This is just too hilarious!
Over the weekend religious activists met somewhere in Texas to try and agree upon a “conservative” non-Romney to coalesce behind in hopes of stopping the former Massachusetts Governor’s “inevitable” GOP nomination. After three ballots, reportedly, the group of some 150 religious activists finally agreed to throw their support behind Rick Santorum.
Or did they?
According to a supposedly “legitimate” rightwing news outlet today, the evangelical protestant backers of Newt Gingrich are now accusing the Catholic supporters of Santorum of election fraud and actual voter fraud!
If they did, it would hardly be the first instance of actual election fraud in the GOP camp to rear its ugly head during the Republican primary process to date…
As reported by the Washington Times today…
At the meeting about 150 religious conservative activists at the Benham, Texas, ranch of Nancy and Paul Pressler, Rick Santorum supporters claimed the former Pennsylvania senator was chosen on the third ballot as the consensus candidate to try to stop Mitt Romney’s march to the Republican presidential nomination.
The meeting was called to avoid a continued division within social conservatives’ ranks.
But in back-and-forth emails, Protestant fundamentalist leaders who attended – most of them backing former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to be the anti-Romney candidate – are accusing Catholic participants of conniving to rig the vote.
They said they were conned into leaving after the second ballot on Saturday. They said pro-Santorum participants held a third ballot which Mr. Santorum won with more than 70 percent of the vote – far higher than the nine-vote margin he won on the first ballot.
“My view is that the vote was manipulated,” said a prominent social conservative who asked not to be named.
Now, a prominent evangelical political organizer is saying to others confidentially he has evidence that in a least one instance a participant was seen writing Mr. Santorum’s name on four separate ballots and putting them in the ballot box.
Golly, we can only wonder if these alleged fraudsters were required to show Photo ID before allegedly stuffing the ballot box for Santorum!
But perhaps it’s just karma, given Gingrich’s admission that his campaign submitted 1,500 fraudulent signatures in their failed attempt to get onto the Republican Primary ballot in Virginia.
(Please also note: To our knowledge, though Gingrich admitted on video tape that his campaign hired “one guy who frankly committed fraud” — massive fraud at that — the name of that “one guy” has neither been made public nor turned over to Virginia law enforcement as, say, ACORN always did whenever they discovered that a worker had been defrauding them by turning in fraudulent signatures on voter registration forms.)
Washington Times finishes their report with this [emphasis ours]…
But it’s also not clear that Romney actual “won” the Iowa Caucuses at all! While he was named the unofficial winner on Election Night, January 3rd, by a slim 8 votes by the GOP which runs the caucuses and sets all of the rules for participants (no Photo ID required) and for registering and voting on the same day (no Photo ID required) and for casting votes (on hand-marked paper ballots) and tabulation (hand-counted in public, at the caucus site, with results announced right then and there before results are called into the GOP headquarters and before ballots are moved anywhere), the results as reported by the Iowa GOP on their website appear to be wrong.
Though the charge by Ron Paul supporter Edward True that Romney received just 2 votes, instead of 22, at the caucus where True was a vote counter has now been confirmed, Santorum had previously suggested he’d been told that a separate reporting error would cancel out that bookkeeping error thankfully uncovered by True.
Over the weekend, however, Santorum was singing a different tune at a campaign appearance in South Carolina where, according to Politico’s James Hohmann, he claimed “Iowa’s not done yet. They’re recounting those ballots right now.”
Hohmann went on to report: “Kim Lehman, the Republican National Committeewoman from Iowa “” and a Santorum endorser “” confirmed that a recount is under way and echoed the predictions that it might change the result.”
The certified totals are to be announced by the GOP in Iowa on Tuesday, after which we’ll be able to see who really won or lost. Given the superb example of transparent, fully-overseeable vote-counting the GOP allowed their voters to use in Iowa — which we previously described as a model for the nation — any changes made via additional secret recounts behind closed doors should be verifiable, or disproved, by the thousands who witnessed the actual results being counted before their eyes at their own caucuses.
Sadly — and hilariously — the same cannot be said of the apparently secret vote counting and voter fraud that is alleged to have taken place at the GOP religious activists’ pow-wow in Texas over the weekend.
For all of the fraud Republicans claim (without evidence to support the charge) that Democrats are carrying out in elections, they sure do seem to commit a whole lotta fraud in their own elections, eh? Just ask Indiana’s Republican Sec. of State and chief election official Charlie White, who is now facing 3 felony voter fraud charges and has now been ordered by a judge to be removed from office for it — or for that matter, just ask apparent voter fraud criminal Mitt Romney!
Then, of course, there is James O’Keefe’s apparent voter fraud conspiracy which he conveniently video-taped for us during the New Hampshire primary last week, leading to a call from the Republican Mayor of Manchester (and others) for him to be “arrested and prosecuted.”
Oh, the tangled webs…
This article (and the link back to a previous story re: Mitt Romney’s probable voter fraud in MA) prompts me to point out that the real risk in publishing Romney’s tax returns is revealing his residence of record. Did he pay taxes in “Taxachusetts” , for example? Even though the wealthy may afford living in multiple houses in multiple states, they must legally declare a residence and use it exclusively to define their tax obligations — one cannot cherry pick. For many reasons, Romney’s Achilles heal is likely shining light on his personal financial history. Let us keep demanding those financials!
Great point, SunnySteve! Hadn’t even thought of that previously! But that’s a very smart point!
“evangelicals for newt” accuse “evangelicals for santorum” of vote fraud:
I wonder how “reagan democrats”, “soccer moms”, “nascar dads”, and Joe the Plumber feel about this?
I noticed that they all bitched about extending unemployment benefits to people who are out of work because of perverted military budgets they foster.
One staunch republican conservative, Chalmers Johnson, wrote a book explaining that the greatest welfare queen on earth is the military.
He also said it will destroy Amurka in order to save it.
This seems to confirm what I’ve always suspected, that Protestant fundamentalists loathe supporting a Catholic candidate (no matter how reactionary) only slightly less than supporting a Mormon. Though doesn’t Newt also call himself a Catholic these days?
I love this ‘race’?. If voters cannot distinguish between possible presidents, or clowns, then they should look to their beliefs of right and wrong.
Are the American people just the pawns of corporate America; or are we the government?
Spread the word…OCCUPY AMERICA!
Randy D @5 sorry dude, but religion has no place in politics. There is no god!!!
Now they’re turning on each other with that stuff. That is ripe.
Adam8 (autocratically banned and slandered by RawStory.com)
Both Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Santorum are Catholics. Mr. Gingrich is a convert whereas Mr. Santorum has always been a Catholic. In fact, Mr. Santorum is a Roman Catholic and a member of Opus Dei.
As Mr. Gingrich is just a “convert”, evangelicals can rally around him good conscience, even overlooking his 2 divorces. Evangelicals have always been uneasy about their alliance with Roman Catholics. Their historical fear of all things “Papist” comes into play a lot. So yeah, I can see them having an issue with their group backing a Roman Catholic.
Ah, Jebus wept.
To thing of the voter caging republicans are passing to stop voters which will not vote for them , from voting.
What are their followers thinking!!
That is the problem… THEY DON’T…..
Most right wing religious voters are brain washed by their religious leaders from birth to grave.
This is why these religions are taking over the educational funds for public schools.
They wish to take our tax money for their schools so they can brain wash everyone else.