THE REPUBLICAN SCHEMES TO STEAL ALL ELECTIONS PROCEEDING, DESPITE SOME SET BACKS AND A FEW REPUBLICAN CROOKS IN PRISON

Because their economic policies-- their primary raison d'etre-- are so harmful to the financial well-being of the vast majority of citizens, right wing political parties always resort to non-issue-oriented strategies for winning elections, creating hot-button issues to confuse and divide voters, limiting voter participation and subverting fair elections. The Republican Party in the U.S. can't win elections without these techniques. The subverting of elections through electronic vote stealing is particularly dangerous to the functioning and survival of a democracy.

But Republicans,a truly Stalinist political party, live and die by the dictator's electoral axiom: "It doesn't matter who votes, only who counts the votes." They work every angle to discourage wide electoral participation and to disqualify voters and their votes who they feel are unlikely to support Republicans.

Today the Associated Press is running a story about how Bush's New England campaign chairman is going on trial for this kind of subversion. James Tobin, a former Republican Party top national official played the pivotal role in the 2002 election day scam to jam the phone systems and wreck the Democrats' Get Out the Vote campaign. He is being tried for conspiring against voters' rights and for telephone harassment. He could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted, but like Cunningham, is certain to be pardoned by Bush if he doesn't point any fingers higher up the GOP chain of command (to Rove, for example, the mastermind of this kind of activity).

New Hampshire's former Republican Party Executive Director, Chuck McGee, admitted hatching the plot, with Tobin and was already sentenced to 7 months in prison. Another Republican lowlife/conspirator, Allen Raymond, also pleaded guilty and is asking for reduced charges in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors. Raymond, president of some sleazy Republican dirty tricks operation in Alexandria, VA (GOP Marketplace LLC) was hired by McGee to arrange for a flood of computer generated hang-up calls to jam phone banks in Democratic-leaning areas of New Hampshire. The Republicans in this case have all turned on each other like vicious beasts and each one is blaming the other and spilling the beans, much to the delight of prosecutors in the cases.

Meanwhile, today's WASHINGTON POST is reporting that "irregularities" in electronic voting machines are, in effect, making the practice of democracy a moot point in many states. "Across the country, officials are trying multiple methods to ensure that touch-screen voting machines can record and count votes without falling prey to software bugs, hackers, malicious insiders or other ills." Leon County, Florida in 2000 and Franklin County, Ohio in 2004 are just two examples are areas where Republicans were able to steal elections using fraudulent electronic vote counts. Look for more problems in 2006, not less, as Republicans desperately try to hold on to their ill-gotten gains and misused power.