Elections

Election questions

We have an important election coming up in November. There are two major ballot initiatives, one has to do with raising taxes the other has to do with education. I have concerns about how our elections have been handled over the past couple of years. I have a lot of questions, and not a lot of answers.

Let’s start from the beginning;

• A Sioux Falls mayoral election in which Staggers was victorious in the general and mysteriously 6,000 new voters showed up to the polls a few weeks later in the runoff helping Huether to clinch victory.

• Minnehaha County Auditor Bob Litz proudly displaying Build It Now signs in his yard until chided by me, an Argus reporter and another concerned citizen to remove the signs, in which he conceded.

• Sioux Falls City Clerk Debra Owen terminated just weeks before the crucial Events Center special election.

• Record turnout for a special election approving the new Events Center.

• Rumors of registered voters living outside of the city limits voting in the Events Center election using old Sioux Falls addresses (I heard of at least two instances where a voter lived in Canton, and one lived in Minnesota – blatant voter fraud).

• Jason Gant getting elected Secretary of State campaigning on a faux issue about the Feds taking over our elections. (This has been proven to be unsubstantiated).

• Secretary of State Gant trying to change rules without the consent of his special committee.

• A move towards e-polling and super precincts in Sioux Falls (I am all for e-polling, but I do not agree with super precincts. We live in a democracy, voting should be as easy as possible and ‘saving money’ should never be used as an excuse to use super precincts).

• Recent municipal election ballots running out. A seemingly dismissive city clerk and a silent School District employee with no real explanation. There wasn’t even an informal investigation by the SOS’s office that I heard of anyway.

• SOS’s operations manager possibly moonlighting as a campaign consultant, and once revealed makes an internet link joke about it.

As you can see, a lot of questions, not a lot of answers. I am only a volunteer blogger, I can’t find the answers to these questions on my own, our MSM needs to start digging.

BANNING TEXTING

I also am suspicious of the recent coalition that is proposing an ordinance change concerning banning texting in Sioux Falls, side stepping the state legislature. Does anyone find it a coincidence that the Mayor is good friends with one of the coalition’s members (Rob Oliver). I speculate this is a move to test the waters of our Home Rule charter by the mayor himself. Why isn’t this powerful group of individuals organizing a petition drive to get it on the November ballot for a statewide ban. And when the group’s leader, Rich Lauer was asked about the state’s involvement during the public services meeting, he was clueless as to why the state has failed to pass a ban (in other words they didn’t even attempt to explore that option).

Chief Barthel had concerns about the ordinance, he also had SFPD Captain Steve Haney, chair of a safe driving task force in Sioux Falls speak about his concerns. Something that stuck out in his testimony was that ‘Distracted Driving’ isn’t recognized by the state when filling out an accident report (I think that is what he was referring to) and says that state law has to change to fix that (as I mentioned above, there needs to be a petition drive to put this on the state ballot).

So why do I think the mayor is testing the waters? This is a perfect issue that could easily pass the council. Everyone agrees texting while driving is idiotic. What the mayor and council need to do though is learn from history. The city has lost 3 cases already in reference to the Home Rule charter and it’s power. It’s not a constitutional document. Daily vs. The City of Sioux Falls, the red light camera case and the city trying to regulate video lottery are prime examples of why the Home Rule charter cannot trump state law. The Public Services committee needs to table this proposal and send a clear message to the mayor’s office that it is not within the city’s power to regulate traffic laws, as Haney pointed out, that should be the state’s objective.

Not that it matters now, or maybe it does?

I received new information today that the SD Democratic Party, or at least one of their operatives, supposedly, was helping De Knudson to raise money for her campaign. I only have two sources, so I’m not going to say whether this is true or not, just speculation at this point, BUT;

1) It would explain why a young Democrat like Jesse Vavreck was asked to step out of the race.

2) It would also explain why Knudson was asked to speak at a Democratic forum and not Staggers.

3) I also found it a bit odd that so many loyal Dems I talked to supported De.

This should come as no surprise, Dave and De Knudson were Democrats for years, but like Bob Litz, they realized if you want to move up that political latter you have to register Republican, except it didn’t work for Dave or De. At least their son is smart enough to stick with the Democratic label running for the State Legislature, even though I think Manny Steele is going to cream him.

I find it a bit humorous, that even when the SD Dems put all of their resources behind a Republican they even lose, in fact I find it completely, side-splitting hilarious. It wasn’t like Kermit beat De by a couple of votes, he handily beat her and did it with a grassroots campaign that spent 20% of what she did.

For the record, I never thought I would support a conservative candidate like Staggers, but I like his record on fiscal responsibility and transparency in government, something the faux Republican Knudson never has had a record on.

I also find it a little disappointing that the Democrats wanted Kermit to lose so bad, they had to back a Republican. Who says the two parties can’t work together? Except this time the result was quite disastrous, and quite embarrassing.

If this all really went down, as I have heard it did, I hope the Dems learned a lesson from it. Support your own next time, you know, like Jesse Vavreck.

(PS – I also heard they tried to help other candidates that were running against Republicans in the council race.)

Guest Post: The Election Process – Part II

In the aftermath of the 1964 defeat of Barry Goldwater and the crushing of right wing federal, state and local officials from elective offices throughout the United States a new type of movement conservative (MC) was formed.  This movement has become the basis of the ‘fights’ we have every day, in every way to get ahead as a society.

This new MC was tired of losing elections to the masses now allowed to vote.  These new MC leaders decided the path to victory and power was in the restricting the voter from voting.  The human rights codified by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Warren Supreme Court decisions since 1953, the 1965 Voting Rights Act added to the uprisings by everyday people questioning the ‘leaders’, convinced the new Movement Conservatives something needed to be done.  These new movement conservatives had to find ways to disenfranchise all poor, minority, young and old United States citizens.

This was not a new effort.  Going back in history this has been the goal of despots the world over.  What made this effort different was the use of the ‘new’ modern media and public relations.  These MC leaders were going to use everything the Madison Avenue ad executive (Don Drapers) had in the public relations arsenal.

The movement conservatives of old were often from the coalition of anti-New Dealers, FDR haters, Joe McCarthy followers and the Koch (father of our current Koch Brothers) funded John Birchers.  The new MC leaders were by and large experts in mass messaging.  Richard Viguerie and Paul M. Weyrich with funding by Fred Koch, Joseph Coors and others started a series of organizations to begin educating a new larger conservative movement.  Many of these organizations have impressive, bedrock type names such as The Moral Majority, The Heritage Foundation, Judicial Watch, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and hundreds of more shell foundations to hawk the new anti-New Deal, anti-Great Society, anti-poor mantra and policies.

The removal from office of competent civic leaders / employees, the events of our recent city election, the bungled and fraudulent American elections across the United States is all part of plans put into action in the aftermath of the 1964 election.  Paul Weyrich summed up the philosophy of this movement in a 1980 speech:

Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.

The path to power is: disenfranchising voters, not allowing everyone to vote.

The Citizens United decision was not an unplanned decision.  This is part of a long standing plan to change the balance of power toward the wealthy.  Richard Nixon appointed a MC, William Rehnquist, to the Supreme Court because of the work he had done to restrict black and Hispanics from voting in 1964 and 1968.  He trained John Roberts.  John Roberts, as a Bush appointed Supreme Court Chief Justice, directed, in 2009, attorneys standing in front of the Court, to bring a case to the Supreme Court to remove McCain-Feingold restrictions.

During the 1970’s and 80’s, the above organizations and more developed a game plan to have their own revolution.  Most of Americans were not invited to join (I know this because I was asked to be an organizer).  This revolution was based in a broad attack on institutions the majority of Americans were using to gain a foothold in the American Dream.  Approximately 45,000 elected and appointed civic positions were identified for their movement to fill and control.  Weyrich and his plan teamed up with Southern Christian ‘leaders’ to preach the anti-abortion, anti-social justice issues, welfare queen stories, prosperity gospel and other messages to bring people together in lowest common denominator / guttural politics.  These groups promote the politics of hate and fear to win elections.  These 45,000 positions are everything from President down the line to our school boards, city councils, and township boards.  45,000 decision makers changing everything we are and wish to be.

Our recent city hall and school board elections tested the Pat Powers, Gant, ALEC and Weyrich depravity of power and greed.  We lost Debra Owen, the underlying institutional history and integrity she brought to the job.  We no longer have people working in Pierre who even try to be even handed or fair.  Our good government is not a sports event as our media portrays it.  We now equate a mayoral or Presidential election to a football game as if it’s all or nothing.  With a new poll every day, instant scandals, weekly ups and downs, we are forced to forget why we vote.

This history is deep and involved.  It brings out the worst in people and the best in others.  Right now we are feeling the combined efforts of anti-New Dealers who were tired of losing and decided to be traitors to our founding principles written into the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.

 

Guest Post: The Election Process – Part I

(I will be posting a series written by a guest about the election process. This is Part I)

Let’s be honest, how many of us really understand what is going on in our city hall?  We think we know some parts but we question why other stupid things keep happening. This confusion is not accidental it actually is conspiratorial. Sit back and let me explain.

A long time ago (1964) a man and movement was defeated in their quest for the presidency of the United States.  You may ask, “what does this have to do with the Sioux Falls City Hall mess?”

More to come . . .

 

Think we have problems in SF with municipal elections?

Anchorage just had a doozy . . .

Embattled Anchorage Election Clerk Seen Partying With ‘Winning’ Mayor from Her Disastrous Election

Oh, neato. Remember that recent disastrous Anchorage, Alaska election I told you about, during which voters were turned away all across the city because not enough ballots were distributed, and where the Deputy Municipal Clerk Jacqueline Duke, responsible for ballot and voting machine distribution, admitted to me that she had told poll workers not to worry if they found voting machine security seals broken on the morning of the election?

Aside from Prop 5, a ballot measure which would have extended anti-discrimination protection to the LGBT community — which a pre-election poll predicted would win by 9 points (before the Diebold computer tabulators reported that it lost by 16 points) — Anchorage’s Mayor Dan Sullivan was also on the ballot that day.

Unlike Prop 5, however, the anti-Prop 5 mayor reportedly won, according to the Diebold op-scan tabulators, by almost the same exact margin that the same pre-election poll had predicted he would.

And, whaddaya know? There’s Mayor Sullivan himself, in the photo above, seen celebrating on St. Patrick’s Day with none other than his old employee [PDF] turned Anchorage Deputy Municipal Clerk Jacqueline Duke! (She’s the one on the right.)

Neat, eh? I wonder why, according to a source of Alaska radio host, blogger and election integrity advocateShannyn Moore, Duke scrubbed that photo from her Facebook page recently. I tried to find out and get confirmation, but Duke didn’t respond to the email I sent to the address she gave me when we spoke. As a matter of fact, according to The Mudflats’ Linda Kellen Biegel, who tried to ask Duke a question at a recent Election Commission meeting called to investigate the continuing mess, the Deputy Municipal Clerk is no longer allowed to speak to anyone in the media.

Wonder why. Was it something she said?

Our recent election is not just a kinda, sorta, it happened accidentally thingy, as we are led to believe by city clerk’s office. This is an actual organized operation throughout the United States to take control of local election operations and then to limit who can and will vote. Debra Owen was not fired for any incompetence, but most likely for her competence. Salesmen like Huether, Karsky, Erpenbach or Diamond Jim do not want anyone around who would question their actions. By ridding themselves of competent advisors, they will always have deniability. The new Clerk will be thrown under the bus at first chance as a scapegoat.

Look at all the city management / department heads and try to find the level of competence / incompetence. No successfully run business would keep most of them in their positions. A successful business person trying to make a business successful wants innovation and daily competence. A ‘wannabe’ successful manager of a business wants individuals working with them who will give them “High Fives” or “yes” answers for schemes they can get by with.

When I propose work for a potential client, I interview them as much as they interview me. I want to see in their face before I sign on or if they are a schemer-follower manager or an innovation-leader manager. Guess which we have as a mayor / council majority?

(The Big ‘B’ contributed to this post)