GOP primaries: complete lack of election integrity

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I had to laugh out loud last night when a D.C. media villager actually said that "Mitt Romney had a big win tonight in the Maine Caucuses." Romney won a narrow victory by 3 percentage points over Ron Paul, according to "official" results, and under the GOP primary rules that provide for apportionment of delegates in primaries and caucuses before April 1, this was even more narrow a win. But wait, there's more…

The media villagers keep parroting the GOP establishment talking points with the intent to frame the narrative of this election for Willard "Mittens" Romney. Only the GOP establishment propaganda fails entirely to inform the public what is really going on inside the GOP primaries.

Did Willard "Mittens" Romney really win the Maine caucuses? Maine GOP chairman say Romney wins caucuses – Boston.com:

The totals reflected about 84 percent of the state's precincts. Webster insisted that any caucus results that come in after Saturday wouldn't be counted no matter how close the vote.

"Some caucuses decided not to participate in this poll and will caucus after this announcement," Webster said. "Their results will not be factored in. The absent votes will not be factored into this announcement after the fact."

The Ron Paul people are claiming that the Maine Caucuses were rigged for Romney because the caucuses occur over several days and Washington County, purportedly Ron Paul territory, was not counted in the "official" Maine Republican Party caucus results reported by the media villagers last night. MAINE caucuses RIGGED, Ron Paul f***ed over — here's why. It would appear 16 percent of precincts were not counted according to the state party chair. Yet another black mark for election integrity in this GOP primary season.

More importantly, the caucuses to date are all nonbinding delegates. The votes cast do not matter, the delegates selected matter. And the Ron Paul people have a strategy to use the GOP primary rules against the GOP establishment to "rig" the selection of caucus delegates with their supporters. Election integrity be damned in the GOP primaries.

Karoli at crooksandliars.com reports on a story first reported by the Rachel Maddow Show. Ron Paul: All Your Delegates Are Belong To Us:

As Rachel Maddow explains in this report, the Ron Paul strategy is to let the caucus results fall where they may, and then ensure Ron Paul delegates are elected to the convention. Because these caucus results are non-binding, it ensures that the votes matter less than the delegates sent to the convention. And right now, the Iowa, Minnesota, and likely Maine delegates will be attending not for Mitt Romney, but Ron Paul. Not for Gingrich or Santorum, but Ron Paul.

The strategy is pretty simple and not secret, as explained by Ron Paul strategist Doug Wead:

WEAD: I watch television and I see them saying Romney has this many delegates and Santorum this many, and as you know, not a single delegate has been awarded from Iowa or Minnesota or Missouri or Colorado or Nevada, and as you point out, we're tracking this at the precinct level, we think we have the majority of them, we think we've won in Iowa, we won in Minnesota, we won in Colorado, and Missouri is yet to be seen. And we think we probably won in Nevada, because we're counting the precinct votes. The only thing that I might add there is nothing wrong or deceptive about this, anybody can stay. Woody Allen says 80% of success is showing up. Our people show up. and they have a right to do that, and they are committed, and so they are running as delegates at the precinct level to the county convention where they will again run as delegates from the county convention to the state convention.

MADDOW: Are they being open at the precinct level, are they being open about the fact they will support Ron Paul no matter what happened at the caucus or is this sort of a sneak attack strategy?

WEAD: No, they are open. anybody can stay, and anybody can vote, in fact, the party is resisting this as often as they can. There have been occasions where they dismissed the meeting and relocated in another place to try to keep our people from participating. There are verbal memos that come down from the campaign. In Minnesota there was a verbal memo. They don't care to put it in print in which they told all the establishment Republicans don't vote for any delegate under the age of 40, because they knew it would be a Ron Paul supporter. So we're winning fair and square, and I should point out all these rules were changed for Mitt Romney. They were changed so that the establishment Republicans could give Mitt Romney a chance to win this nomination, in spite of evangelical resistance in the South. So it's all been set up for Romney, we're the poor guys, we don't have Goldman Sachs money, we're playing by their rules and yes, we have a smile on our face because right now the big story missed until you just broke it tonight is probably we have more delegates than anybody in the race right now. when all this is finalized.

Here are the goals, primary and secondary:

WEAD: As you know, anybody who is an observer of modern political history knows a brokered convention is remote. There are delegates that will move to another candidate if they get a box of Godiva chocolates on their pillow at the hotel in Tampa that night. Ron Paul delegates won't go even if they are offered Secretary of State. So if we can get do a convention with a sizeable number of delegates and if Gingrich stays alive and Santorum stays alive, we could have a brokered convention. It would be a huge show, even though there is a remote possibility. And of course there are many things we want.

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So the Ron Paul strategy is first to win the nomination (ain't never gonna happen you crazy dreamers), and secondly to force a brokered convention where they can extract concessions from whomever the dark horse candidate is to emerge.

Yeah, you see the thing is with concessions and promises — they are made to be broken. The Ron Paul people may have convinced themselves they will have leverage for their agenda, but once the deal is struck for a brokered nominee, those concessions and promises will lie broken among the confetti and balloons on the convention floor. It makes for entertaining drama, but it's all show and no substance — you're going to get screwed in the end.

The larger story here is the complete lack of election integrity in the GOP primaries. That story is not being reported by the media villagers (other than Rachel Maddow apparently). For a party that sees "voter fraud" even where it does not exist, it need only look to its own party primaries for actual "election fraud."