is required. This didn't stop the Democrats from apparently stealing the governor's election in some shady activity in the city of Bridgeport, aided by an inept office of the secretary of the state. The events in Bridgeport were dirty and chaotic.

Lackluster candidate Tom Foley, who allegedly lost the election by some 6,000 votes out of about one million cast, had a solemn obligation to the voters to contest the election and get to the bottom of the vote fraud. Instead, after a few days of saber rattling, he threw in the towel, and let the voters down.

Jim Vicevich summarizes on RadioViceonline:

 So let’s see. In Bridgeport we have poll workers on tape mixing official ballots with sample ballots, voters allowed to vote who were not registered, registered voters receiving multiple ballots and what does Foley say? “So the election Tuesday, although very close, was a conclusive victory for Dan Malloy, and this result should not be questioned.” And how does Mr Foley know that the irregularities were not willfull?

...[Foely] was a rich guy looking for another title and clearly out for himself. A guy who wanted to play Governor, not be Governor. It was never about the people of this state, or the fiscal emergency facing Connecticut, it was about him, a throwback to the original elitist RINOs that we will continue to purge from the party.

Pajamas Media had a report of vote fraud in neighboring Massachusetts that was likely replicated throughout the country on November 2.

Addedendum: In the midst of all this outrage from liberals about "Tea Party" votes being responsible for Bristol Palin's ascendancy on Dancing With The Stars, the HillBuzz blog quips that Palin supporters were just doing what Democrats do in real elections!

DOJ Whistleblower: Justice Department is Lawless

Is anyone really surprised that the Obama is presiding over the most politicized Justice Department in history? Consider the purely political lawsuit challenging the Arizona immigration law, dropping the Philadelphia voter intimidation case despite a default judgment against the perpetrators, and now allegations that the DOJ facilitates ACORN-like vote fraud according to whistleblower J. Christian Adams, a lawyer who worked in the agency's Voting Rights section:

In November 2009, the entire Voting Section was invited to a meeting with Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes, a political employee serving at the pleasure of the attorney general. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss Motor Voter enforcement decisions.

The room was packed with dozens of Voting Section employees when she made her announcement regarding the provisions related to voter list integrity:

We have no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It has nothing to do with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to do it.

Jaws dropped around the room.

It is one thing to silently adopt a lawless policy of refusing to enforce a provision of federal law designed to bring integrity to elections. It is quite another to announce the lawlessness to a room full of people who have sworn an oath to fairly enforce the law.

Adams recently gave this interview on FNC following his testimony before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission:



Should the Republicans take control of Congress after the November, one of their first legislation actions should be to require photo ID in all 50 states to vote. This in addition to requiring full enforcement of Section 8 of the Motor Voter Law.

Blatant vote fraud is what the Democrats really mean by voter "outreach." That's how "Stuart Smalley," among others got elected to Congress. Democrats want every vote counted rather than every legal vote counted. Think of it as a form of community organizing...

Addendum: The lawyer (and now federal prosecutor) who represented the American Taliban is quarterbacking the DOJ's legal effort to block Arizona's immigration law. That speaks volumes about the administration's priorities, does it not?

FBI has the Goods on ACORN Vote Fraud

We've often wondered about kind of algorithms need to be used to take vote fraud into consideration when polling organizations giv election predictions. After all, with corrupt organization like ACORN doing their bidding, phantom voting is big part of the Democrats' "get out the vote" effort. That's why they fight tough and nail (using absurd, made-up reasons) against laws that would simply require a photo ID to cast a ballot.

Via The Daily Caller, evidence has apparently come to light about ACORN vote fraud in St. Louis:

The radical activist group ACORN “works” for the Democratic Party and deliberately promotes election fraud, ACORN employees told FBI investigators, according to an FBI document dump Wednesday.

The documents obtained by Judicial Watch, a watchdog group, are FBI investigators’ reports related to the 2007 investigation and arrest of eight St. Louis, Mo., workers from ACORN’s Project Vote affiliate for violation of election laws. All eight employees involved in the scandal later pleaded guilty to voter registration fraud...

One employee told the FBI that ACORN headquarters is “wkg [working] for the Democratic Party.”

According to one report, an ACORN employee said the purpose of “[f]raudulent cards” was “[t]o cause confusion on election day to keep polls open longer,” “[t]o allow people who can’t vote to vote,” and “[t]o allow to vote multiple times.”

The organization is in the process of re-branding in many states which is not good news for anyone who believe in fair elections.

Voter ID Required for Town Hall--But Not To Vote

The artist formerly known as Stuart Smalley and many other politicians elected by slim margins often owe their narrow election victories to "voter outreach"--i.e., ballot fraud by ACORN and other community organizers as facilitated by ethically compromised state officials themselves elected through the Soros-funded Secretary of State Project.

In general, Democrats really come apart at the seams in response to common-sense proposals to require showing a photo ID to vote. They usually block legislation to that effect in state houses where they hold the majority.

Even Mexico, among many other countries, has a more secure voting process than the U.S.

Last year, Democrats even went all the way to the Supreme Court in an unsuccessful bid to set aside an innocuous Indiana photo ID law.

So now NewsBusters reports that a Democrat lawmaker, Rep. Eugene Green of Texas, who opposes photo ID for federal elections, is nonetheless insisting on a photo ID to gain entry to his town hall meetings. This is, of course to verify that attendees live in his district. In other words, you need to bring an ID to talk to him, but not to vote for him.

What's wrong with this "picture"?

Mexico Celebrates Democracy

The "election" of Al Franken--a/k/a Stuart Smalley--in Minnesota is yet another example of contemporary vote stealing in the U.S., something that should never be tolerated in the world's foremost democracy. As reported by FrontPage Magazine, the U.S. has a lot to learn from our neighbor to the south to ensure clean elections:

Every registered Mexican voter has a Voter ID card, complete with photograph, fingerprint, and a holographic image. It’s not just the existence of the card that’s important, but how it is used. At the Mexican polling station, there is a book containing the photographs of every voter in the precinct. When a Mexican voter presents his card, the poll worker looks up his photo to see if it matches up. If it does, a mark is made next to the photo in the book, and the voter is allowed to cast his ballot.

When I was there on July 5th, a voter’s photo ID didn’t match up with her photo in the book, because she brought her previous voter ID and not her current card. She wasn’t allowed to vote, and had to go home to get her current ID.

After voting, ink is applied to the Mexican voter’s thumb. That way, if he shows up at another polling site to vote, they know he’s already voted elsewhere. (The ink wears off after a few days.)

In contrast, U.S. voter registration is a joke. In many states, it’s not even necessary to prove one’s citizenship or identity. Registrars have been instructed not to be inquisitive about applicants’ citizenship, or lack thereof.

It should come as no surprise then, that the last few years have seen more and more examples of voter fraud coming to light, including the casting of ballots by non-citizen voters.

Whenever Americans try to require photo ID, it typically gets opposed by Hispanic activists who say it’s discriminatory. That’s ironic, since photo ID is a requirement in Mexico, which is the world’s biggest Hispanic country. The solution for U.S. states is to adopt a Mexican-style photo voter ID system, at government expense.

Stuart Smalley, The Senator From ACORN

Yesterday's ruling from the Minnesota Supreme Court on the U.S. Senate election contest was not unexpected. While former senator Norm Coleman could have pursued a further appeal in federal court on equal protection grounds, he instead did the statesmanlike thing and conceded the election. Of course, this move may have coincided with preserving Coleman's future political viability. But let's face it; Coleman, who seems to be fine man who may have run a lackluster campaign, was done-in by phantom ballots that appeared after his apparent election night victory. If you separate out the fraudulent votes, Coleman likely would have been reelected. Even with all the ballot stuffing, Stuart Smalley only managed to eke out a 312-vote win.

The guys at PowerLine blog, who followed this court struggle closely, suggest that Coleman's case was sabotaged by bad lawyering on the part of his legal team. But they also add the following:

We are left with the realization that every Republican in a statewide race here in Minnesota starts a few thousand votes in the hole, due to the disparate standards for judging absentee ballots used in Republican-leaning versus Democratic-leaning counties. Of course, that understates the case: the Republican starts out farther behind than that, due to illegal votes that cannot be prevented because of the Democratic Party's blocking of a photo ID requirement. We have no real idea of the magnitude of this disadvantage...The moral of the story, I guess, is that Republican counties should loosen their absentee ballot standards; that is to say, quit following the law.

Isn't it kind of demoralizing in contemporary American that the counties in compliance with the rule of law should no longer do so, otherwise they are put at a fundamental disadvantage?

As an aside, since there were three candidates in this particular election, why not implement an "instant runoff" process like they have in the UK and elsewhere, where you vote for your first choice and your second choice? Under that system, if no candidate makes it to 51% when the first-place votes are counted, the second preference comes into play.

But the larger issue is why in the greatest democracy in the world do we condone such lax if not fraudulent voter registration procedures perpetrated by ACORN and other groups along with their enablers in government? The Bush administration had the bully pulpit for eight years; why not use that to advocate a national law mandating photo ID to vote among other sensible legislative measures to protect ballot integrity? As we mentioned in a previous post, there is no reasonable basis for opposing such a law. Was the administration scared off by the Bush v. Gore controversy? Instead, wasn't that actually a golden opportunity to tighten procedures so that every legal vote is counted? Until the day comes, if ever, that the government creates a hi-tech national voter database that checks your fingerprint or iris when you go to vote on election day, or the equivalent, simply showing your driver's license (which is already required in some states) could be an effective way to protect against voter disenfranchisement.

Again, we'll never understand why the previous administration didn't use its huge megaphone in that instance and others--such as pushing back against misleading media reports on domestic or international issues or fighting to get judicial nominees confirmed over Senate filibusters. In the meantime, close elections will sadly continue to be decided by illegal votes, and judges understandably will be reluctant to overturn the results, even if the results are fishy. In the event of a legal challenge, the court system will likely issue rulings confirming the outcome derived from ideology or make-believe validation of the rigged fact-finding conducted by a lower court or politicized state elections officials.

From the Wall Street Journal:

What Mr. Franken understood was that courts would later be loathe to overrule decisions made by the canvassing board, however arbitrary those decisions were. He was right. The three-judge panel overseeing the Coleman legal challenge, and the Supreme Court that reviewed the panel's findings, in essence found that Mr. Coleman hadn't demonstrated a willful or malicious attempt on behalf of officials to deny him the election. And so they refused to reopen what had become a forbidding tangle of irregularities. Mr. Coleman didn't lose the election. He lost the fight to stop the state canvassing board from changing the vote-counting rules after the fact.

As Joseph Stalin said, "The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."