Very fishy how Santorum has been polling under 10% the whole time but right at the end all of a sudden he is equal first? Obviously there probably was alot of money changing hands and the county chairs having big influence. Then there was talk of the ballot count being held in a secret place? Also lax ID checks when voting = double votes? The establishment really has thrown everything at the wall and some of it has stuck unfortunately
Voting is so dodgy, why can't it be counted in front of everyone's faces (or cameras at least)? I'm also curious as to why in Australia they give you a PENCIL to mark your vote.. anyone heard of erasers? If you make a wrong choice then go get another form FFS Romney and Santorum look like another smiling and talking head in a suit, RP is genuine (as a politician can be anyway)
Its madness, we can do every other important daily task on computers. Run a business, banking, communicating. Why can't we vote online? Instead we get thousands of people to man handle our ballot papers and count them as accurately as possible.
I always take a pen and mark my ballot with a pen. Not that it makes much difference. Even if you vote for minor parties it ends up going to the 2 majors. Only in the senate does a vote make a slight difference. However there are flaws there as well, Hanson was expected to be voted in during the most recent NSW state election, was ahead and doing very well with under the line votes, only for the computer system (rigged) to give the last spot to this Green radical.
I'm sorry Vektor that is utter horse sh!t. As much as I like Katter and may even vote for him if he stops his big government handed agenda, he's not qualified to tie Ron Paul's shoes.
Love it I can see the editors booth right now as that live TV was being shot. "quick! Cut the feed! Good now that's done, we cant have citizens hearing that Israel can look after itself from a man in uniform!"
I agree - he sure aint no Ron Paul, but compared to the other BIG GOVERNMENT AUSTRALIAN PARTIES - umm ... like the Greens, Labor and the Libs - i'm arfraid he IS RON PAUL !! :lol:
So R.P did'nt get through, bad bad news..... I heard that if he did'nt....The U.S will go backwards real quick..
This would lead to even more fraud because they can conveniently hack the election which has been demonstrated on electronic voting machines before using a simple virus, so paper ballot is the way to go but have the count at a public place and not some "secret" one
I realize that a lot of folks on this forum may not quite understand the US process or be as tuned in to the details of what's happening, so I thought I'd share a few thoughts/observations from my end (from someone in the States who is very tuned in to the process): - Rick Santorum's campaign strategy from day one has been to focus on Iowa. He has no organization at all in any other State. He spent all of his campaign money touring every county and every city in Iowa meeting people face to face. After Gingrich got pummeled with ads exposing him for the corrupt and lying POS that he is, his turn in the spotlight as the "anti-Romney and not Ron Paul" candidate fell. Santorum was the only candidate left in the field to fill the void as Huntsman was not campaigning in Iowa (he basically boycotted Iowa and has been focusing on New Hampshire - the next State to vote in the process). Santorum will likely get some boost from big money GOP donors, but it isn't going to last. He's about to get crucified in the spotlight just like all the other "anti-Romney and not Ron Paul" flavors of the week did. Santorum's uber government imposed morality bent won't play as well in the rest of the nation (except South Carolina) as it did in Iowa either. - The vote totals that were reported from Iowa were conducted in the open with observers from all campaigns present. They are also essentially meaningless as far as the actual election process. US Presidents are elected by delegates at the GOP convention. The vote tallies that were reported out of Iowa are not binding on the delegate selection process. The Iowa delegate selection process is actually a pretty long and drawn out process that won't be decided for months and, in spite of the Associated Press reporting that they "calculated" (in quotes for a reason) that Paul will not get any, it's far more likely from what I'm hearing from people who were actually there that Paul will end up with a majority of Iowa's 28 delegates. - Don't remember if it's already been mentioned in this thread or not, but in the state of Virginia, only two candidates even qualified to be on the ballot - Romney and Paul. Paul will appear first on the ballot and it looks like it's going to be winner takes all for Virginia's 49 delegates. This could be a huge battleground for deciding the nomination as most other states will be dishing out delegates in a proportional system. - Of the remaining candidates in the field (now that Bachmann dropped out officially), I think only Perry had the money and organization to conduct a national campaign. Santorum and Huntsman are both trying to carry forward momentum from early success into a snowballing campaign, but their lack of organization in later states at this point of the game is going to hurt them. Perry appears to be considering dropping out and I think that he likely will. I think he lost the support of the big money people with his "oops" debate performance and exit from the spotlight. - This is going to be a long and drawn out battle and in the end, it's going to be a contest between Romney and Paul. If the delegate totals are close enough and an "anti-Romney and not Ron Paul" candidate remains, we might even see a brokered convention and that's where/when the real fireworks would start.
The government is corrupt enough as it is without online voting. That would be way to easy for them to defraud.
I was watching the voting and it all seemed like Ron Paul was going to take the lead at the 25% count stage then all of a sudden the other two start romping ahead of him. I found it all a bit suspect. They did not want RP either first or second. I think they will go to any lengths to suppress him as we have seen in the media. Where did Santorum come from? Even if he did put all his campaigning into Iowa I just dont see him suddenly getting that high a vote, nobody was expecting it and I cant see him doing that well again unless the voting is rigged. Romney will be the main rival for Ron Paul but maybe now people will be looking more closely at what Ron has to say as the media can't ignore him now. He made a good speech after Iowa and thats all he has to do - keep telling the truth!
