The last honest American election took place long ago. Americans are not in charge. By habit & encouragement (propaganda) they still are going through the motions at Election Day even though they should know better. It does not matter one whit whom they actually vote for - whether Obama or Romney. Systemic vote fraud most likely will see to it that the election result will be what the elite intended. The corporate vote counting business has closed optical scan voting machines and DRE voting machines against inspections & independent verification. This means that vote fraud can go undetected. It is not a question of whether the voting machines can be hacked or not. (They both can and most likely will be.) It seems to us that the fundamental question this one: Are people still able to independently verify whether their votes have been counted correctly or not? Well, no. They cannot do this anymore. Now the only purpose of the election campaign is to get people to go and vote so that a fraudulent result can be foisted on them and be declared to be the "will of the people". Under these circumstances the only sensible thing to do is not to vote at all, not even for third party candidates. Americans would be fools to vote on November 6th. Stay home - 2012 is rigged! -The Editor

A temporary elections employee allegedly tampered with ballots to cast additional votes for Republican candidates in Clackamas County, where several hotly contested races could tilt the balance of power in cities, the county and even the state legislature. - The Oregon Department of Justice confirmed that it has launched a criminal investigation but did not identify the female employee or disclose how many ballots might be affected. The department is investigating the matter promptly since the Nov. 6 election is just days away, said Jeff Manning, spokesman for the Department of Justice. On Friday, Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown sent an elections observer to the Clackamas County Elections Office. Fred Neal, a retired elections manager with a decade of experience, is expected to be there for as long as it takes to process all the ballots, said Andrea Cantu-Schomus, spokeswoman for the Secretary of State's Office. He will review processes and procedures, including security plans. The unidentified elections worker allegedly cast votes for Republicans in races left blank, according to Willamette Week, which first reported the story. Tampering with ballots is a Class C felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a $125,000 fine.

Thousands of absentee-ballot requests may have been "erroneously" rejected statewide because of voter-registration issues, voter advocates say. - Secretary of State Jon Husted has acknowledged that [an alleged] data-sharing glitch between his office and the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles likely caused some absentee-ballot applications to be wrongfully rejected because county boards did not have up-to-date information on registrants’ addresses. Meanwhile, a voter advocacy group said yesterday that it had found cases in which county boards rejected applications for absentee ballots of legitimately registered voters because elections officials "erroneously" determined them to be unregistered.

Paul Craig Roberts: We Have Actually Lost The Ability To Verify Election Results - With electronic voting machines, which leave no paper trail and are programmed with proprietary software, the count can be decided before the vote. Those who control the electronics can simply program voting machines to elect the candidate they want to win. Electronic voting is not transparent. When you vote electronically, you do not know for whom you are voting. Only the machine knows.

The best way to hack a central tabulator is to buy an elections equipment company. These privately held, unaccountable firms provide the majority of voting systems in the United States. ES&S acquired Premier, successor to the ill-reputed Diebold franchise, but was forced to sell it to Dominion. These two plus Hart Intercivic dominate the market for elections systems, from voting machines to central tabulators to service contracts for full election management. What better place to control an election outcome, tailor made for whomever. These firms sell or otherwise provide equipment with the provision that the software behind the machines is their sole intellectual property. County and state election officials are unable to inspect the software at multiple levels due to this restriction. This is truly secret voting outsourced to private firms who operate behind the scenes and have limited accountability. There is no true public accountability.

Washington Post: Vote Fraud Being Prepared: Networks, AP cancel exit polls in 19 states

There are indicators that Mitt Romney has been selected to continue to carry out the agenda of the New World Order by acting out his character in some kind of Armageddon script which may include the staging of a third world war involving China & Russia. These are clues that Romney has significant establishment support behind him and other signs that he intends to serve the elite’s agenda to a T.

With the painfully close presidential election now down to who wins the battleground state of Ohio, no network dares to call the race and risk repeating the mistakes of 2000 when a few networks jumped the gun on picking a winner. As the magic boards used by the networks go ‘up close and personal’ on every county in the Buckeye State, word begins to circulate that there might be a snafu with some electronic voting machines in a number of Cincinnati based precincts. There have already been complaints that broken machines were not being quickly replaced in precincts that tend to lean Democratic and now, word is coming in that there may be some software issues. The network political departments get busy and, in short order, discover that the machines used in Hamilton County, Ohio—the county home of Cincinnati— are supplied by Hart Intercivic, a national provider of voting systems in use in a wide variety of counties scattered throughout the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Colorado and Ohio. A quick Internet search reveals that there may be reason for concern.

The Gallup national tracking poll now shows a very strong lead for Mitt Romney. As of Wednesday, he was ahead by six points among likely voters. Mr. Romney's advantage grew further, to seven points, when Gallup updated its numbers on Thursday afternoon. The Gallup poll is accounted for in the forecast model, along with all other state and national surveys. However, its results are deeply inconsistent with the results that other polling firms are showing in the presidential race, and the Gallup poll has a history of performing very poorly when that is the case... Usually, when a poll is an outlier relative to the consensus, its results turn out badly.

WikiLeaks will begin publishing 200,000 files relating to the presidential election. The GI (Global Intelligence) files are emails obtained through a hack on private intelligence firm Stratfor, which were leaked to WikiLeaks by Anonymous.

These GI Files releases will shed insight into key U.S. federal election players… Through this release WikiLeaks aims to inform the U.S. electorate in an unbiased way through the release of source documents from one of the most oddly influential companies in the U.S. today.

Statfor, “a secretive multi-national private intelligence firm, providing services to large corporations, and government agencies” has a revolving door with government offices and thus the leaked emails could be a source of important information on both Democrats and Republicans in this election. Wednesday marks the beginning of the document dump, so it may take some time before any dirt is dug up.

Breaking from two decades of tradition, this year’s election exit poll is set to include surveys of voters in 31 states, not all 50 as it has for the past five presidential elections, according to multiple people involved in the planning. - Dan Merkle, director of elections for ABC News, and a member of the consortium that runs the exit poll, confirmed the shift Thursday. The aim, he said, “is to still deliver a quality product in the most important states,” in the face of mounting survey costs. The decision by the National Election Pool — a joint venture of the major television networks and The Associated Press — is sure to cause some pain to election watchers across the country. (For a full list of the states that won’t have exit polls, check HERE.)

Election officials in six Florida counties are investigating what appears to be "hundreds" of cases of suspected voter fraud by a GOP consulting firm that has been paid nearly $3 million by the Republican National Committee to register Republican voters in five key battleground states, state officials tell NBC. The allegations of suspected voter fraud committed by Strategic Allied Consulting of Tempe, Arizona spread Thursday to counties throughout Florida. At the same time, the Republican National Committee said it had severed its ties to the firm. "We have heard from supervisors in six counties that they have irregularities in voter registration," said Chris Cate, spokesman for the Florida Department of State, which oversees the state's division of elections.

Bev Harris talks to Lew Rockwell about why they need to be delegitimized.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told Ohio voters Tuesday he would win the November election, despite a new poll that shows his rival with a significant lead in the Buckeye State. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (R) said he didn't believe the margin between the candidates was so wide. "It's going to end up close," DeWine said. [Right, they're confident they can steal the 2012 'election' through dirty money from corpora-terrorists' PACs, GOP voter-suppression laws, and rightwing thuggery from 'True the Vote' sociopaths at the polls. Not that the Lord of the Killer Drone, Barack 'Chains We Can Believe In NDAA' Obama, is much better - he's not. --LRP]

New voting laws in 23 of the 50 states could keep more than 10 million Hispanic U.S. citizens from registering and voting, a new study said on Sunday, a number so large it could affect the outcome of the November 6 election. - The Latino community accounts for more than 10 percent of eligible voters nationally. But the share in some states is high enough that keeping Hispanic voters away from the polls could shift some hard-fought states from support for Democratic President Barack Obama and help his Republican rival, Mitt Romney. The new laws include purges of people suspected of not being citizens in 16 states that unfairly target Latinos, the civil rights group Advancement Project said in the study to be formally released on Monday.

Civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) told the audience at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night, “we have come too far together to ever turn back,” warning that Republican-led voter suppression laws are taking America back to the days when states had the right to deny voting capabilities to minority voters. Voting rights for minority voters continue to come under attack as Republican leaders are now turning to the Supreme Court to overturn historic civil rights legislation. Several federal judges recently struck down voter suppression laws in multiple states, introduced by Republican legislators and governors, such as voter identification laws, provisional voting restrictions, limits on voter registration drives, and reduced availability for early voting. The court rulings in Florida, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin, marked a widespread rejection of so called 'voter fraud' legislation, which seeks to greatly limit who can and cannot vote.

The bankers and the One Percent will win this election. They will win whether it is the Democrats or the Republicans; and they will continue to have their agenda pushed forward.” - The banking mafia and the one-percent capitalist cartels will be the ultimate winners in the upcoming US presidential election as America’s de facto ruling elite, a US “Occupy” movement organizer tells Press TV.

“Who is in office [is] still the bankers and corporations who control all the politicians; the Democrat, the Republican or what have you,” he added. The activist argued that the existing flaws in the American ruling system cannot be merely attributed to corruption and noted that such deficiencies are vital for the existence of the dominant ruling elite.

Patrick Martin: Phony populism from a party of corporate America

RALEIGH A Raleigh-based group devoted to reducing the potential for voter fraud presented the N.C. Board of Elections on Friday with a list of nearly 30,000 names of dead people statewide who are still registered to vote. The Voter Integrity Project compiled the list after obtaining death records from the state Department of Public Health from 2002 to March 31 and comparing them to the voter rolls. “Mainly, what we’re concerned about is the potential [for fraud],” said project director Jay DeLancy. “Since there is no voter ID law in North Carolina, anybody can walk in and claim to be anyone else.” DeLancy said his group has found evidence to suggest voter fraud in these numbers, but will not quantify how much until he is able to do more analysis. Most cases of what look like a dead person voting are likely just administrative errors, such as a son named Junior voting in his father’s name instead of his own.

Tens of thousands of protesters marched in Mexico City on Saturday to protest against Enrique Peña Nieto's apparent win in the country's presidential election, accusing his party of buying votes and paying TV networks for support.

Demonstrators were angered by allegations that Peña Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI) gave out groceries, pre-paid gift cards and other goods to voters before the national elections on 1 July.

Students, unionists and leftists in Mexico City carried signs reading: "Peña, how much did it cost to become president?" and "Mexico, you pawned your future for 500 pesos."

Officials estimated about 50,000 demonstrators gathered at the central Zocalo plaza. "The fraud was carried out before (the election), buying votes, tricking the people," said Gabriel Petatan Garcia, a geography student who carried a sign in Finnish. Protesters also carried signs in English, Japanese, French, German and other languages to call the attention of the international press.

Stephen Lendman: PRI Regains Mexican Presidency
Russia Today: Peña Nieto protesters take over Mexico City - Video
Al Jazeera: Thousands protest Mexico's president-elect - Video

All candidates are neo-imperial candidates - Wall Street proxy Jibril of "National Forces Alliance" presumed winner. - Ideally the West would like to install "liberal" pro-globalist candidates into power in each of the nations it has destabilized and destroyed during its premeditated, engineered "Arab Spring." In the case of Egypt where Mohammed ElBaradei was sufficiently exposed and his presidential aspirations effectively derailed, the West's Muslim Brotherhood proxies made for a viable second option. In Libya, a similar scenario has unfolded with two tiers of Western proxies poised to take power - pro-globalist technocrats like US-educated Mahmoud Jibril (Gibril) Elwarfally's National Forces Alliance, and of course NATO's terrorist proxies within the Muslim Brotherhood along with Al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) warlords like Abdul Hakim Belhaj.

Stephen Lendman: Sham Libyan Elections
Jason Ditz: Pro-NATO Bloc Claims Early Lead in Libya Vote Count

With the issuance of a constitutional decree Sunday night, the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) finalized the coup it staged last Thursday and proclaimed a military dictatorship.

Only two days before the run-off of the Egyptian presidential election, the US-backed junta had dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament and the constitutent assembly, which had been tasked with the drafting of a new constitution. With the constitutional decree, an amendment to the military-authored constitutional declaration issued March 30, 2011, SCAF is asserting full control over political life in Egypt. Under these conditions, the results of the run-off of the presidential election between Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister under ousted President Hosni Mubarak, and Mohamed Mursi, the Islamist candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), have little significance. The future president will be nothing more than a figurehead of SCAF.

BBC: Egypt's military grants itself sweeping powers
Reuters: Egyptian army will dictate presidential powers and act as legislature
NHK World: Egyptian military revises interim constitution
Robert Fisk: Despite Elections Mubarak's Army of Thugs Remains in Business

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has announced that its candidate Mohamed Morsi has won the country’s run-off presidential election. - At a pre-dawn press conference on Monday, the Brotherhood officials declared their victory over ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister Ahmad Shafiq in the election. The officials said that the results from 98 percent of the polling stations showed that Morsi won 52 percent of the vote. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has announced that its candidate Mohamed Morsi has won the country’s run-off presidential election. At a pre-dawn press conference on Monday, the Brotherhood officials declared their victory over ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister Ahmad Shafiq in the election. The officials said that the results from 98 percent of the polling stations showed that Morsi won 52 percent of the vote.

Jason Ditz: Egypt Junta Grants Itself Massive New Powers
Al Ahram: Egypt Brotherhood 'Wins' Powerless Presidency
Turkish Weekly: Military Council in Egypt to Continue Dominance Despite Elections

Johannes Stern: Egyptian presidential elections marked by mass abstention and fraud - In the run-offs over the weekend, Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister under ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak faced Mohamed Mursi, the candidate of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Both Shafiq and Mursi are right-wing representatives of the Egyptian ruling class, hostile to the social and democratic aspirations of the Egyptian revolution and widely discredited amongst the Egyptian masses. No official results and numbers about the voter turnout have been announced yet. However, media reports suggest that the turnout was even lower than in the initial round of the elections three weeks ago.

Russian opposition leaders accused Vladimir Putin of changing tactics to crack down on dissent after riot police detained hundreds of protesters challenging the legitimacy of his presidential election victory.

The pattern appears clear: Putin will allow a few isolated protests, the place and time of which is agreed with the authorities, as a safety valve for disillusionment with his 12-year domination of Russia among mainly urban demonstrators. He could also offer some conciliatory gestures to appease the opposition. In one such move, the Kremlin has ordered a review of 32 criminal cases including the jailing of former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the refusal to register a liberal opposition group which has been barred from elections. But Putin, a former KGB spy, will do his utmost to prevent what he regards as more radical protesters undermining his return to the Kremlin for a third term as president after four years as prime minister. Dissent will be dealt with forcefully.

RIA Novosti: Russia Disputes Election Observer Report

Stephen Lendman: Putin Wins - Whatever irregularities occurred were minor. Polls showed Putin heavily favored to win. He did slightly better than expected. As a result, Washington, its rogue NATO partners, and complicit media scoundrels have Putin to kick around for the next six years. Expect them to take full advantage. Putin's outspokenness won't stop. He'll continue saying "nobody can impose anything on us" and opposing Western efforts "to destroy Russia. Today our people have proven that such scenarios are not going to work in our country." As president, his job is to assure they don’t. It's also to serve all Russians responsibly. Hopefully, he's up to the task.

Outgoing Prime Minister Vladimir Putin claimed victory in Russia’s presidential elections held Sunday. Last night the Central Election Commission (CEC) reported that he had so far secured 65 percent of the vote, with about two-thirds of all precincts reporting (as of the writing of this article). - Turnout in Sunday’s election appears to have been substantial, with 64 percent of the electorate going to the polls. This number may rise as more votes are counted. If it holds, it would represent an increase of four percent over the parliamentary contest in December 2011, but a decrease of six percent from the 2008 presidential race. There have been thousands of allegations of vote fraud from various corners of the country, with upwards of 20,000 observers stationed around the country. According to the election watchdog Golos, so-called “carouseling”—the bussing of voters from one polling station to the next so they could vote multiple times using absentee ballots—was reported in Moscow, Vladivostok, Voronezh and numerous other cities. Other complaints include tampering with ballot boxes, the absence of ballot papers, broken surveillance cameras, the removal of observers from polling places, ballot-box stuffing, voting by proxy, and voter harassment.

Russia Today: Putin declared president-elect - Video
BBC: Vladimir Putin wins, exit polls say
New Statesman: One man versus the people
Tony Cartalucci: US to Attempt Overthrow of Putin Government

A new study by the Pew Center on the States has found that one out of every eight voter registrations in the United States is invalid. - According to the survey published on Tuesday, more than 1.8 million dead US citizens are enrolled as active voters while around 2.75 million people are actively registered in more than one state in the country. The study by the non-partisan think tank has also found that US electoral systems “are plagued with errors and inefficiencies that waste taxpayer dollars, undermine voter confidence, and fuel partisan disputes over the integrity of our elections.” Mainly paper-based voter registration in the United States “has not kept pace with advancing technology and a mobile society,” it added.

Russia Today: Two million dead Americans set to vote

Ron Paul May Have Secretly Won The Iowa Caucuses. - Ron Paul may have officially come in third tonight, but if the campaign's caucus strategy went off as planned, then Paul may actually be the real winner of the first Republican voting contest. That's because Paul's massive organizational push in Iowa focused on both winning votes, and also on making sure that Paul supporters stuck around after the vote to make sure they were selected as county delegates — the first step towards being elected as a delegate to the Republican National Convention. That's because Iowa's Republican caucuses are non-binding — they are technically just a straw poll, so once selected, delegates are free to vote for whichever presidential candidate they choose.

Russia's leadership was forced to defend its legitimacy yesterday after about 100,000 demonstrators rallied in central Moscow to demand democratic reform and fair elections in the largest wave of popular dissent since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The rally on Moscow's Sakharov Avenue on Saturday was the fourth and by far the biggest of the mass demonstrations provoked by the parliamentary vote held on 4 December. The ruling United Russia party, led by the Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, held on to a slim majority in parliament in those elections, but the results have been tainted by claims of wholesale fraud. The demonstrators stood for hours in sub-zero weather on Saturday listening to a line-up of speakers as diverse as the crowd itself, including TV celebrities, writers, musicians, politicians, scientists and a jailed dissident whose video message was broadcast on a giant screen beside the stage.

"The people are waking up," said Sergei Udaltsov, the leader of the Left Front opposition group who was arrested on the day of the elections as he heading to a rally. "The people have stopped putting up with this humiliating regime."

Just two weeks after the Russian capital saw its biggest opposition rally in nearly twenty years, Russians unhappy with the results of the December 4 parliamentary elections have gathered once again.

But this time, it's in even bigger numbers, with the hopes that their collective voice will be heard. Police estimate the current number of demonstrators at about 29,000. They are coming together to protest against vote fraud – and to demand a new ballot.

This time around, the rally is being held on Akademika Sakharova Boulevard, with nearby streets closed off to traffic. Police have refrained from calling in reinforcements from the Defense Ministry, but are maintaining a presence at the rally; metal detectors and barriers have been set in advance.

RT’s crew at the scene say the police on duty are friendly and polite, a fact which has also been stressed by human right activists at the rally.

The protest's organizers have managed to collect around 100,000 US dollars, which they say is more than enough to provide necessities like a stage from which speakers will address the crowds, as well as lighting and sound equipment. Taking into account the time of year, and the current weather conditions, organizers will also spend some of the donations on basic comforts for the protesters – hot drinks, snacks and restrooms.

The Telegraph: Russian protests: live

The biggest opposition rally in recent Russian history has taken place in the capital. The protest against the results of Russia's December 4 parliamentary election has drawn an estimated turnout of between 25,000 and 40,000. - The rally has been held on Bolotnaya Square, in Central Moscow, on December 10 between 2 pm and 6 pm. The square is almost empty, except for media crews and a few groups of youngsters, say police. Earlier the Interior Ministry reported around 25,000 people gathered at the scene. However opposition leaders claim up to 40,000 on the square. Before the rally police have blocked access to the squares adjacent to the Kremlin and have restricted entry to Red Square. Security in the capital has been stepped up with police trucks and Interior Ministry troops surrounding the scene. Moscow police say security will be tightened in the city until nightfall to prevent possible incidents.

Al Jazeera: Thousands across Russia protest poll fraud
RIA Novosti: Tens of thousands of Russians join nationwide vote protest
The Independent: Russia's middle class rises up against Putin
The Telegraph: Bloggers who are changing the face of Russia as the Snow Revolution takes hold
The Guardian: Soros's minions use CIA-ware Facebook and Twitter to foment rebellion in Russia

Russian news website Life News has published emails it claims show correspondence between the US State Dept. and the Russian election watchdog Golos discussing payments for work done to discredit the results of Russia’s parliamentary vote. - Life News says it has come into the possession of 60 megabytes of Golos' private online correspondence. According to Life News, they are letters sent and received by Golos Executive Chief Lilya Shibanova and her deputy Grigory Melkonyants. Judging by the documents published on the site, the group which claimed to be independent was actually funded in order to defend the interests of US State Department. In one of the letters Yulia Kostkina, a financial analyst for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sends Melkonyants a list of remarks and guidelines considering Golos' activities.

Russia Today: Medvedev: Protests a manifestation of democracy

Alex Lantier: US officials threaten Russia amid post-election protests - Amid deep popular disaffection and opposition protests against the regime of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin following Russia’s December 4 parliamentary elections, US officials are mounting a campaign to destabilize Russia. The elections, which were marked by numerous instances of vote fraud, saw Putin’s United Russia party officially receive only 49.5 percent of the vote, down 15 percent from 2007. This reflects broad and deeply-felt anger with the disastrous social conditions of post-Soviet Russia. In response, Washington has ratcheted up military and political tensions with the Kremlin, including by backing ongoing protests politically dominated by Russia’s official right-wing “opposition” parties. US officials are seeking to exploit the fact that protests are limited to relatively small layers of the urban middle class and dominated by the official “opposition,” to push Russian politics in a right-wing direction favorable to US imperialism.

Russians took to the streets of Moscow for the second successive day on Tuesday to demand an end to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule, but riot police blocked their way and hundreds of pro-Kremlin youths tried to spoil the protest. - Ignoring warnings of a police crackdown, about 500 protesters chanted "Russia without Putin!" and "Freedom!" after opposition leaders used social media such as Twitter and Facebook to swell their ranks, witnesses said. But hundreds more pro-Putin youths in blue anoraks also turned up at the protest in central Moscow and tried to drown out their chants by shouting: "Russia, Putin!." The crowd was held back by dozens of riot police and it appeared that opposition supporters were struggling to make it past police to the rally. Police said more than 100 people were detained as scuffles broke out. Boris Nemtsov, a liberal opposition leader, told Reuters he had been detained and was being held at a police station.

USA Today: Thousands in Moscow protest Putin, election results

Vladimir Putin's ruling party suffered a serious blow in a parliamentary election on Sunday, exit polls showed, as voters signalled growing unease with his domination of Russian politics before a planned return to the presidency next year. - The result, in which the opposition said Putin's United Russia was boosted by fraud, is likely to dent the authority of the man who has ruled for almost 12 years with a mixture of hardline security policies, political acumen and showmanship. Two exit polls suggested Putin's party, United Russia, would win 45.5 and 48.5 percent of the votes in the election to the State Duma compared with 64.3 percent in 2007 and that it could struggle even to hold on to a majority in the chamber. "These elections are unprecedented because they were carried out against the background of a collapse in trust in Putin, (President Dmitry) Medvedev and the ruling party," said Vladimir Ryzhkov, a liberal opposition leader barred from running.

Stephen Lendman: Russia Bashing
New York Times: Victory for Putin’s Party Looks Smaller Than Expected
LA Times: Russians vote amid signs ruling party's dominance is slipping
Russia Today: Putin says parliamentary poll is optimal for United Russia
Jason Ditz: British, US Officials ‘Concerned’ by Russian Election