Hedgecock: Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas

Midnight robo-calls, “free food” at Harry Reid “voter turnout events,” unions offering “gift cards” to Reid voters, touch-screen voting machines refusing to register votes cast for Sharron Angle—it’s election season in Nevada!

We are witnessing the desperate end of a campaign to save a Senator so out of touch that his reaction to unemployment rise from 4.4% to 15% during his “leadership” as Majority Leader of the Senate was to say, “But for me, there would have been a worldwide depression.”

Reid spent millions in a tsunami of TV and radio ads over the last five months depicting Republican challenger Sharron Angle as a nut not to be trusted with the important work of the U.S. Senate. 

Reid’s loathsome negative campaign failed because the real Sharron Angle proved to be an experienced, capable former teacher and state legislator who happened to still believe in a Constitutional federal government and a free-market economy.  Angle dared to question the trillions in new debt, the failed stimulus package, and the lies surrounding Obamacare.

Reid’s union allies then began a force-fed campaign to get unionized workers to vote for Reid. Postal workers’ union leaders took “time off” (at full pay) to work in Reid’s campaign. SEIU (Service Employees International Union) members filled the halls when unpopular President Obama came to town to raise money for Harry.  (Note that White House political director Patrick Gaspard is a former lobbyist for SEIU.)

A “Republicans for Reid” committee sprang up, consisting of “Republicans” who hated Angle for her steadfast refusal as a state legislator to vote for tax increases.  These “Republicans” simply increased support for Angle by reminding Nevada voters and taxpayers that her no tax-increase-pledge in this campaign wasn’t just rhetoric; it was her record.

Then the machines started voting for Reid.  Early Nevada voter Joyce Ferrara in Boulder City (Clark County) found that her touch-screen voting machine had come up snake eyes: The machine had already voted for Harry Reid.  Her husband and several other voters experienced the same thing at the same time in their polling places.

Other early voters complained that every time they selected Sharron Angle, the machine showed Harry Reid as their selection.

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there was no fraud, but that the machines were sensitive to touch and that the voters must have misvoted inadvertently.

Could there be another explanation?

SEIU donated over $44 Million to Democrats in this election cycle.  It is committed to the re-election of Harry Reid.  SEIU also gave over $500,000 to “Patriot Majority PAC” which has spent over $1.3 Million in ads slamming Sharron Angle.

SEIU represents certain employees of Clark County government under a labor contract that Harry’s son, Rory (a Clark County Commissioner), voted to approve.  Page 75 (Appendix A) of the labor contract lists “voting machine technicians” as represented by SEIU.  Will anyone “watch the watchers?” Probably the Department of Justice won’t: After Holder’s DOJ dismissed the New Black Panther Party voting rights violation case, a containment signaling that only Republicans could commit such crimes, the DOJ is silent on voter-fraud cases that seem to favor only Democrat candidates, and that are springing up like weeds as we get closer to the election.

Here’s another problem.  Last weekend, armed with voter lists provided by the Orange County (CA) Registrar of Voters, I walked through a neighborhood in Fullerton, California for challenger Van Tran, who is seeking to replace incumbent Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez.

At one door, a Hispanic man said he could not vote because he was “not a citizen.”  When asked about two other residents at the same address listed as voters, he confirmed that they also were not citizens.

California, Nevada, and scores of other states do not require identification to vote.  Most states do not even require identification to register to vote.

By contrast, voters in Mexico must prove they are citizens to register to vote.  Mexican voters are issued a special voter I.D. with picture and fingerprint.  At the polls, Mexican voters are required to show the card; they are fingerprinted on the spot, and the fingerprints must match before they can vote.More from Human Events

[Roger Hedgecock is a nationally-syndicated radio talk host.]