Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer
On Thursday, The BRAD BLOG interviewed Ron Shepston, who is running for Congress in California’s 42nd District. The current holder of the seat is the ethically challenged Republican, Gary Miller (R-CA), who is regularly named as one of the Most Corrupt Members of Congress.
We first asked Shepston, an airplane engineer, about election integrity issues. Interestingly, despite running in the extremely “red” Orange County against the Republican Miller and expressing concern for election integrity issues in general, Shepston was not worried about the fairness of elections in his own district:
“I vote in my district and I do think we have fair elections there… I do worry about election integrity in general. I wonder what Republicans are afraid of when they don’t want to have fair elections. I don’t want to have to guess, I don’t want to have to trust that my vote or that voters’ votes count. I want verified ballots.”
Unfortunately, as Orange County is one of two counties left in California where unverifiable DRE (usually touch-screen) voting machines have been allowed for use by all, Shepston seems somewhat out of step with the ability, or lack thereof, to verify even a single vote cast on such machines in his own district. Almost inexplicably, CA SoS Debra Bowen decertified use of almost all DRE systems in the state, other than one per polling place to meet federal accessibility voting standards, and DRE machines made by Hart InterCivic. Shepston’s Orange County still uses those wholly unverifiable Hart voting machines.
Shepston, who says he considers himself part of the netroots movement, is a political newcomer who was encouraged to run for office by fellow bloggers at the Daily Kos website. Yet despite the fact that many of these bloggers are helping with Shepston’s campaign, he directed some harsh words towards the Daily Kos:
“It’s not the community that it used to be… And what’s happened is that now that I’ve been there for so long I know the good writers and I go to just them. I don’t branch out because it seems like every other diary that I get to it’s just not worth it to me anymore. I don’t learn anything… It’s turned into a shouting match sometimes. It’s not the same community that it was when I was there before.”
Our complete interview (6:46), shot this week at a fund raising event here in Los Angeles with Ambassador Joe Wilson (more videos to come), follows below. You can find out more about Shepston at his Ron Shepston for United States Congress website…
Thanks Alan, I wanted to add a bit to my comment about election integrity in the 42nd in particular.
I’m not worried mainly because in the past the 42nd has not been a contested district so I’m comfortable that even though it’s unverifiable there’s not much motivation for someone to set up an infrastructure of fraud.
Having said that I will be sending a message to Debra Bowen asking for some help in understanding when the issue will be dealt with.
As I said in the interview I don’t want to have to trust that our votes will be accurately and completely counted.
Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Alan.
Ron –
Thanks for dropping by and for taking the article in the spirit in which it was intended. A couple of points in response to your comment:
You should be concerned in that every vote deserves to be counted accurately, and verifiably. There is no way that any single vote, for any candidate or initiative on the ballot, ever cast on one of Orange County’s DREs, during any election can be verified as accurately recorded as per the voter intent.
Orange has had some famously close elections (in ’06, one was decided by 6 votes as I recall, after a “recount” where only the paper ballots were counted, and the DRE results were simply re-printed from the memory cards).
Aside from that, votes cast in Orange for state elections similarly effect the rest of the state. If there’s a close vote for a state candidate or an initiative, a swell way to effect the outcome of that race or initiative is to change the unverifiable numbers in Orange County any way that one pleases.
As long as voters in Orange County are voting on DREs, you will have no choice but to do exactly that.
You might wish to encourage voters to ask for the paper ballot they are entitled to vote on in California (though they may have to know to ask about that in Orange, since they won’t go out of their way to tell voters).
And then you’ll just have to cross your fingers and count on your lucky stars that whatever you are told are the results of your election, actually are accurate. Since there will be no way for you to determine that afterwards.
Hope that’s helpful. Feel free to drop me a line if I can help you with any more questions/concerns.
Loves the Constitution, wants healthcare for everyone, hard to keep quiet… excellent qualifications….
Here’s the thing about our elections systems nationwide. They’re all potentially problematic. This makes it possible for party/fraudulent election operatives to pick where they want fraud to occur for every single election, and in those designated spots, what kind of fraud will be launched.
It’s just incredibly dumb for America to keep waiting after every single election to see where it happened the last time, and then spend years prosecuting those spots. While we’re trying to go after whoever it was that rigged the last election, they’re putting in place the mechanisms to rig the next one.
Meanwhile, the right-wing conservative agenda is working, through its Supreme Court appointees, to make it illegal for all Americans to vote. That Indiana voter ID law is just the beginning.
Progressives need to get just as smart about getting clean elections up and running all across the country, as the right-wing conservatives are about stopping targeted Democrats from voting.
Ron, your heart is clearly in the right place. I really wish you all the best. Please go here:
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/Primaries_2008_Managed_Manipulation
and download the PDF file of this report. It should be required reading for every citizen who currently thinks we have fair elections in various places around the country, and so isn’t up at night worrying about November.
“Election” IS a fraud.
SEEING FOX ENGAGED IN HILLARY’S DAMAGE CONTROL THIS WEEKEND IS YET FURTHER EVIDENCE OF HOW DESPERATE THE ROCKEFELLER GLOBALISTS ARE TO STAY “ON-SCRIPT.”
Hillary is the designated loser to the McCain/Lieberman/Israel ticket. Obama was used as a tool to split-off the black vote from the Hillary vote, to enable the Fascist Dictatorship’s continuation, under the guise of a Republic with “free and fair” elections.
The scam is failing and they are freaking out. Hillary’s comments and those of others are only foretelling the dark secrets they’ve been told. Keeping such secrets about such evil is difficult. They have a tendency of coming out, despite one’s efforts to hold them inside.
Sort of like when GW Bush admitted TWICE that he had seen the first plane hit the first WTC tower on 9/11 – LIVE – prior to going into the Booker Elementary School (on closed circuit TV in his limo).
Keeping secrets about such evil is tough, isn’t it Hillary?
We’ll blame you if it happens…count on that.
Blog complicity in election machine hacking, it isn’t just for kos anymore. It can’t happen here happens everywhere now. Shock and awe shit.
Can’t tell if it is a grog and phoney show or just the everyday dog a pony show.
Wonder who will win the slimy this year? That is an award given to any blog who can outdo kos and DU in astroturfing.
Any nominees?
Well seems to me Ron has his heart in the right place & certainly sounds sincere.
However he is quite naive and uninformed at least about election fraud.
The 2000 election was clearly stolen and when it appeared that Florida was going to do the right thing and actually recount ALL the votes the SCOTUS stepped in and ILLEGALLY stopped the recount and anointed Dubya when they had no legal precedent, or right to intervene at all.
The 2004 S-election was blatantly stolen and with the help of the clearly complicit Mainstream Media.
Even in 2006 when Democrats gained so many seats it was quite clear that Rove’s “Math” was that he could just steal about 14-16 seats and still remain in the majority, in fact he needed to steal about 30, that is where his math was wrong.
What we have today is a corrupt duopoly, we basically have ONE corporate fascist party with 2 Right (D)/Reich ( R) wings.
If Ron wants to uphold the Constitution then first and foremost IMPEACHMENT must be back on the table. These criminals infesting the White House right now have committed no less than 25 Impeachable offense and counting, spanning from TREASON, to War crimes, Crimes against humanity etc.
The key to all the crimes committed in the past 8 years is the False Flag attack of 9/11.
9/11 truth is the key to regaining any resemblance of dignity this country used to have in the world.
The perpetrators of this crime MUST be held accountable.
Until that happens expect nothing to change, expect more fraudulent elections, more war, as this country sinks ever lower into a full blown Totalitarian Police State run by Fascist.
This may not be what you “want” to hear but reality is a bitch.
When election outcomes are rigged, it doesn’t matter if it didn’t happen in one’s own district, county, state. Anytime a public official who is actually chosen by the people, as in elected by them, is prevented from holding that office due to election fraud, every single voter all across the country was disenfranchised.
I live in California’s 6th district. Do I care what happens in California’s 42nd? Or in Palm Beach County, Florida? Or in Cuyohoga,Ohio? You bet I do! The person who ran in one of those districts and was disallowed from serving our country due to election fraud could have been part of the team that stops this bullshit from occurring once and for all.