Update October 8th: Appeals Court ruling expected soon, here.
Jack Cashill has this stunning story on American Thinker today.
Through a combination of massive, Somali-driven voter fraud, stunning Election Board incompetence, and the willful blindness of the Kansas City Star, machine Democrat J.J. Rizzo managed to beat conservative Democrat Will Royster by one vote in a Missouri State House primary on August 3.
There is no Republican running in this heavily Democratic, multi-ethnic Kansas City district. The Democratic nominee will face only a seriously outgunned Libertarian in the November election, and truth be told, Royster may be to the right of the Libertarian.
What the Democratic machine and the Star, which endorsed Rizzo, did not count on was for the intrepid Royster to challenge the election in court. In so doing, he has provided a sneak preview on how a desperate Democratic Party will attempt to neutralize the will of the people this November, and not just in Kansas City.
The account of the court proceedings is difficult to summarize but is well worth reading if you like Monty Python or Alice in Wonderland. Some highlights:
In this primary election in which only 1,300 people voted, as many as 100 Somalis showed up to vote. Most did not speak English but claimed to be citizens. They were “helped” by fellow Somalis who directed them to vote for Rizzo. Rizzo won by one vote.
First to testify was Lindy Hobkins, a Republican supervisory election judge. As she related, a group of Somalis came into her Kansas City election site led by one Somali man.
“They were unable to communicate on the most basic levels,” said Hobkins of the Somalis. To help his voters along, the leader “left the premises, went outside to where the electioneers are out at the appropriate space allotted for them, and he brought in a sign for Mr. Rizzo.” Hobkins continued: he “held it up and pointed at it and said this one, this one, this one.”
In a disturbing little twist, David Raymond, the attorney for the Kansas City Election Board, grilled Hobkins as though she were a hostile witness. After she acknowledged that the Somalis were all somehow registered to vote, Raymond asked snidely, “Do you believe these voters should be disenfranchised?”
Thanks to the exposure of ACORN by the conservative media, it is now widely known that many people who are registered are not eligible. But if that thought ever entered the judge’s mind he kept it closely sequestered there. People who cannot speak English at even the most basic level are not eligible to become citizens. Therefore a law was broken somewhere along the line. If these Somalis were citizens, someone broke the law by giving them citizenship. If they were not citizens but were registered to vote, then their registration was fraudulent. But the judge had no interest in looking into any of this.
“How could they be registered to vote,” [Lindy Hobkins] asked Raymond, “if they did not know how to speak English on any level?” Other than Hobkins, Royster, and Royster’s attorney, no one else involved — the Democratic Party, the Star, the Election Board, the trial judge — expressed the slightest interest in the answer to this question.
And despite a lot more damning testimony, the judge ruled against Royster. Royster is appealing. Cashill concludes:
The Kansas City Star has given this challenge only the slightest coverage. And in no article in a print edition has the word “Somali” appeared in relationship to the controversy.
In November, rest assured, the Somali vote and that of others of dubious citizenship will be turned against Republicans. There is a way for readers to fight this. Call your local Election Board today. Sign up to be a judge or a poll watcher. Ask for an inner-city precinct. And make sure you know the law better than your Democratic counterpart does. It won’t be hard