News from Iowa

Where is Jim Condit Jr when we need him?

Could booths be set up to notarize people voting for Ron if that want to on a piece of paper and save them to count later?
 
A few weeks ago, I asked for volunteers to help me contact GOP leaders in every Iowa County. Not hearing any resposne, I took it upon myself to send an e-mail to every GOP County leader in the Iowa 2nd Congressional District.

I would hope from this thread we might get volunteers to do the same for the other Iowa Congressional Districts. Respond to this post if you wish to help. I will show you the exact steps I followed. All you have to do is contact and keep in touch.

The e-mail I sent out was:

I am the Meetup Group leader for the Ron Paul for President Campaign in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District. I or another Representative hope to meet you soon but until then could you please provide me with the following information ASAP?
1. Where you County headquarters is located plus any other physical locations.
2. How I might go about placing Ron Paul literature, etc in this location(s) and make sure it is restocked when needed
3. When you next County Committee Meeting is and perhaps have 5-10 minutes to speak with them and answer questions about Ron Paul.
Thanks for your help,
 
A few weeks ago, I asked for volunteers to help me contact GOP leaders in every Iowa County. Not hearing any resposne, I took it upon myself to send an e-mail to every GOP County leader in the Iowa 2nd Congressional District.

I would hope from this thread we might get volunteers to do the same for the other Iowa Congressional Districts. Respond to this post if you wish to help. I will show you the exact steps I followed. All you have to do is contact and keep in touch.

The e-mail I sent out was:

I am the Meetup Group leader for the Ron Paul for President Campaign in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District. I or another Representative hope to meet you soon but until then could you please provide me with the following information ASAP?
1. Where you County headquarters is located plus any other physical locations.
2. How I might go about placing Ron Paul literature, etc in this location(s) and make sure it is restocked when needed
3. When you next County Committee Meeting is and perhaps have 5-10 minutes to speak with them and answer questions about Ron Paul.
Thanks for your help,

hi Dr. Just a word of warning - these threads that get marked as sticky tend to not get read as often. New replies don't stand out as being new and get ignored.
 
Is News from Iowa stickied? Even if it is, I would assume that supporters from Iowa would check this thread more than any other. Seems like the best place for it to me.
 
outstanding

Yes. Here's my plan:

1. Verify with the campaign that voting machines without voter verified printouts are indeed being used and gather all the details. These printouts must be at least monitored by representatives of every campaign at all times (and inspected before), but public monitoring (either directly or via video) would be preferable.
2. If so, we need to first pressure Iowa's GOP politely. I think we should leave this step up to the campaign and whoever they want to represent them. I'd recommend bringing in the black box voting people to help (http://www.bbvforums.org)
3. If this doesn't work (within a few days) then we need to contact all the other campaigns participating in Iowa and try to convert them to the cause. See if they have any suggestions or want to try themselves to get it changed. Again, I'd leave this step to the campaign or people it chooses to pursue this.
4. Then try to get it to the media. No holds barred. It should be all over the internet. People should be calling into radio stations, sending letters to the editors of all papers in Iowa and surrounding states. It should be mentioned briefly to the people we call in Iowa, in our Iowa-focused literature, added to the DVD, etc.
5. Get as many volunteers into Iowa as possible to volunteer the two weeks prior to the straw poll.
6. Set up a secondary voting booth that is run by a third party (ie, black box voting) and is publicly monitored and recorded. Have volunteers on hand to convince as many people as possible to vote there and keep the area secure. This will have to be organized well in advance so make sure we look into this ASAP.

As long as we can convince the vast majority to vote with our booth, they will not be able to do any massive doctoring of the tally. Further, we will only release our results after they release theirs, so they cannot doctor the tally to conform with what's *known* from ours. In the end, we will have proof and they will have none.







This is an EXCELLENT idea and plan. Don't let go of this. I only wish I were closer so that I could help implement it. I hope those in and near Iowa will jump on this big time.



6. Set up a secondary voting booth that is run by a third party (ie, black box voting) and is publicly monitored and recorded. Have volunteers on hand to convince as many people as possible to vote there and keep the area secure. This will have to be organized well in advance so make sure we look into this ASAP.

As long as we can convince the vast majority to vote with our booth, they will not be able to do any massive doctoring of the tally. Further, we will only release our results after they release theirs, so they cannot doctor the tally to conform with what's *known* from ours. In the end, we will have proof and they will have none.
Reply With Quote
:D
 
additional thought

Avalon...

If the third party monitoring the black box would have representatives from the media that would add to credibility and publicity.
 
If the third party monitoring the black box would have representatives from the media that would add to credibility and publicity.

Absolutely! Most importantly, you need to get a lot of Iowans behind it so
A) the GOP will be forced to allow such a thing to occur at the straw poll if they don't provide something reasonable.
B) the majority of people are willing to vote anonymously a second time to help certify the official vote.
C) the media have to cover it due to the public's expressed interest in it

The full plan takes a lot of time and effort to pull off, and can't be legitimately done by the Ron Paul campaign/supporters alone. The straw poll is one month away....can we hear from some Iowans on this? There's not a day to lose.
 
A few weeks ago, I asked for volunteers to help me contact GOP leaders in every Iowa County. Not hearing any resposne, I took it upon myself to send an e-mail to every GOP County leader in the Iowa 2nd Congressional District.

I would hope from this thread we might get volunteers to do the same for the other Iowa Congressional Districts. Respond to this post if you wish to help. I will show you the exact steps I followed. All you have to do is contact and keep in touch.

The e-mail I sent out was:

I am the Meetup Group leader for the Ron Paul for President Campaign in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District. I or another Representative hope to meet you soon but until then could you please provide me with the following information ASAP?
1. Where you County headquarters is located plus any other physical locations.
2. How I might go about placing Ron Paul literature, etc in this location(s) and make sure it is restocked when needed
3. When you next County Committee Meeting is and perhaps have 5-10 minutes to speak with them and answer questions about Ron Paul.
Thanks for your help,

The way you introduce yourself kind of makes you sound like you're with the campaign, which can be dangerous with regard to the FEC. Why not just say you're a supporter and want to visit their county's meeting? I'm sure you'd still be welcome. Also, the meetups aren't arranged by congressional district and you don't really represent the meetups in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Fairfield, etc.

That said, I think your idea is good. Just last night at the Des Moines meetup I volunteered to visit county central committee meetings near Des Moines.

Also note that most county GOP organizations in Iowa don't have a headquarters to speak of where people could pick up info. Most of them just meet at the courthouse or something like that.
 
Absolutely! Most importantly, you need to get a lot of Iowans behind it so
A) the GOP will be forced to allow such a thing to occur at the straw poll if they don't provide something reasonable.
B) the majority of people are willing to vote anonymously a second time to help certify the official vote.
C) the media have to cover it due to the public's expressed interest in it

The full plan takes a lot of time and effort to pull off, and can't be legitimately done by the Ron Paul campaign/supporters alone. The straw poll is one month away....can we hear from some Iowans on this? There's not a day to lose.

Honest opinion - I don't think there is enough skepticism here to convince people of a need for another voting system set up in parallel to what the Iowa GOP will be using. I'm sure the vast majority of Iowans would find this paranoid, would not vote in it, and would ridicule the RP campaign for it.

Maybe I'm not skeptical enough, and I could be proven wrong, but I'm not really concerned about the vote-counting on August 11. That said, I think it's a good idea to have skeptics who are knowledgeable about these matters represent the RP campaign in Ames as the voting is carried out and the tabulating is done.
 
The way you introduce yourself kind of makes you sound like you're with the campaign, which can be dangerous with regard to the FEC. Why not just say you're a supporter and want to visit their county's meeting? I'm sure you'd still be welcome. Also, the meetups aren't arranged by congressional district and you don't really represent the meetups in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Fairfield, etc.

That said, I think your idea is good. Just last night at the Des Moines meetup I volunteered to visit county central committee meetings near Des Moines.

Also note that most county GOP organizations in Iowa don't have a headquarters to speak of where people could pick up info. Most of them just meet at the courthouse or something like that.

Absolutely. One should not say they are with the campaign unless they have a pay stub to show for it. One should of course identify themselves as supporting Ron Paul.
 
Speaking of computer voting fraud did any of you see the last Mexican election? The leftwing Chavez type candidate was winning all voting by 70-30 and in the last 2 hours of the day the charts went parabolic and swung the other way for the US backed candidate to win by just a few % points.

It was the most blatant voter fraud I have ever seen. Absolutely corrupt.

I'm not going to argue that there is no corruption in Mexico, but the leftist candidate's support was concentrated in Mexico City where results were available first. The winning candidate's support was mostly in the more outlying PAN northern states where results would naturally come in later. EDIT: and it was a three way race that was never "70-30"
 
ummm. He stated clearly that he is the Meetup Group leader.

I don't see a problem with this whatsoever.

Yeah, that's fine. It's just that one doesn't want to invite FEC scrutiny unnecessarily--and we want to give the campaign plausible deniability if a volunteer screws up!
 
Meetups By Congressional District And Then By County?

The way you introduce yourself kind of makes you sound like you're with the campaign, which can be dangerous with regard to the FEC. Why not just say you're a supporter and want to visit their county's meeting? I'm sure you'd still be welcome. Also, the meetups aren't arranged by congressional district and you don't really represent the meetups in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Fairfield, etc.

That said, I think your idea is good. Just last night at the Des Moines meetup I volunteered to visit county central committee meetings near Des Moines.

Also note that most county GOP organizations in Iowa don't have a headquarters to speak of where people could pick up info. Most of them just meet at the courthouse or something like that.
Most do NOT but say they will as we get nearer the caucus date and definately will for the November elections.


Dave, thanks for the warning and advice. I don't want to get the Ron Paul Campaign or myself in trouble with the FEC. As another person here said, I did , however, CLEARLY say IN WRITING (I am keeping all e-mails) that I was a Meetup Team Leader. I did NOT say that I was with the official Paul Campaign?

Also, I was using the 2nd Congressional District ONLY as a "test market." The results? Got to remebr I am an OLD retired Business Professor.:)

Quite positive. Every County Chair responded within 24 hours and was glad to have a Ron Paul visitor at their Committee meetings. Everyone was very gracious and helpful. And they NOW have a contact person to send folks who might be interested in supporting Ron Paul. I am NOT a total stranger so I can "drop in" via e-mail, etc. once in a while. :D

My idea is to trun over contact to a Meetup Group for their County. I am just trying to "break the turf up" so we can more easily plant the seeds and reap the harvest. ;)

I was NOT trying to impinge on anyone elses "turf." I don't have the time even IF I wanted to. The 2nd District is nearest where I live in Nauvoo, IL and is mostly very rural. All my Meetup Members live so far in the 2nd District.

I HOPE A PERSON ON THIS THREADWILL DO THE SAME AS I HAVE IN EVERY OTHER CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT. PLEASE REMEBER, WE ARE NOT JUST BUILDING FOR THE AMES STRAW POLL BUT FOR A LONGER TERM RELATIONSHIP WITH GOP COUNTY LEADERS WHEN RON PAUL IS THE GOP NOMINEE
 
Ames Straw Poll Q&A

This is from Roger, the Des Moines meetup person in charge of arrangements for the Ames Straw Poll:


Iowa Straw Poll 2007 Questions and Answers

for Ron Paul supporters





Q. When does the voting start?
A. Saturday, August 11th from 10am to 6pm.

Q. Is there any pre decorations being done that I can get involved in?
A. On Friday, August 10th from 8am to 12noon. Campaigns will be allowed to decorate the inside of Hilton Coliseum. Everyone will enter from south upper-level entrance. These decorations are for the 15 minute speeches that each candidate gives during the day. The Speech order list is available on your meet up group’s sites in the file area. The file name is “Straw Poll Speech List”. The times of these speeches are yet to be determined.

Q. If I would drive myself, is there a particular place to park?
A. Parking will be available South of Hilton Coliseum. There are maps available on your meet up group’s sites in the file area. These maps also show the Ron Paul tent area were we will be having our festivities through out the day. The file names are “Straw-poll-maps-list” & “2007 straw poll maps and brochure”.

Q. How would one arrange for a bus ride if I live inside Iowa?
A. At this time we are working on our transportation strategy. Contact your meet up group leader of people you know needing rides. He will contact our person in charge of transportation.

Q. Are there tickets available for the event paid for by the Ron Paul campaign?
A. No tickets will be provided by the Ron Paul Campaign. Ron Paul refused any thought of buying votes. But, the Iowa Ron Paul Grass root initiative is looking at other avenues to supply tickets. Also there will be multiple political interest groups at the straw poll with tents that will have tickets available, such as the Fairtax...etc..

Q. What is the cost of the tickets?
A. $35.00

Q. Is it necessary to be a registered Republican?
A. No, anyone 18 or older Iowa resident can vote.

Q. Will an Iowa ID and/or voter's registration be required?
A. Only participants who present photo ID of the following type will be allowed to vote: Valid Iowa Driver’s License, Military ID or Student ID from and Iowa College/University.

Q. Can someone under 18 vote in the poll, if they will be 18 by the day of the 2008 general election?
A. Participants have to be 18 on or before Nov. 4th 2008.

Q. If I am not from Iowa can I still participate?
A. Yes, we will need volunteers to help with various duties throughout the day of the event, along with Friday’s decorating and Sunday’s clean up as well.

Q. What do I need to bring?
A. Camera, Video Camera and a friend....

Q. Will Ron Paul be there in person?
A. I am told that Dr. Paul will be at the event the whole day. Schedule is pending on the exact time of his 15 minute speech allowed to each candidate inside Hilton Coliseum
 
Maybe it's just me, but why is the campaign being so stubborn about not getting tickets for the Straw Poll? It kind of irks me. Yes, principles are important but when people see that we egot .05% of the vote, we'll be done. The other candidates are literally bussing people in from all over the state and giving them free tickets

Iowa Primary: January 14, 2008

Do you realize how soon that is?
 
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Maybe it's just me, but why is the campaign being so stubborn about not getting tickets for the Straw Poll? It kind of irks me. Yes, principles are important but when people see that we egot .05% of the vote, we'll be done. The other candidates are literally bussing people in from all over the state and giving them free tickets

Iowa Primary: January 14, 2008

Do you realize how soon that is?

Deadhead, please keep prospective. The strawvote is purely psycholigcal, feel good. Bussing people in is NOT going to help when the caucus comes around. A strong in-place Iowa organization like HOPEFULLY we're building is KEY.

IMO, the Texas plan for each of us calling Iowa voters to get 10,000 to come is a much better short and longer term strategy. THE PROBLEM IS THERE APPEARS TO ME TO BE A LOT OF TALKERS BUT MUCH FEWER DOERS.
:confused:
 
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