As we noted late last Friday, as the news was just breaking, a WI judge has overturned Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial anti-union law which had taken away most collective bargaining rights from most citizens who are employed as public workers in the state. In his ruling, Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas found the law to be in violation of both the state and U.S. Constitution and is, barring overturn by appeal at the state Supreme Court, now “null and void.”
As is expected in such cases by now, rather than critiquing the ruling itself, Walker immediately attempted to smear the Dane County Judge who issued it as a “liberal activist judge.” Nothing new there. When Republicans don’t have their way in court, it’s always due to “liberal activist judges,” even when the courts are not quite activist enough for their tastes in other instances (see their fury after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to overturn “ObamaCare,” for instance).
But there was another interesting response to the ruling from Walker and his fellow partisans following the ruling on Friday, which seems to suggest they haven’t a clue about how the court system works, how the U.S. Constitution is supposed to work, or even how representative democracy works. Either that, or they simply don’t care and feel it’s just more important to continue scamming their gullible constituencies then it is to be honest about what actually happened on Friday.
Making matters worse though, not only are they wrong about matters of how democracy and the court system works, they are also wrong on their facts as well, even if they hope nobody will notice…
“The people of Wisconsin clearly spoke on June 5th,” Walker said at the top of his response to the ruling on Friday. “Now, they are ready to move on. Sadly, a liberal activist judge in Dane County wants to go backward and take away the lawmaking responsibilities of the Legislature and the governor.”
In a similar vein, Republican state Rep. Robin Vos (who, though his own wife appears to have committed voter fraud three times this year, is, nonetheless, a huge proponent of the state GOP’s disenfranchising polling place Photo ID restrictions which were found in violation of the state Constitution by several WI courts so far this year) also responded by suggesting that voters — as opposed to courts of law — get to decide which laws are Constitutional and which are not.
“A judge living in the fantasy world of Dane County has decided they are going to substitute their singular opinion as opposed to the collective will of Wisconsin, through the Legislature and the recall process,” Vos is quoted in Milwaukee’s Journal-Sentinel as saying on Friday. “We have litigated, reviewed and elected people because of Act 10 [the Republican law which strips most collectively bargaining rights]. In each case, they say the law works. And it is,” he said.
Of course, neither how “the people of Wisconsin…spoke on June 5th”, as Walker argued, nor anything about the “recall process” or “collective will of Wisconsin” as the hypocritical Vos suggested, or even whether or not “the law works,” have anything to do with whether it is legal under the state and U.S. Constitution.
Nonetheless, as expected, their partisan surrogates in the media have parroted the same disingenuous line.
“The list of people who support Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s law limiting the ability of public-sector unions to collectively bargain is fairly long,” writes partisan Christian Schneider at the National Review Online, as well as at the Journal-Sentinel today. “It includes the governor himself, the legislature, the state supreme court, and the voters of the state, who on June 5 reelected Walker by a larger margin than he had garnered in 2010 against the same opponent.”
“Yet,” Schneider adds deceptively, “the law was gutted on Friday by Dane County circuit court judge Juan Colas, who took it upon himself to save the citizens of Wisconsin from a law that they overwhelmingly support.”
Setting aside whether Walker’s June 5th recall election, spurred by enormous state-wide opposition to this law specifically, was larger or not than his reported victory in 2010 (we simply do not know one way or another, as we detailed on Election Night, and as bi-partisan groups across the state are still attempting to verify one way or another) and setting aside whether this law, or the judge’s decision was a good one or a bad one, or whether it will hold up on appeal, the argument that Walker’s supposed victory on June 5th has anything to do with whether or not the law is or isn’t Constitutional is completely specious.
The Constitutionality of laws is not determined at the ballot box. In fact, the U.S. Constitution, at least, is specifically designed in order to help protect the minority against the tyranny of the majority. What is it that these Republicans don’t understand about that?
Moreover, if we are to judge the Constitutionality of the law based on who won or lost at the ballot box, then it appears Walker and Vos and Schneider all seem to have forgotten one huge point: The State Senate which passed the bill originally was dominated by Republicans at the time. After several rounds of recall elections since then, in response to their actions, Republicans were tossed out in order to allow Democrats who opposed the bill to take control of the State Senate.
So, if we are to judge whether Act 10 is Constitutional based on a verdict at the ballot box — instead of in a court of law, where such things are actually decided — isn’t it as fair to say that the people of the state have clearly rejected the law because they threw its supporters out of the State Senate and replaced them with a Democratic majority?
For some reason, the partisan Republican supporters of the anti-union law who believe that Walker’s supposed win on June 5th means the law is Constitutional, have conveniently forgotten that they also ended up losing control of the entire State Senate because of it. So, their argument that the people support the bill, as evidenced by election results, is not only specious, it also factually inaccurate at best, and debatable at worst. At least to honest folks.
But let’s not let facts — and the way government and the rule of law and the court system actually work — get in the way of Republican activist partisans.
P.S. In additional response to Schneider, whose disingenuous NRO/Journal-Sentinel screed claimed that “the list of people who support Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s law limiting the ability of public-sector unions to collectively bargain…includes…the state supreme court,” it should be noted that the partisan Republican-majority court, did not rule on the substance of the law itself. While they hastily re-instated the law in June of 2011 after it had previously been blocked by a lower court on procedural grounds, based on legal questions about how it was passed, the Supreme Court did not rule on the Constitutionality of the law itself at the time, only that the methods used to jam it through the State Senate against the wishes of Democrats was, as they found, correctly or otherwise, in accordance with state law.
While WI’s state Supreme Court is still sharply partisan and may end up overturning Judge Colas’ Friday ruling, it’s dishonest and deceptive to report that they have somehow ruled on the substance of the law itself, to date. They haven’t. But, again, while smart partisan activists like Schneider surely know that, clearly they don’t care enough to be honest with their readers and followers about it.
The corporate-controlled Democratic party and the major players therein may eventually regret their decision to not draw a line in the sand and fight to the death in the recall election in June.
I suspect it will eventually be written that the Democratic Republic of the United States of America was lost on June 5, 2012 in Wisconsin and everything that followed was simply an inevitable epilogue.
Of course, perhaps it was lost on December 21, 2000 (when Bush v. Gore was decided) or on January 6, 2001 (when not one of 50 Democratic Senators would side with the House Black Caucus to challenge the ratification of the illegal Florida vote).
Or, perhaps, it was lost on July 5, 1776 when the great compromise was made to form this union.
Christian Schneider is also lying about his credentials. He is most assuredly not a “columnist for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.” He writes for the “Purple Wisconsin Project,” which explicitly states that its authors are “eight community bloggers.”
Shocking that Mr. Schneider would stretch the truth about the simplest of things.
They don’t know how the system works AND they don’t care how the system works. This is called ‘making their own reality’.
And it gets the job done. Low interest/low information voters + disenfranchised voters + gamed electronic voting = VICTORY
Who really thinks they care anymore how they win as long as they have the appearance of winning?
For those interested, here is the decision [PDF] issued by Judge Juan Colas in Madison Teachers, Inc. v. Walker.
The court found that, although the statute does not prohibit speech or associational activities, the statutes imposed significant burdens on the exercise of those rights. Judge Colas noted that the government had offered “no evidence or argument of the substantial evil [it] seeks to prevent by the infringing provisions.”
Because the court found that the statute infringed upon the fundamental rights of free speech and association, it also applied strict scrutiny and held that the statute violated equal protection.
They don’t understand how a democracy works because they are not part of it.
Scott Walker, and the rest of the baggers are just as The NEwsroom put it, The American Taliban.
They don’t know how to comprimise, and most of the time, they don’t know the law, they want to take everything away from Americans and give it to the Koch brothers, because rich ass pieces of shit deserve to be wiping their asses with the working men and women of America.
The Supreme Court hastily issued a ruling on that union busting law due to an external political situation: the certainty of huge protests if the union-busting had to be added to the state budget instead.
That was an real question – if the injunction was based on how the law was passed by the Senate, why not just do it over? The answer is that they didn’t dare try.
The Capitol was occupied!
from a wisconsin ei peop….
This is one of the worst, or best, examples of repeating numbers in one county from June 5 recall- GAB numbers:
CLARK COUNTY
18 (counting 2 wards of Neillsville) out of 60 precincts
Municipality …….Walker Barrett
TOWN OF BEAVER WARD 1 – 184 47
TOWN OF COLBY WARDS 1, 2 & 3 – 163 67
TOWN OF FREMONT WARD 1 & 2 – 316 100
TOWN OF HENDREN WARD 1 – 118 71
TOWN OF HOARD WARD 1 & 2 – 141 71
TOWN OF LEVIS WARD 1 & 2 – 129 70
TOWN OF LONGWOOD – 125 67
TOWN OF LOYAL WARD 1 & 2 – 195 43
TOWN OF LYNN WARD 1 & 2 – 163 70
TOWN OF RESEBURG WARD 1 & 2- 101 57
TOWN OF SHERWOOD – 69 57
TOWN OF UNITY WARD 1 – 195 61
TOWN OF WARNER WARD 1 & 2 – 187 54
TOWN OF WITHEE WARD 1 – 187 67
TOWN OF WORDEN – 139 47
CITY OF COLBY WARDS 2-4 – 316 123
CITY OF NEILLSVILLE WARD 1 – 106 67
CITY OF NEILLSVILLE WARD 5 – 74 45
* (Barrett: 2 towns @ 47, 2 @ 54, 2 @ 57, 4 @ 67 (inc. Ward1 in Neillsville), 2 @ 70, 2 @ 71
* Walker 2 towns @163, 2 @ 187, 2 @ 195, 2 @ 316
* Both candidates’ duplicate numbers in towns of Colby, Lynn, and Withee
the likely hood of those results being factual according to richard charnin……..
Richard Charnin Prob (Walker 3 matches out of 50 in a range of 395)=.0044 = 0.1387*0.165* 0.1934
Prob (Barrett 7 matches out of 50 in a range of 254) = 0.0000005= 1 in 2 MILLION !!! =0.1549*0.0644*0.0857*0.1114*0.1416*0.1756*0.2127 https://docs.google.com/spreads...qRVh4LWc#gid=9
Clark County: Obama 2008: 53.9%; Barrett 2012: 30.8%…Which is more likely: a) 50% of Obama voters defected to Walker or b) Walker flipped 40% of Barrett’s votes? Barrett had a 51.4% True Vote https://docs.google.com/spreads...qRVh4LWc#gid=1
Sunday at 10:22am · Edited · Unlike · 2
This is what happens when you elect ignorant unknowledgable people to run you state.
so now basically we are building a math case from 2 different directions that tell us these republican “wins” are not accurate….and what is the counter argument?…just trust the machines?
Karen,
Would you please decipher the numbers at #7, please? I’m not familiar with whatever you’re illustrating so am not sure how to interpret it. I clicked on one link that just looked like a mass of confusing numbers. I tried the other link and googling and all of a sudden I couldn’t get back to bradblog for a long time.
Here’s another election integrity question for anyone out there, please.
I went to the Newton, Mass election commission office yesterday to inquire about absentee ballots. I mentioned the problems of the machines. The veteran of the the three women there who had initially quite enjoyed the little shtick I’d done when I came in asking for absentee ballot info initially(actually all three women seemed to dig my approach shot)very quickly became a trifle annoyed with me. Another, younger woman started giving me the lowdown on how hard it would be to fool with the machines giving me the protocol on how the system works.(I’m thinking I should go back and try to be educated on that stuff cuz I’ve long wondered exactly how the process is supposed to work.)
ANYWAY, this second woman said she programs all the voting machines in Newton. MY QUESTION is(and I’m gonna go back and ask her, too)–what exactly does that mean? Is she programming them entirely independent of LHS Associates’ instruction or is she programming them according to some LHS Associates’ guidelines, or what?
Anybody know the answer to that one?
The machines need to be programmed to steal the election in that county in a more sophisticated manner than back in 2002 in Alabama, in which 5,000 votes were crudely switched in the count to the Republican candidate for Governor without a single Republican candidate for any other office switched.
I am sure they learned from that error. The judge refused to allow Don Siegelman or anyone else access to the ballots. That judge was placed on the Federal Appeals Court (some say by Karl Rove’s influence in the White House) that sent Don to prison by rejecting his appeal.
To sum up:
1. Leave the machines in someones garage for two months.
2. Steal 5% across the board.
3. Pack the courts to allow a coverup.
David Lasagna, I am absolutely certain that she is not writing the programs. I have been told by our local guru of all things electoral in Cambridge (who’s also a college math professor) that Cambridge had a program written for our proportional representation elections (city council and school committee) by some independent programmer, not the voting machine company. However, I don’t know if that is also true for the other, more straightforward elections, which are just first past the post types. To my knowledge, Newton only has FPTP elections, so it’s quite possible that they’re using software written by the voting companies to run their machines, and the woman you talked to is just the person who goes around installing it.
Thanks for the feedback, Camb. I’ll continue to try to educate myself on this.
Dave
note to self, CambridgeKnitter, and anyone else who’s out there listening,
I emailed Sally Castleman at EDA about the Massachusetts(Newton in particular)system. She wasn’t sure. I emailed Jonathan Simon and haven’t heard back. Also don’t know if the email address I got for him from EDA is a working one. Emailed LHS Associates and haven’t heard back. Called LHS this morning, left a message for John Silvestro, and DID get a call back. He said the Massachusetts machines are 18 years old and he has no idea who services them now, that it would vary town to town, and that I need to find out how it’s currently working where I live. Sent an SOS email to Nancy Tobi just now. I’ll read some more, see if I get any more responses, then go back to the Newton Town offices tomorrow.
I’ll keep you posted.
I know we’re all on tenterhooks.
Dave continues his search, looking for information on exactly how the vote counting process is supposed to work in Massachusetts.–
I’ve been to the Massachusetts Secretary of State website. Can’t find anything about how the vote counting process is supposed to work. Did find a whole bunch of testing info of the different kinds of machines. Apparently there have been problems with the machines giving accurate counts.(I know I’m writing to the choir here, I’m just relating what one citizen’s search is coming up with.)It’s blowing my mind that it’s so hard to just find out how the vote counting process is supposed to work. Just not finding that info anywhere. Shouldn’t this be something we all know?
Dave, have you asked ? They managed to get Secretary Galvin to let them audit one random precinct for one race a year or so ago (it was in Shrewsbury, for what it’s worth). I know you will be shocked to learn that their vote count did not match the machine count. That was the end of that particular experiment, as far as Mr. Galvin was concerned. MASSVote has been lobbying hard for audits of every election, and I’ve been hassling them about going all the way to hand-marked paper ballots counted by hand at the precinct. The House passed the bill, but the Senate didn’t vote on it.
Somehow my link for MASSVote didn’t come through. They’re massvote.org.
Dear Camb,
Thanks for the massvote.org tip. I forgot about them. Looked ’em up and sent Avi Green an email.
Just got back from the Newton Elections Commission. They had no time for me today. Gave me the number of the Secretary of State. Also, got the number of their boss who was not in but who I was told would be happy to answer my questions if he had time some day when he was in.
Just called the SOS office, looking to save my soul or at least find out how the hell the system is supposed to work.
The friendly and helpful guy there told me that LHS Associates does indeed program and own the memory cards used in most of the ospcan voting machines used in Massachusetts. He was having a little trouble understanding exactly what it was I was looking for and was busy so I didn’t torture him by trying to make him go through the nuts and bolts of the whole vote counting process. Once I’d at least gotten the crucial info about the memory cards, I let him go.
So there you have it. Or something. The young woman at the Newton Election Commission was either wrong in saying she programmed the machines, or imprecise, or maybe I didn’t understand what she was saying.
But to me it looks like what I thought was true IS true. LHS Associates are basically the ones overseeing Massachusetts’ elections. NOT we the people. And, of course, they’re doing it on the easily hacked, error-prone opscan voting machines.
I’m not sure it’d be accurate to say I want my democracy back, but I sure would like to give it a try sometime. In this country.
Camb- Avi Green’s answers–
1. who programs our opscan voting machines in Massachusetts?
LHS Systems
2. where do programming instructions come from?
LHS Systems
3. who has custody of/access to the memory cards before, during, and after elections?
Town clerks and city election departments
4. is there other hardware or software in our voting machines that is also programmed and if so by whom?
Not that I am aware of
5. what exactly is the process by which the votes are supposed to be counted, from beginning to end?
That’s a long question. Basically, the machines count all day and spit out a results receipt at the end of the night at the precinct around 8:30pm. The memory cards are later tabulated and repeat the results at city halls around 10pm. The paper receipts are matched to machine totals. Chains of custody are maintained (or should be) throughout.
Dear Camb,
So who knows what John Silvestro, the president of LHS, saying he didn’t know how the vote counting works in Massachusetts but making it sound like it wasn’t done by his company means? Maybe I wasn’t asking my questions clearly enough or maybe he just didn’t understand what I was getting at for who knows what reason, or maybe he was dissembling, or maybe some other possibility. But it seems odd.