Cheap Talk About “Democracy” Will Not Stop the Conflict: A Foolproof Voting Process Will

By Nick Stamatakis

NOTE: PHOTOS BEFORE THE BREACH INTO THE CAPITOL AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST 

I was born and raised in Greece at a time of extreme political turmoil, including a revolt against a military dictatorship the end of which (in 1974) was brought by a national tragedy, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.  This period of turmoil was followed by about 20 years of extreme internal division: I will never forget the separate, “blue” and “green” coffee shops for the followers of the two major political parties.  Because of my experience, as our regular readers know, I have been warning about the possibility of a “civil war” for quite a while (here is a very important report on Ray Dalio’s analysis on the subject which we posted on December 3).

And so when I saw the photos from the capital this afternoon I was not at all surprised.  And I think I know exactly the reason – because I have lived it.  In the 1950s and 1960s Greece, the most important obstacle to the functioning of democracy was the flawed voting system.  I still remember (born in 1961) endless political discussions about “Βία και νοθεία” (“Violence and Voter Fraud”), about “the dead and the trees who had voted” in the elections… All Greeks who were born around that time know and remember these exact words: “Violence and Voter Fraud”… It took several election cycles after 1974 for a foolproof voting system to be established: I had the chance as a young law student to witness this process as an “assistant supervisor” in at least two of these elections between (1979 and 1984 – one general and one local).  And it took at least 20-25 years after 1974 for the “green” and “blue” coffee shops to fade out and the internal political strife to subside…

The voting system in Greece – and throughout Europe – is foolproof: 1) The vote happens during one day, a Sunday, when most people do not work and have ample chance to go vote. Not for weeks in advance and not with mailing ballots (the last are allowed in very limited circumstances).  2) A lawyer appointed by the Dept of the Interior is in charge in every polling place and has paid assistants (I was one of them).  3) An army unit and/or police are guarding every polling station.  4) Representatives of all political parties were present at all times. 5) The counting is done in a few hours after the polls close.  6) Above all everybody has a voter ID. I have a special surprise for our readers today: Below you can see my Greek voter ID – I got it at age 20… (Sadly time goes by very fast and leaves its marks on all of us…)

Since the establishment of this system Greece has had elections countless times and very rarely would we hear the slightest complaints about the validity of the process. Throughout Europe there is no such a thing as voting for months, millions of mailing ballots, counting the votes for days after the elections, and other atrocious undemocratic practices as we have been witnessing in today’s – supposedly “democratic” – America…  Mailing ballots are very limited in Europe, justified only by extreme circumstances… Some countries (Lithuania) have advanced electronic voting systems but most EU countries do not trust them…

If the American people were convinced about the validity of the vote they would accept it.  In 2008 we all knew that Obama was a socialist and accepted him as president because he was elected “fair and square”.  Not a “pip” was heard.  But this was not the case in 2016: the party who lost, the Democrats, did not complain at all about the voting process per se but they spent the whole next four years undermining unjustifiably a duly-elected President with false accusations of foreign interference in the elections.  No evidence was ever presented despite 4 years and $50 million spent in the investigation.

The real reason the Democrats did not raise validity issues on the election process of 2016 – but only spoke of non-existing foreign interference – was lying elsewhere: it had to do with their own longtime efforts to corrupt the voting system.  Who does not know about the “motor-voter” laws in CA and many other states (established decades ago) that allow illegal immigrants to register to vote at the same time as they get a driver’s license? How about the obstinate objections to a national “voter ID” and the systematic, once a year, clearing of the voter rolls of dead people and out-of-state voters? I could go on and on about the Democrats’ efforts to corrupt the voting process…  This culminated in this year’s ridiculous mailing ballots, the “malfunctioning” dominion machines, and the rest…

When I heard this afternoon supposedly serious political leaders (from both sides) invoke respect to our “democratic” process I could not but question their sincerity: 1) Do you expect people to keep watching the violation of the Constitution – by all these alterations of the pre-existing voting process – and you dare talk about “democracy”?  2) You use covid-19 as an excuse for the violation of the constitution (people can go shopping but they cannot go vote in person?) and you talk about “democracy”? Do you want people to respect a “democracy” without a secure voting process?  Do you expect people to respect our “democracy” when even last night they saw a repeat of the “mailing ballot” joke of a voting process in Georgia?

This, of course, does not justify the violence we saw today and those who violated the law should face the consequences. But we had seen very real violence for months when Antifa and BLM burned down many cities while the ridiculous mainstream media were calling it “peaceful protests”… None of the so-called “leaders” of the democrats decried their violence… And very few, if any of the perpetrators, were punished… When President Trump asked for the intervention of the National Guard, “the generals” denied getting involved… Today Nancy Pelosi did the same thing and from what I heard “the generals” were much more eager to assist…  This country’s leaders cannot expect the people not to be frustrated when they are watching these double standards…

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FOR A MEASURE OF COMPARISON AND THE APPLICATION OF DOUBLE STANDARDS …. LISTEN TO CHRIS CUOMO

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All have a share of responsibility – including President Trump who could have refused to participate in the Nov. 3 elections until the system was secure and constitutional. If the other side used the covid -19 emergency as a pretext to violate the constitution he could double down and say just this: If the emergency is so big then let’s postpone the elections as we did during the Second World War…

I will close these thoughts in the same way as a few days ago when I reported a Harvard study that showed the US ranking 57th on electoral integrity worldwide… Here is what I said then appealing to our politicians and especially to democrats: If you are true believers in democracy, then take the 2005 results of the Federal Election Commission and apply them into legislation immediately. These results include the now famous 2001 report by former President Carter and Secretary Baker to President G.W.Bush on how to fix the US election system after the 2000 debacle in Florida. You can see these results by linking here.

Please call your local politicians and make the same appeal.  I truly have no patience for one more empty “appeal to our democratic process” from any phony politicians WHO FOR DECADES HAVE REFUSED TO ESTABLISH A TRANSPARENT AND SECURE VOTING PROCESS…

January 6, 2021, n.stamatakis@aol.com   www.helleniscope.com

BELOW PHOTOS FROM THE EVENTS AT THE CAPITOL HILL