[Newsbot]

<strong>Filibuster Cartoon</strong>
<strong>Title: </strong> <a href="http://www.filibustercartoons.com/archive.php?id=20080423" target="_blank">New Liberal Slogan</a> (click to view)
<strong>Date: </strong> April 23, 2008

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police staged a high-profile raid on the HQ of the Conservative Party last week, looking for documents to corroborate allegations of electoral violations in the 2006 race that brought them to power. <br> <br>The exact allegations are somewhat complex; basically federal parties can only spend X million dollars on their national campaigns, but that limit doesn\'t include each individual member of parliament\'s personal election race. The claim is that the Conservatives violated the spirit of this law by routinely playing up this loophole, and running ads that were clearly national in scope, yet filed under the \"local stuff\" budget. More than anything else, the episode just shows how goofy a lot of Canada\'s campaign finance laws are, but the Liberals are already crying bloody murder over the investigation. At least one former minister has already gone so far as to claim the election was basically stolen due to this improper advertisement registration.

[Calbeck]

*shakes head*

Sounds like the same mess that the US had with our 2000 and 2004 elections, with "independent groups" running nationwide ads indirectly supporting a given candidate through attacks on the opponent. The anti-Kerry "Swift Boat" ads caused an uproar in part because of this funding issue.

But loophole or not, "the spirit" of the law matters not a tinker's damn in the game of politics. I got on the ballot for Governor of Arizona in 1998 with only FOUR signatures --- because the Dems and Reps had rigged the system for the benefit of "major parties" and, through Perot's 8% performance in 1996, the Reform Party qualified in 1998 as "major". I got to play by THEIR rules, which required only 0.5% of all voters registered with the party to sign the petition. Since we'd never made a point of signing up new voters, preferring to spend resources actually running candidates courting independents, we had only 800 on the state rolls...0.5% of which is 4. I went to the trouble of getting 9, so I can legitimately claim (though I never did during the campaign) that I got more than twice the number of required signatures for my ballot access.

So of course, the very next year the Legislature changed the law. -:D

[Mr_Canada]

*chuckles*

That slogan could be used for the Cons as well.

"We may be doing something bad, But remember, the Liberals did [SOMETHING] a decade ago! So it's all right if we do it! "

[Psudo]

Can anyone offer an example of an election that was clearly (rather than debatably) stolen, or some objective definition of "stolen election" that a given election can be compared against?

Typically, I assume that a "stolen election" is one where the outcome was altered through violation of election laws, which was not the case in the US in 2000 or 2004, or (first appearances suggest) the 2006 Tories. During an online debate about the 2000 election, a Gore supporter suggested a "stolen election" was one where something other than a majority of the popular vote resulted in an election victory. That view certainly supported his take on the 2000 election, but not on Clinton's 1992 and 1996 victories, neither of which got him 50%+1 votes, nor is it represented in any law I know of.

A more complicated definition of a "stolen election" is one where election fraud accounts for more votes than the difference between the top two candidates in a race; thus, election fraud potentially could have influenced the outcome. This definition is similar to the "fraud altered outcome" definition, but this one includes a lower standard of proof before making the "Stolen!" declaration. The former requires proof that the outcome was changed, whereas the latter only requires evidence that the potential was there. The downside is that this latter definition isn't sufficient evidence for a new election, only for further investigation and election oversight changes.

None of these definitions overturn any of the election outcomes in these three disputed elections. I suspect this is because the same candidates would have won even if fraud and ambiguity could be perfectly eliminated from them.

[kenmore]

how bout the last election in the US when the vote was fixed in Florida..

[Wally_Sconce]

ask Al Gore that question.

[mtbr]

kenmore wrote:

how bout the last election in the US when the vote was fixed in Florida..

you really have been a sleep for a while haven't you

[BartSimpson]

kenmore wrote:

how bout the last election in the US when the vote was fixed in Florida..

No, the attempt to fix the vote was prevented.

The Democrats wanted to hold up certification of the vote in selective counties, recount the vote after excluding ballots mailed in from overseas (illegally denying the right to vote to members of the military and State Department employees), and they even tried to have a "do-over" of the vote.

Florida law on the matter requires all elections to be certified no later than seven days after the election.

A Democrat Governor, Lawton Chiles, signed that law after it was passed by a majority legislature composed of Democrats.

The US Constitution specifically prohibits ex post facto laws be they by legislative, executive, or judicial fiat. (Meaning you can't change the rules of the election after the election has taken place).

The USSC instructed Florida to obey their own laws on elections and not just to make sh*t up because it suited the Democrats who were the authors behind the original law in the first place.

There was no "fix".

Also, subsequent recounts paid for by three different media firms validated the results of the election as they stood. Meaning that the unConstitutional recounts would not have made any difference anyways.

[sasquatch2]

Meanwhile the LIBRANO controlled and taxpayer owned CBC, staggers on as the LIBRANO media outlet.

[Psudo]

I'd like to thank everyone who responded to the first sentence of my post and ignored the rest for offering evidence to defend my opinion that the phrase "stolen election" as used in modern North America is biased slander for "election that didn't turn out how I wanted it to".

[kenmore]

mtbr wrote:

kenmore wrote:

how bout the last election in the US when the vote was fixed in Florida..

you really have been a sleep for a while haven't you

no dont work nights any more

[Tiler]

Psudo wrote:

I'd like to thank everyone who responded to the first sentence of my post and ignored the rest for offering evidence to defend my opinion that the phrase "stolen election" as used in modern North America is biased slander for "election that didn't turn out how I wanted it to".

Ssshh. Don't you know how political debates work? "If the statement doesn't fit (with my worldview), I must forget." Otherwise, we have to argue with actual arguments and not simply make strawmen of everything, and that just gets too confusing.

[Quantum_Wizard]

Quote:

Our electoral fraud doesn't seem nearly so bad when you view it in the larger context of what the Tories are also doing.

What is this referring to? Have the Liberals also done something like this?

[CanadianJeff]

Hold on a tick...wasn't that the Campain slogan that got Harper into office.

Honestly though if I was the liberals I'd just be focusing on getting rid of Dion. He'll do far far far more damage then anything Harper can do if he keeps up the frail little french man bending over backwards to avoid an election routine he's been doing.

Ok I'll admit it I'm mean.