Illinois anti voter fraud campaign, Tea Party, Republicans, Chalice

“The past, he reflected, had not merely been altered, it had
actually been destroyed. For how could you establish, even
the most obvious fact when there existed no record outside
your own memory?”…George Orwell, “1984″

From Mother Jones October 18, 2010.

“The Tea Party Will Be Watching You”

“Republican groups and tea party activists unite to block Democrats…err, voter fraud, at the polls.”

“When the Illinois Republican Party launched its anti-voter-fraud crusade this year, party leaders knew who they could count on to whip up a fervor about rigged elections. Together with a conservative political action committee, the state GOP has teamed up with a infamous anti-Obama birther who’s helped to recruit tea party activists to oversee the vote as official poll workers and independent poll watchers—part of a campaign against election fraud (real or imagined) that’s being whipped up by Republican leaders and activists across the country.

Every election season, the right revives its battle against voter fraud, depicting it as a rampant threat to honest electoral outcomes. (See the previous assault on ACORN, the beleaguered community organizing oufit.) This year, the Republicans have a tea party army on hand to fight this supposed peril. And they’ve taken their campaign a step further. Political parties and outside groups typically dispatch independent poll watchers to keep tabs on any suspicious activity. However, recruiting activists to serve as election judges and poll workers—the people who actually administer the vote at polling stations and are responsible for ensuring that election laws are enforced—is not a routine practice. But that’s what’s happening this year in Illinois, Texas, and elsewhere, with the GOP looking to tea party and conservative grassroots activists to fill key slots.”

“In Minnesota, the North Star Tea Party Patriots have teamed up with two other conservative groups to spearhead a far-reaching anti-fraud operation to recruit and train spotters at the polls, offering $500 for tips leading to voter fraud convinctions. In Illinois, meanwhile, the state GOP has joined with a political action committee called Illinois Republican Renaissance to form an “election fraud prevention task force” that aims to turn right-wing grassroots activists into official election workers and privately paid watchdogs. “As you know, ballot integrity will be a key ingredient to our success, and we need your help,” GOP state chair Pat Brady says on the party’s website. This effort has placed Brady in league with one of the tea party movement’s more unusual characters. The project’s coordinator, Sharon Meroni, is an infamous anti-Obama birther who filed objections against 32 Illinois candidates for failing to provide adequate documentation of their citizenship.

Meroni, who blogs under the pseudonym “Chalice Jackson,” also helped launch a petition demanding Obama’s resignation for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” “Who truly would have believed…that there was ANY chance America could be in the hands of a usurper government?” she wrote in another court filing to contest Obama’s citizenship, which the McHenry County Grand Jury dismissed. Meroni is now helping to select the election judges—as official poll workers are called in Illinois—and poll watchers that the joint project will dispatch on Election Day. (Campaigns have jumped on board the Illinois Republican Party’s effort as well: In a secretly recorded private conference call, GOP Senate candidate Mark Kirk said he was pushing to deploy “lawyers and other people” to two predominantly black Chicago neighborhoods to oversee the voting process.)”

“Conservatives do point to a handful of isolated incidents to gin up fears about voting shenanigans. In Texas, an 81-year-old San Antonio woman has been charged with using her dead sister’s identity to vote in 2008. In the Houston area, a tea party-linked non-profit called True the Vote claims to have discovered “most likely tens of thousands, of incomplete, inaccurate, or false voter registration” in one of the city’s poorest black neighborhoods. (The progressive group facilitating the effort has acknowledged that a small number of the registrations were faulty.) In Missouri, a group of Somali immigrant voters was accused of receiving improper assistance during the primary election this year. But while election experts acknowledge that voter fraud certainly exists, some point out that only a tiny handful of fraud cases have ever been proven. And they say conservative activists risk suppressing or intimidating eligible voters by hyping the potential fraud.”

“But there are already warning signs that tea party-related anti-fraud efforts could slip into dirty tricks territory. In Wisconsin, the state Republican Party had been accused of plotting with local tea party groups to disenfranchise voters whose ballots were returned because of a wrong address—an illegal technique known as “vote-caging.” Given the polarized political climate, overzealous activists working the polls could end up overstepping the bounds, intentionally or not. Referring to the GOP and tea party efforts to recruit poll watchers and workers, Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice says, “We haven’t sent this degree of heightened activity for years. It’s just a higher risk situation for voters.””

Read more:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/10/voter-fraud-tea-party

“We haven’t sent this degree of heightened activity for years. It’s just a higher risk situation for voters.”

Wendy Weiser, et al, allow me to jog your memory.

I will not waste time on the obvious Orwellian (and probably Alinsky) style comments in this article designed to divert attention away from the intent of poll watchers, to make them appear as having more sinister motives. I will respond to the following statement made about Chalice:

“The project’s coordinator, Sharon Meroni, is an infamous anti-Obama birther who filed objections against 32 Illinois candidates for failing to provide adequate documentation of their citizenship.”

I have known Chalice for several years, spoken to her on a number of occasions and been a guest on her radio show. She consistently comes across as a concerned American, who believes in the US Constitution and rule of law, like most of you. She deeply cares about this country and has fought bravely and persistently to save it. The far left continues to smear good people like Chalice and elevate and defend the likes of Obama, a usurper and Chicago Pay to Play corrution crony.

By the way, have you seen any Tea Party members carrying a night stick lately?