Illegal Dropboxes Aren’t “Misleading” or “Unofficial” — They’re Illegal
Journalists, editors — check your headlines
This week The New York Times, CNN, USA Today, the LA Times and many other outlets used inaccurate terminology in their objective reporting.
The California Republican Party is acting in violation of the Secretary of State and County Elections offices when they purposely set up dummy dropboxes — even if they’re ostensibly to help “transfer” ballots to official elections offices.
This is nefarious.
This is unconscionable.
It is illegal.
And depending on your state, it can also be a felony.
The reported news angle should be that (otherwise?) law-abiding citizens deliberately interfered with democracy and created diversionary tactics to steal ballots. This is right out of the gerrymandering playbook. The goal is still to disenfranchise.
But respected newspapers like the NYT have criminals copping to “misleading”. They might as well accuse them of catfishing — annoying, but not illegal.
And the Republican party’s surprising admission has an ‘aww, shucks’ ring to it that absolves criminals of pre-meditating voter fraud. There was no accident here. They accomplished exactly what they set out to do. And journalists not only buried the lead, they failed to report accurately.
Under 52 U.S. Code § 20511 voter fraud is a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison. In many states, voter fraud is a felony.
These are party officials who chose to commit crimes. That means your crime beat reporters need to be reporting on crimes.
Do not write soft-peddling headlines that call federal crimes “unofficial”. They are illegal.
This doesn’t just lack journalistic integrity. It is wholly inaccurate.
“While fraud by voters almost never occurs, fraud against voters does occur, albeit rarely. This type of fraud is committed by bigger players, with bigger weapons than an improperly filled ballot. Think Putin’s hackers or election workers stuffing ballot boxes.” — Max Feldman
We have exactly 18 days until the election.
Take your ballots to your county elections office.
Do not mail them. “Postmarked by” November 3rd will not be recognized.
Make sure you follow your state’s protocols to the letter. In my home state of Oregon I had a ballot rejected because I didn’t sign the outer privacy envelope.
When I updated my registration the Lane County Elections office detected an “inconsistency” in my signature.
Apparently, when I was 18 I still used my I-learned-cursive-in-the-second-grade signature. Back then I clearly formed every last letter in my full name but somewhere along the way it morphed into my debit card squiggle for small screens.
I wrote out both the long-division cursive and the serpentine I-guess-I’m-not-worried-about-identity-theft signatures for her so she could see that they were both mine.
Friends, we have to be that precise now, that current. Cross every T. Dot every I and every lower-case J.
And be aware that even the “mainstream media” isn’t accurately reporting on the encroachment of voter rights.
We are still a democracy. For now. Vote.
