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Gun
Plain Township
by Pat Foster
Prior to the 2008 Primary Election in Gun Plain township, the
people there had an issue with the current township clerk. This issue
involved money that had been paid to the clerk. Some believed she had a
right to take it, and others felt she did not. I became involved in this
issue after the Primary election, because many of these people who felt
that the clerk had taken this money incorrectly had placed Ms. Jennifer
Button to run against her in the Primary election. She had lost this
election, and these people had felt that the election had been stolen
from her. During my campaign against Ms. Watts, the Allegan County
clerk, I had the opportunity to speak to many residents in the Plainwell
area. Many of them had expressed this fear to me that their votes were
not being counted correctly.
During my campaign for county clerk, I was contacted by Tim Knoblock,
who was definitely not a Democrat, for a large number of yard signs. I
went over to his house with the signs, and we had talked about Ms.
Button running against the township clerk in the Primary, and they felt
that this election had been manipulated. The Knoblocks' son according to
him had been
almost killed by the wrestling coach at Plainwell high school by forcing
him to work out in a plastic sweat suit that is barred not only by the
school systems, but also by the International Olympic Committee. The boy
had collapsed while working out and was taken to the hospital. The
Plainwell school administration had fired this coach. There was a lot of
news about this firing and people had differing opinions on whether or
not he and the other coaches should have been fired.
The main coach that had been fired is also married to the Gun Plain
township clerk, and they put together a group of three men to run for
positions on the Plainwell HS Board in the May 5th election. Ms. Button
had contacted me to be there during this election, and I went over with
my friend Ira to talk to her. We agreed that we would do it.
The questions in our mind was how many possible ways could the election
be compromised. We ruled out the Diebold machines from being
compromised, because the state and federal authorities would not
compromise their ace in the hole on a school board election. That left
the two oldest forms of election theft open. First is "stuffing the
ballot box", which is done by the election workers during slow periods
in the morning and afternoon. They fill out an election application is
someones name that they know will not show up to vote, and vote their
ballot. This method takes a lot of collusion, because every worker has
to be in on the cheat. The second, and most likely method of cheating is
to manipulate the absentee ballots. Here, you only need a few people in
the backroom that are in collusion with each other. As they open the
ballots, they look at how they are voted and place a mark on the ones
they do not want counted, and the machine disallows it.
On the day of the election, Ira and I arrived before the poles had
opened to make sure that we were starting with -0- totals on the
tabulator. That confirmed, I had a audio recorder on my clip board. One
of the elections workers noticed it and asked me to remove it from the
polls. I did so, and requested that they sign the rule established by
the Secretary of State for doing so. They refused. This was very
important to us, because the Michigan Election Reform Alliance (MERA)
was preparing to get a legal opinion from the Attorney General on a rule
created by the Secretary of State that did not undergo the
Administrative Rules Act by opening it to public comment. Shortly
thereafter, Joyce Watts arrived at the pole, saw Ira and I sitting
there, so she went a got her camera and took pictures of us. We both
agreed that she had every right to do just that, so why are the citizens
prevented from doing what those in power can do with impunity?
The time came for the absentee ballots to be counted. No one informed me
even though I requested to be there. I went into a back room, and sure
enough, there was Joyce Watts, the township clerk, and two other women
beginning to open the envelopes. Joyce told me that could take a seat
next to one of the women, which I did. Joyce gave the procedures, and
they followed them. When it was time to transcribe the ballots from
original to duplicate, I got between both women doing it, so that I
could observe what one called out was correct, and what the other
entered was correct. In the past, Joyce would have prevented me from
doing this, but Ira had called the state police before we went there.
While the Bureau of Elections keeps them from inforcing election law,
the officer told us that if we called in a complaint, they would send
over a squad car and take a report. We had her between a rock and a hard
place.
The three men running for the board to rehire the coaches all lost the
election. Jennifer Button said the most common quote she heard that
night was: "this is the first honest election we have had in Gun Plain
township for years, and we all owe it to Pat and Ira."
7-1-10 The
information in the above article relating to the coach being responsible
for the injuries of a young man on his wrestling team from wearing a
plastic sweat suit was taken from the young boy himself, a video of his
collapsing taken by a school camera, and the fact that three coaches
were fired for the incident by the school district. I now understand
that one of the coaches is very upset by this article and has a very
different view of exactly what happened. I certainly believe there are
several views to every incident, and will be happy to publish his views
next to this article. Please sir, do tell us your side of the story. I
know my readers would like to hear it directly from you. You can write
an article, make an audio, or a video. I will provide a platform for
your side of the truth. |
Letter to the Bureau of Elections
PF
Senate testimony
Loose Change |