Washblog

Recently, friend proposed this thought experiment to me:  What if a Democratic majority is elected in the 2006 election and the Bush administration refuses to let them take office? What would the American people do?

Well, there's a reason we have a 2nd Amendment.

by Belltowner on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 10:28:53 AM PST

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The "Bush" administration is not actually in charge of recognizing individuals elected to Congress.

Article I.
Sect. 5. Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualification, of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties, as each House may provide. Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member.

I don't know how this would work in either house, 2/3 of the Senate are not up this cycle, so maybe they would have more say than the re-elected or the newly elected. And Mr. Cheney would break ties and conceivably be the authoritative interpreter of rules.

All of the House is up for election/re-election each cycle. I would assume that re-elected members would have more standing than the newly elected in any controversy.

Anyone care to give us the D to R ratio in this scenario?

We can all desire a different mix on the Supreme Court, but I don't think they would look kindly on any Executive interference in the routine business of the Legislative branch.

It could all rely on the military, but

The wordings of the current oath of enlistment and oath for commissioned officers are as follows

"I, __, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." (Title 10, US Code; of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).

"I, __ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of ___ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend he Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God." (DA Form 71, 1 August 1959, for officers.)

The oath is to the Consitution (the people), not the CNC. All in all, I don't think I need to be checking my ammunition supply, just yet :)

Dave Gibney Pullman

by gibney on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 09:23:06 PM PST

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...unless they sue in court.

I am getting impatient with claims of election fraud that are not followed up by lawsuits. If there were irregularities then there should now be a lawsuit. If the people who say they believe in this cause really believe in it, they will sue, rather than making unsubstantiated claims on blogs.

If election fraud really is as widespread as people claim, why are there not more lawsuits? Why does all this energy not get channeled to where it belongs? It's almost as if people just want to half-understand the problem and complain. If people really believe that there are voting irregularities then they have to pursue legal remedies in the courts. That is the proper venue for this.

by dlaw on Sun Aug 27, 2006 at 02:39:21 AM PST

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..."sue properly" with injunctions and foresight into the legal consequences.

Bilbray and the Republicans were right to swear him in when they did - it gives them a legal advantage. However, an injunction would have to have been ruled on and the California system cannot be ignored.

As soon as the plaintiffs became aware that Bilbray was to be sworn in, they should have enjoined the auditor from certifying the election and protected California and San Diego County's right to determine who it has elected and who it hasn't.

Elections can't be help up willy-nilly, every time somebody alleges a fraud. The law protects the continuity of the legislature and executive. But it also protects the rights of voters IF THEIR RIGHTS ARE REPRESENTED PROPERLY.

There's no "coup" here that I can see. The House of Representatives is asserting its right to decide whether House members are qualified or not. There are provisions in the law for challenge and they seem not to have been followed by the plaintiffs.

by dlaw on Sun Aug 27, 2006 at 03:09:14 AM PST

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Hi Noemie.

You asked

What if a Democratic majority is elected in the 2006 election and the Bush administration refuses to let them take office? What would the American people do?

The biggest two hurdles we face as election integrity activists is overcoming ignorance and the perception that this is all just politics as usual.

Most people don't know how our elections work. I didn't. I'm just starting to grasp the whole of it. And when people don't know, they can't comment. And the strictly partisan activists on both sides do a horrible job explaining stuff.

Which brings us to my second point. Elections are seen as strictly partisan. Look at the heat many of us, from both sides, get when we speak to election integrity.

The end result of ignorance and highly charged partisanship is voter apathy. This is reflected in most parts of our civic lives. It's no surprise that most activism and volunteer efforts are done OUTSIDE of the party umbrellas.

by zappini on Sun Aug 27, 2006 at 08:13:49 AM PST

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Hi Noemie.

Thanks for posting about this. I really don't know what to make of the situation. Fellow election integrity activist and WashBlog poster Raincity Calling is a lot more active as a partisan than myself. She put out the word to contact the DCCC and others, insisting that we get a fair accounting of that election. Of course, I contacted them. (No word back.) Good for Busby for calling attention that election's problems. For everyone listening, note that King County is moving the same direction.

Brad Friedman (of BradBlog fame) has been covering this issue. He's really good at keeping up with new developments. A recent post is CA-50 Contest Judge Actually Plans to Think! (updated).

Brad is very shrill. He's also very partisan. I think he's doing a great job. The huge risk of being so far out in front on breaking issues, as a blogger is prone to do, is that he can be wrong. That's not a bad thing. It's just the tradeoff. For instance, he got pretty worked up about the five election reform initiatives that failed last year in Ohio. There were some public dust ups between Brad, the Mystery Pollster, and a few others. In my opinion, it's 90% likely those defeats were legit. But I'm happy to change my mind if new data comes to light.

The best thing that Brad is doing, in my opinion, is beating up the "leaders" of the Democratic party. Many, many of us are beyond pissed off that Kerry rolled over and played dead after the 2004 election. The promised guns, money, and lawyers didn't show up. (For the record, I am mostly content with Kerry's campaign and believe the election was most likely stolen.) Probably an equal number of us are pissed that election integrity continues to be a non-issue. In fact, many Democrats are actively undermining election integrity. It's unbelieveable to me.

Brad's recent post DYSFUNCTION AT THE DNC: Brad Addresses the DNC on Election Integrity, But Is Anybody There Listening? exemplifies the problems election integrity activists have trying to penetrate the thick skulls of the Democratic "leadership". It's really disheartening.

The Democrats are supposed to be the "goodies". Social justice, fairness, fiscal responsibilty, transparency, growing economic, civic works, yadda, yadda. To lead by example. That anyone would place party before country is repugnant to me. What I've witnessed since becoming politically active is a huge disconnect between the leadership and the rank & file. Huge.

I can say with absolute certainty and conviction that few of our supposed "leaders" represent me. Any "leader" more interested in partisan advantage at the expense of election integrity isn't a leader at all. Simply an opportunist. Or one of their willing foot soldiers. I regard it as a betrayal.

In summary, I like what Brad Friedman is doing. He's getting people activated at the local level and calling attention to national issues. Meanwhile, I'm keen to see how the Busby stuff plays out.

by zappini on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 10:40:59 AM PST

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Speaking for only minutes to an energetic, well-meaning voting integrity activist who has dedicated huge amounts of time to this issue, I concluded that the King County council would table the proposal for a King Country Elections Auditor, although they seemed to be in favor of it.

The people who proposed this did not do their homework. There is no way the K.C. Council would alter all the statutes that created the authority and responsiblity chain (such as it is) for elections in King County. It was not, as it was put, a question of electing or appointing an Elections Auditor. The hard work was in altering the underlying statutes.

It would have been better to have elected an Auditor who was responsible for nothing more than making a report on the elections - not only whether it was properly administered by law, but what the management and execution challenges there were. If the Council and the Executive knew that a report by a professional whose only job was to make trouble was coming every year, they would have to address the major concerns that report would bring up.

Whereas, the reaction of the Council to altering the legal structure of King County elections was predictable: push it off until 2009 at the earliest.

by dlaw on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 05:19:07 PM PST

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Here´s the Rawstory piece

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Hearing_in_California_on_whether_Congress_0828.html

I´m in Iceland and time´s running out on a hostel computer or I´d be interested to join in here..

by noemie maxwell on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 12:47:43 PM PST

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In reference to dlaw's comment that activists need to file lawsuits and prove fraud.  Well, you make it sound so easy.  For one thing, that is the beauty of these electronic machines, particularly the paperless machines.  It is next to impossible to prove fraud when there is no paper to audit/recount and the totals on memory cards and the machine's audit logs and summary reports can all be untectably altered. Audit logs and summary reports can all be altered to match vote totals and if there is no paper from which to make a comparison, what is a poor activist to do?

Then, when lawsuits are filed, they are usually thwarted by elected officials. This happened in Busby/Bilbray, in the Greenparty's lawsuit in Ohio in 2004, and in the Greenparty's lawsuit in New Mexico in 2004.  

I am a diehard Democrat, but when it comes to protecting our elections and democracy, I am disgusted with my party's leadership and many of its candidates.  They are either naive, stupid, lazy, or spinelss. They refuse to demand verification of election results regardless of the fact that the GAO, The Brennan Center, leading computer experts, and others have demonstrated, beyond a doubt, that these machines can be easily and undetectably hacked by insiders and outsiders alike.

The Party refuses to consider that, even if this was a perfect world and all election officials and partisan operatives would never dream of rigging an election, these machines have been shown time and time again to be unrealiable and prone to "glitches", miscounts, lost votes, breakdowns, and vote switching errors due to "program errors" or "miscalibration." So, even if all these problems had nothing to do with malicious intent or acts, the fact remains that these machines cannot be relied upon to accurately count our votes. I would think that all candidates would be wary and would therefore demand that all totals be verified before they  concede the race. To my knowledge, the only Democratic candidate who was smart enough to do this is our Governor, Christine Greqoire.

No one wants to talk about it, but there are valid suspicions that the GOP tried to steal that election in Snohomish County which at the time used paperless touch screen voting machines manufactured by Sequoia. Roughly 100,000 votes were never recounted because there was no paper to recount. Snohomish County is a Democratic leaning county. The majority of the votes cast on paper (absentee ballots) were cast for Christine Greqoire; coincidentally however, the majority of the votes cast on the paperless touch screen machines were "cast" for Dino Rossi. Those machines had repeated failures and voters complained of vote shifting, always in the favor of the GOP candidate.

During the recount, the Democratic Party was lazy and said oh well, we don't need to count 100,000 votes; we will not bother to look beyond the report provided by the vendor, Sequoia,which has been prosecuted for paying bribes to election officials and has been reported to use front companies to sell its machines.  

You expecte me to trust election results on systems manufactured by a corrupt company like Sequoia or Diebold?  You have got to be kidding?

I agree with zappini.  It is not up to us to show that the totals are accurate and true and that the voting systems are secure. It is up to our government representatives to prove to us, that our elections are honest and free of corruption. It is not our job to do that.  

There is more to this issue than just the legal issues, but it appears the only way to make elected officials face the issue is to sue.

Send those attorneys our way.  We need all the help we can get.  We don't know who these attorneys are.  Why don't they contact us?

by raincity calling on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 09:23:12 PM PST

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dailyKos user "Senior Citizen" is an election integrity activist in Southern California. Here's his take on the Bibray/Busby situation. It's curious that this Constitutional issue has occurred before.

Can Congress Choose Its Own Members?

The comment by arodb about no evidence of fraud is the observation that most causes me hestation before getting truly worked up about this race.

Another point made in the thread is the role Secretary of States have. It is claimed that most are Republicans. Which reminded me to mention this effort:

Secretary of State Project

Small aside: Anyone who would place partisan advantage over election integrity doesn't represent me, doesn't speak for me, and definitely is part of the problem that we're all facing. Namely, a serious shortfall in accountability and representation. I find it curious that those who would call out others have the most to lose if we're successful in ensuring our elections are open, fair, and verifiable.

by zappini on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 05:07:28 PM PST

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