Republican Dirty Tricks (Nov/04)

Every one tried and tested in the field

Attention Iraqi political parties! Want to know how to steal an election? Why not follow in the footsteps of the masters. Especially as your country is awash with Americans and a lot of them have to be supporters of the Republican Party. Seek out their advice and adapt it to your own circumstances.
Victory will be yours if you try hard enough!

Update (Apr/05)

Following the success of the Labour plot to steal 6 seats in Birmingham via postal voting fraud in the 2004 local government elections, it would be a good idea for supporters of the other political parties involved in the general election on May 5th 2004 to be on the lookout for the following Republican-inspired dirty tricks!

1. Set up an apparently impartial voter registration organization and invited people to come to your office to register to vote. Then shred all registrations for the Democratic party and get one of the Republican party's judges to rule that the shredded electors cannot vote in the upcoming election.
2. Get the party faithful to make a special effort to acquire the 40,000 nomination signatures required by a vote-splitting candidate, e.g. Ralph Nader, in Democratic areas. Remember – lying to voters, or offering payment, is a sin only if done clumsily enough to get caught. And the Republican Party controls the courts!
3. On the same theme, arrange for any vote-splitting rivals to the Republican Party to be disgraced and then disqualified as close as possible to the election.
4. Discourage people in Democrat-supporting areas from voting by making it difficult to register to vote, creating confusion over whether their registration has been completed and they are entitled to vote, and preventing people who have moved house from voting in their new location.
5. Tell Democrats who are entitled to vote, e.g. ex-convicts, that they are not entitled to vote.
6. Insist on the use of voting equipment which can create 'hanging chads', e.g. punch card machines, and invalidate all such 'hung' votes. Ignore complaints arising from previous elections that this equipment has high error rates until it is too late to change the system.
7. Post crooked sheriffs and armed security guards at strategic points to intimidate Democrat supporters into either not registering to vote or not voting on election day.
8. Call the Democratic candidate a liar, say he has a stable of mistresses, claim he cheats on his income tax; tell any silly story you like because most of the electorate are idiots and they will believe it.
9. Circulate faked photographs of the Democratic candidate in unfortunate circumstances. Even if the fraud is exposed, it will usually achieve the desired object of planting doubts in the minds of floating voters.
10. Tell the media that the Democratic candidate has claiming that he invented the Internet (or something similarly preposterous) as a means of exposing the rival to ridicule. Uncritical media will take fax material presented as news straight to air without checking it most of the time.
11. Media billionaires and their employees will generally know how to serve a particular party best without prompting. It becomes second nature when it is in their economic interests. They will not have to turn their brains off when they encounter an obvious lie; it will be an automatic function.
12. Every time the media say something adverse about the Republican candidate, bombard them with letters to the editor, faxes and emails to radio and TV station news managers and calls to local and national talk shows. Scream louder and louder until the truth is drowned out by the sheer volume of your version.
13. Ensure that your infiltrators in the media suppress embarrassing items about the Republican candidate's past and dilute references to the Republican candidate's lies. Whenever that doesn't work, turn the person reporting the lie into the story as a diversion. Remember that the media will sink to the lowest level if sufficiently motivated. Remember too, that the media love sensational stories and the truth element always comes second to making an immediate impact and boosting ratings.
14. Put in place corrupt officials who will make postal ballots in Democratic areas vanished without trace, and ensure that any replacement operation after a public outcry is slow and achieves only partial coverage.
15. Object to the paperwork belonging to newly registered voters as a matter of policy. Remember, confusion is your best ally. If possible, infiltrate the building where voter registrations are held and steal the forms of people who have registered as Democrats.
16. Post lawyers at polling stations to object to the right to vote of likely Democrat supporters and slow down polling in that area. Non-conviction Democrats will be discouraged from voting if a long delay is involved.
17. Get lawsuits flying in all directions well ahead of the election. Victory may lie in confusion.
18. Accuse the Democrats of carrying out all the acts of voting fraud, vote-suppression and abuse of power by election officials being perpetrated by the Republical Party.
19. The new generation of electronic voting machines, which are replacing punch-cards machines, are unreliable, unverifiable and readily prone to malicious intervention. Ensure that Republican hackers and saboteurs do the intervening. Further, electronic voting systems rarely produce paper records of votes cast, which makes verification impossible and the result whatever a Republican party hacker wants it to be.
20. Ensure that the number of disqualified ballots exceeds the margin of victory so that victory can be stolen via a recount rigged in the right direction.
21. Accuse the Democrats of trying to pad out the electoral roll with non-citizens, criminals, dead people, fictional characters and pets. Do the same in Republican areas and blame Democrat dirty tricks if caught out.
22. Delay registration of new voters who are likely to support the Democrats. Alternatively, make sure that the registration is incorrect or looks fraudulent. In extreme circumstances, paper will burn or it can be shredded.
23. Employ local roughs to hang around at polling stations in areas which support the Democrats and put the voters in fear of being mugged or worse.
24. Accuse the Democrats of the above tactic and supply some roughs who can lie convincingly when they confess all to the media.
25. Break into the Democratic Party's election headquarters and bug the place. Ensure that the 'plumbers' know what they're doing and they have no connection with your party.
26. Plant Democratic Party literature at the homes of criminals who are about to be busted with extreme publicity.
27. Spread rumours that the Democratic candidate has mental problems and that his wife once burned your national flag.
28. If there is to be a TV debate, plant a draft of the Republican candidate's material in the Democratic campaign office, then expose the 'theft' to friendly media.
29. Arrange for a group of covert Republican supports to run an advertising campaign smearing the military (or similar) record of the Democratic candidate. This tactic is can be particularly effective if the Republican candidate is a drunken draft-dodger.
30. Arrange for the most notorious of your terrorist clients to broadcast a message threatening the American people in the week before the election to drive chicken waverers into the arms of the Republican Party.
31. Spread a rumour that the Democrats want to re-introduce conscription and raise the spectre of thousands of young men coming home from hostile foreign parts in a body-bag. Get one of your foot-soldier Republicans to sponsor a conscription bill and then have it defeated heavily in a vote in Congress.
32. When voters arrive at polling stations in Democrate areas, make sure that your Republican infiltrator officals are on hand with a whole bunch of reasons for the crisis which has made the voting system collapse within 10 minutes of the opening time.
33. Encourage the State to organise provisional balloting in case a voter's eligibility is questioned on polling day. Provisional ballots can be withheld at the polling station for a wide variety of reasons and people can be discouraged from voting if they see a lot of hassle involved. Lawsuits over their validity can create election-winning confusion. And in an emergency, provisional ballots cast in favour of the Democratic candidate can be made to disappear.
34. Encourage the State to promote early voting to relieve the pressure on election day. Once stored, enough ballots cast for the Democratic Party to swing the result can be made to disappear.
35. Under the guise of preventing 'felons' from voting, create a list of banned people broad enough to strip thousands of the Democratic party supporters of the right to vote and then drag out the legal process of getting their right to vote restored until it is way too late to matter.
36. Include a small, easily overlooked tick-box in voter registration forms for Democratic areas so that those who neglect to tick it can be disenfranchised.
37. Destroy new voter registrations if they are photocopies or forms cut from newspapers on the grounds that they are not printed on the proper card stock.
38. Play a pre-recorded call to voters in Democratic areas telling them that the location of their polling station has been changed.
39. Ensure that one of your Republican infiltrators is in charge of ballot-printing in Democratic areas and have fewer ballot forms printed than the required number.
40. Place thousands of automated calls to the Democratic Party's call centres to prevent them from making outgoing calls to mobilize their supporters.
41. If Republican infiltrators are unmasked in one area, send them to another forthwith.
42. Pay candidates from opposition parties to split the vote in the Democratic Party's main centres.
43. Alternatively, create stealth candidates to run as phoney candidates in the Democratic Party's main centres.
44. When using dirty tricks doesn't produce the required result, try bribery – but always as a second option as it can be very costly.
45. Gain as much dirty money as possible from big business. The election always goes to the biggest bankroll.
46. Get 'push-pollers' to phone likely Democratic supporters, make some outrageous statement about the Democratic candidate and ask the voter if he/she would still vote for that candidate.
47. Ignore any rules prohibiting the erection of signs supporting the Republican Pary. If anyone objection, plead an honest mistake.
48. Object to the siting of polling stations in Democratic areas (claiming that they are inadequate on public safety or similar grounds) to make people go to the wrong polling station or not vote if they think their local polling station will not open.
49. If the voter has the option of a paper ballot where electronic systems are used, ensure that your election officials do not mention it in Democratic areas.
50. Use untraceable cell phones to call registered Democrat supporters to tell them they're not registered to vote and they won't be able to vote in the next election. If the trick is traced back to the local Republican Party HQ, don't worry as the penalty will be no more than a 'slap on the wrist'.
51. Send out letters apparently from the local Board of Election to tell registered Democrat supporters that their voter registration is invalid.
52. Cut the phone lines at Democratic phone banks to prevent them from rallying supporters and infiltrate the local phone company to ensure that repairs are not made until after the election.
53. Hire lawyers to lurk at polling stations in Democratic areas to demand evidence of identification from voters to slow the voting process and drive away uncommitted Democratic voters.
54. Send misleading information to students in halls of residence about how to vote, e.g. an assurance that voters can go to the polling station of their choice. (All voters MUST go to their assigned polling location to register a valid vote). Also, encourage them to register to vote, then make sure that they sign 2 forms. Submitting both forms will invalidate the registration of Democrat supporters. If discovered, plead an honest error.
55. Send out a fake letter, supposedly from the NAACP or a similar organization, threatening Democrat-supporting blacks with arrest if they vote when they have outstanding parking tickets, or if they haven't submitted a credit check and provided two forms of photo identification, a Social Security card, a voter registration card and a handwriting sample.
56. Use Republican-friendly media to make a link between "communists" and the Democratic Party candidate. Some idiots will always believe this is the truth. E.g. create a group called "Communists for Kerry"
    (http://www.communistsforkerry.com/).
57. Dig up a sex scandal about the Democratic Party candidate – or invent one!