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This story was originally published July 28, 2022 by CalMatters.

Rich Kinney readily concedes: Making it onto California's November election ballot is a miracle.

The 66-year-old associate pastor and former mayor of San Pablo in the Bay Area is running to unseat Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks out of staunch opposition to her support for abortion rights.

What did it take for him to make the Nov. 8 ballot? Only about 60 signatures to qualify as a Republican write-in candidate for the June 7 primary, and a mere 37 votes to finish in the top two.

Wicks won 85,180.

Kinney, the only other official candidate in the Assembly District 14 primary, said the write-in process allows newcomers a chance to move forward without the challenges of fundraising against an incumbent.

"Going around my district and trying to get funding was ridiculous. No one wants to give funding to a campaign that's not going to get out the gate," he told CalMatters.

It lets people onto the playing field, but not onto one of the teams.

Thad Kousser, Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego

While some candidates might spend millions of dollars or months campaigning, California's top-two primary system means that in races with only one other candidate, it's possible for a write-in candidate to sneak into second place with very little support.

For the June 7 primary, state Assembly and state Senate candidates needed as few as 40 people to sign nomination papers to qualify as write-in candidates. And no matter how few votes they won, as long as they finished in second, they advanced to the November election.

This year, Kinney wasn't the only one to win fewer than 50 votes and make it onto the ballot. Thomas Edward Nichols, a Libertarian running against Republican incumbent Jim Patterson of Fresno in Assembly District 8, made it with just 15 votes. Mindy Pechenuk, a Republican in Assembly District 18, advanced to a matchup with Oakland Democrat Mia Bonta with just 31.

In total, nine write-in candidates moved on to the general election in state Assembly races, and two for state Senate seats.

But while getting onto the ballot is one feat, winning the race is another. It's a reality that Kinney acknowledges.

"I really understand that it's next to impossible to be able to unseat a sitting Democrat in the Legislature," said Kinney, who ran unsuccessfully for state Assembly in 2014 and for state Senate in 2016. "But we've got to put up a good fight anyway. It's important that voters who care about the decency of life have an opportunity to rally together and say so."

Christian Grose, academic director of the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy, said while it's a quirk of the election system that write-in candidates can make it to the ballot with so little support, it's not necessarily a problem caused by the top-two primary system or by the write-in process.

"It's the lack of serious competition from formal Republican and Libertarian candidates," he said. "Basically, it's the lack of organized challengers that's the problem."

Because of the write-ins, only two candidates for 100 legislative seats have a free pass on the Nov. 8 ballot: Republican Assemblymember Vince Fong of Bakersfield and Democratic Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer of Los Angeles. (Democrat Giselle Hale, mayor of Redwood City, withdrew last week for the open Assembly District 21 seat in Silicon Valley, but her name will still appear on the ballot with Diane Papan, a San Mateo City Council member and now the only active candidate.)

The write-in process was established in California in 1911 as part of the Progressive Era political reforms, according to Alex Vassar, communications manager at the California State Library.

Prior to that, political parties would hand out "tickets" to voters essentially filled-out ballots.

"One of the major goals was to empower individual voters and weaken the political machines,' and give voters the ability to make separate decisions in each election contest. California adopted what was called 'the Australian ballot,' which was essentially the modern secret ballot that we know and love today," Vassar said.

Only a handful of write-in candidates have won either legislative or congressional seats in the last century. Vassar said it was "beyond rare" in 1930, 1936, 1944, 1958 and 1982.

When U.S. Rep. C. F. Curry died in office in October 1930, his son, C. F. Curry Jr., won the seat the next month as a write-in, defeating a Republican, a Democrat, and two independents. When Assemblymember Lee Bashore died in September 1944, he had already won both the Republican and Democratic nominations. Three write-in candidates ran, and Ernest R. Geddes was elected with 45.9% of the vote, according to Vassar.

"It lets people onto the playing field, but not onto one of the teams," said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. "It allows candidates entry, but then places a mountain to climb still for write-in candidates."

Statistically the political winds are not in the favor of a challenger like me.

Write-in candidate Leon Sit, a 19-year-old engineering student at UCLA

Even if the write-in candidates are political unknowns, it creates more competition for the general election, Grose said.

"It's probably a nuisance for these incumbents who will probably win," he said. "They're going to do a little more work, and that's not so bad."

In an April meeting of the Santa Monica Democratic Club, state Sen. Ben Allen acknowledged that to keep his seat, he had to beat a write-in candidate Kristina Irwin.

"She seems like a very nice person who watches way too much Fox News, and she's just kind of, like, adopted all the crazy Republican conspiracy theories," Allen said at the event, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press. He added that being pushed to campaign more aggressively would be a good thing.

Irwin won 6,260 votes in the primary far more than the 213 earned by another write-in candidate in that race, but 159,000 votes fewer than Allen.

In Orange County, write-in candidate Leon Sit, a 19-year-old engineering student at UCLA, advanced to the general election with 551 votes from Orange and San Bernardino counties.

That result "reinforces that the voice of each and every voter matters, that every vote counts," Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said in an email. From an election operations standpoint, Page said the write-in process does not create any additional work or challenges.

Sit said he used social media to gather support, and was also interviewed by local reporters, which increased his name recognition.

Still, he said, "statistically the political winds are not in the favor of a challenger like me." And if he somehow beats Republican Phillip Chen, he might have to cut back on his course load or even take a break from school.

"I didn't come into this to be a legislator," Sit said. "I did it to give the district a choice between two candidates, even if one of those candidates was a 19-year-old college student."

Nichols, who is up against Patterson, won a spot on the November ballot with even fewer votes, just 15. Like Sit, he knows unseating the incumbent is a long shot.

Patterson has been in the Legislature since 2012, The district, which encompasses the Central Valley and parts of the Sierra Nevada, is largely Republican.

Still, Nichols said he was motivated to run to get the Libertarian Party's message before voters and to raise the issues he sees in his local community, especially the increased cost of living due to fire threats specifically, homeowner and property insurance.

Nichols says he's glad the write-in process exists and that it could give voters a way to think "outside of the duopoly that dominates our political culture."

"I've got to say, I really appreciate the fact that an engineer up here in the foothills could wind up on the ballot going after an incumbent," he said. "I'm satisfied with the democratic process in that respect."

Continued here:
Is It Too Easy For Write-In Candidates in California Elections? - KCET

Florida's primaries could have huge implications for national politics

If she wins the primary, Rep. Val Demings is poised to have a tight race against Senator Marco Rubio in a race that could have national implications.

Anthony Jackson and Claire Hardwick, USA TODAY

Michael Waltz, the first Green Beret in Congress, won the Republican primary to keep his seat, while another combat veteran took Volusia County's other U.S. House of Representatives GOP primary on Tuesday.

Cory Mills, a veteran of Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo who started a company that manufactures riot-control munitions for law enforcement, won his bid over seven competitors for a new seat covering southern Volusia and Seminole counties. In the general election, he'll face Democrat Karen Green, who won her own primary over three challengers.

Waltz and Mills stood arm in arm at a victory celebration at the Hard Rock Hotel in Daytona Beach on Tuesday night.

LIVE ELECTION RESULTS: See latest results for local and statewide races

Breaking Through: 8 Republicans clamor for 7th Congressional District voters' attention in primary election

Legal theats, call for resignations: Volusia Republican primary endorsements rankle some

Jan. 6 commission reaction: In New Smyrna Beach, GOP backers and candidates hold on to Trump's election-fraud claims

"I've said time and time again, I need reinforcements in Washington. We gotta fire Nancy Pelosi and the more veterans the better," Waltz said in a message posted on Twitter Tuesday night. "We're willing to die for that flag and we're willing to take the tough votes and fight for you."

Mills wasn't the only veteran among the eight Republicans seeking the nod, but he turned out to be the best equipped to survive a barrage of attacks from his chief rival in the race, state Rep. Anthony Sabatini, who finished second.

Just how nasty did it get? Sabatini called Mills "sub-human trash," while Mills supporters reported receiving text messages urging them to vote for Sabatini whileattackingMills' wife, Rana al-Saadi, a Catholic woman from Iraq, as "anti-Christian."

Mills, in the Twitter video, said: "I'm honored to be able to be in the fight. … We're going to secure our borders. We're gonna take America back. We're going to rid the communism and socialism from our schools and from our military."

He also vowed to "get rid of Fauci," i.e. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has announced his retirement in December.

Mills won with 38% of the vote; Sabatini got just shy of 24%, while Navy SEAL veteran Brady Dukewho had raised the most money of the GOP candidates got just over 15%.

Millsserved in the U.S. Army in the 82nd Airborne Division and as a member of Joint Special Operations Command Combined Joint Task Force 20 in Iraq, where he served for seven years.In 2006, while serving in Iraq, he was twice injured by explosive devices. He was later awarded a Bronze Star.

One major campaign battle that helped Mills was landing the Volusia County Republican Executive Committee's endorsement in a vote in early July.

Mills recently moved to New Smyrna Beach after running his defense-law enforcement firm from Virginia.

On the Democratic side, Green will attempt to be the first Jamaican immigrant to win election to Congress. She hopes to fill the void being left by Democrat Stephanie Murphy, who's retiring from the House after three terms. The newly redistricted 7th is considered by politicos to be a safe Republican seat.

Green is an Apopka political consultant and longtime member of the Florida Democratic Party who serves as a minister in a non-denominational church.

Green won with 45%, easily topping Al Krulick, Tatiana Fernandez and Allek Pastrana.

Meanwhile,Waltz easily won the Republican nomination for his third term in Congress, defeating the Florida Republican Assembly-endorsed Charles Davis. Waltz, a regular commentator on military and foreign affairs on Fox News,got 78% of the vote.

Libertarian Joe Hannoush will challenge Waltzon Nov. 8.

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2 Army veterans win Republican nominations for Congress, 6th and 7th - Daytona Beach News-Journal

Republicans, can you stop screaming like hyenas at every little indignity suffered by our former president? Donald Trump wouldnt lift a finger to help you.

Yes, it was asinine for the FBI to stage a raid on Mar-a-Lago when we all know the only documents Trump wanted were his letters and photos with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (North Korea has nukes. See? Nuclear documents.) Trump needs those for his scrapbook, to accompany the photos of him with Kim Kardashian, Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Hannity.

Still, the raid isnt going to affect your life. It barely affected Trumps. He was golfing in New Jersey at the time.

You want to be mad at the FBI? This is why you should be angry. Rather than fight crime, the agency has turned itself into the wingman for Defund the Police. That could get you and your family killed.

Consider how they treated the cops in Louisville, Kentucky, who risked their lives trying to serve a search warrant on a major fentanyl dealers moll, Breonna Taylor, on March 13, 2020. The true story was discussed in last weeks column, as well as my Dec. 16, 2020, column.

Heres the rest of the story, as told by Sgt. John Mattingly in his book, 12 Seconds in the Dark.

In the spring of 2020, as the defenseless officers were being smeared by Oprah, LeBron James, Cardi B., Beyonce, Common, Kim Kardashian, Alicia Keys, Demi Lovato, Ellen DeGeneres, Amy Schumer, Ice Cube, Diddy, Kamala Harris, the entire MSNBC on-air talent, and on and on a confidential informant revealed that a hit had been put on the officers by two black motorcycle clubs, No Haterz and STR8 RYDERZ.

And heres something random: Breonnas mother was dating the president of one of the clubs.

A few weeks later, the ATF received information that the clubs Chicago chapter would be driving to Louisville that weekend to kill the officers. The targeted cops were given security and a description of the cars and motorcycles coming for them.

What happened next would force the officers to flee and live in hiding for the rest of their lives, thanks to the inaction of the FBI.

Heres how Sgt. Mattingly describes it: On May 31, 2020, I was told the FBI corroborated two separate threats from different sources. We received a call at 10 p.m. asking us to pack our bags and leave our house. We had to sell our house that we lived in for six weeks and have been in hiding ever since.

It seems a $50,000 bounty had been put on the heads of the officers. Breonnas birthday would have been that Friday. As part of the balloon release celebrating the occasion, the organizers wanted to have something to celebrate. To wit: Dead cops.

At least the FBI had the officers backs! No, Im sorry, the FBI Trumps FBI sided with the guys whod put a bounty on the cops heads. The agency dropped the case after a remarkably short 2 1/2 weeks, announcing implausibly that the informant was unreliable.

Well, hed proven reliable in the past. The informant was, even then, being used in another active case. And of course, no one at FBI headquarters had bothered talking to him. But so desperate was the FBI to close the case that it was willing to blow up one of its own informants: Once ruled unreliable, a source can never be used in another federal case.

Mattingly says the FBI refused to investigate credible threats on the officers lives because of the optics of going after a mother in a nationally sensitive case. Shouldnt it be the reverse: The FBI must investigate because Breonnas mother was affiliated with a club planning to murder the cops whom she blamed for her daughters death? (In fact, Breonna died because her good pal Kenneth Walker shot at the police. Ironically, a no-knock warrant the officers knocked and yelled, POLICE! would have saved her life.)

Local FBI agents in Louisville were enraged. Asked what the targeted cops were supposed to do, the FBI bosses said: Tell them to relocate. Two weeks later, Mattingly had to watch as the FBI sent 15 agents to investigate a racist rope in Bubba Wallaces stall at NASCAR.

Right-wingers, save your breath defending the most disloyal man alive. Do something useful and get a job at the FBI. Just be sure to put BLM on your resume! The next Republican president (Ron DeSantis) is going to need a lot of help.

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Ann Coulter: The FBI wing of BLM | Opinion | marshallnewsmessenger.com - Marshall News Messenger

"2000 Mules is Dinesh DSouzas application for a job in the next Trump administration, or at least for a talking head spot on Russia Today. It takes the same debunked claims about the 2020 election and adds a few more hunks of bigotry and bad production values in an effort to keep fleecing the MAGAt sheep.

The specific evidence he uses cell phone location data is discussed and dismissedby Reuters hereandnoted Leftist Ann Coulter here.They cover the main problems with DSouzas claims thoroughly. I will refer to the Reuters piece several times throughout my discussion here. DSouza uses three main techniques to create his illusion of nefariousness: imagery, labelling, and concealment of facts that change the interpretation of events. I will discuss each in turn.

IMAGERY

DSouza copies the aesthetics of anAll The Presidents Men type heroic-journalists-exposing-massive-corruption thriller. He suggests, without ever providing anything that anyone else could corroborate, that the 2020 election was stole.The movie starts with a grainy image of Joe Biden and a video clip of someone in a grey hoodie putting something in a drop box, but with no identification or explanation, just a clip of someone dressed in the standard Scare The Wingnuts costume in bad light. He returns to the spy movie imagery again and again in the film, trying to suggest by image that something nefarious happened without actually saying words that include provable statements.

The scene cuts to DSouza stalking through Washington DC asking whether the election really was that secure. Then we get clips of wing nuts suggesting that the election was fraudulent. Included in this was a clip from local Austin stations KXAN asserting that the Travis County clerk locked Republican poll watchers out. This assertion came fromfailed GOP candidate Jennifer Fleck,but the film doesnt provide that information. No charges ever resulted from Flecks claims. Next, there is a short clip from an Atlanta station saying that a software glitch delayed counting, Rand Paul saying there was election fraud, and a short clip of security camera recordings which a Gateway Pundit announcer claims to be someone dropping off ballots somewhere at 3 a.m. Nothing in any of these clips is ever discussed again in the movie.

DSouza then shows a clip fromProject Veritaswhich the voiceover claims to be of a man selling a voter registration from. It is not possible to identify anyone in the video. PV adds helpful labels to each of the participants: VOTER and BALLOT HARVESTER, and adds a big red arrow pointing to POCKET MONEY supposedly changing hands for the registration form. Notably PV doesnt stated that the BALLOT HARVESTER is paying the VOTER for a vote, only a registration form. This is, again, imagery from thrillers designed to suggest something bad happened but without needing to provide demonstrable corroboration.

DSouza convenes a meeting of his fellow Salem Now pundits, including Sebastian Gorka, Dennis Prager, Larry Elder, and Charlie Kirk. They chat and pretend to discuss whether there is evidence of election fraud. DSouza films this on a set designed to look like an Ivy League library lots of bookshelves, leather wing chairs, nice panelling and everyone pretends the discussion isnt scripted. Elder says Democrats would have done anything to beat Trump, and goes to the bottomless well of wingnut obsessions by quoting Jane Fonda. They conclude, unsurprisingly, that the election was fraudulent.

DSouzas next section really leans into the Fake Woodward and Bernstein elements. He and a woman are on a set that looks like a kitchen in an ordinary house. DSouza gets a phone call from Catherine Engelbrecht ofTrue the Vote, in which Engelbrecht says she has lots of useful evidence. The scene cuts to a parking lot in the back of a strip center, showing a sedan drive up toward two people next to a dumpster. This doesnt last but a second or two, because showing the scene from outside the vehicle reminds viewers that this is a movie, with camera operators, and not a couple of brave journalists meeting their secret source.

Next we go inside to an overhead shot of a set that looks like a basement. Theres a table in the middle of a big room, a barely-visible map of the southwest corner of the US, some blue-painted boxes that look a little like ballot boxes, and a desk partiallyconcealed by a bank of lockers. Engelbrecht and her partner, Gregg Phillips, sit with DSouza and the other woman at a table. Engelbrecht claims to be non-partisan and discussesthis election.Phillips then describes what he claims is a pattern to election fraud: non-profits hire people to collect ballots and others to deposit the ballots. Engelbrecht interjects that it is illegal to get paid for your ballot. They then claim to have evidence of fraud in the form of cell phone data.

She is correct. It is illegal to pay someone to vote.

LABELLING

DSouza and company create pejorative labels for the various participants in their asserted scheme. These labels are not terms of art used in any specific field but words and phrases DSouza and his collaborators coined for their own enterprise. Those words and phrases are mules, ballot trafficking and stash houses.

Engelbrecht and Phillipsclaimthat the cell phone data they obtained shows mules taking ballots from non-profits and delivering those ballots to drop boxes. It should be noted that theyadmitthat theycoined the phrase ballot trafficking because it sounds like the phrases drug trafficking and human trafficking. There is no specific crime of ballot trafficking. They use the word mule to describe the people delivering the ballots because thats the same word used for people who carry illegal drugs. They claim that the mules collect ballots fromNot only is this a way to imply an unproven connection to crime, its also racist. Drug mule conjures images of scary brown people from south of the Mexican border invading White America.

Supposedly these mules would obtain ballots from what they call stash houses. They coined the phrase stash house to describe non-profits that collect ballots and distribute them, which is in some undefined way nefarious. DSouza again coins a pejorative phrase stash house which conjures images of drug dealers or other criminals to disguise the fact that he doesnt actually provide any facts here. DSouza never names any of these non-profits other than to state that they are aligned with Democrats. That, apparently, is enough for him to convict them, but it shouldn't be enough to persuade anyone else. It is a really good example of his tactic of creating phrases to generate an emotional reaction but that dont state any facts. Its a nice way of avoiding a libel suit but doesnt prove anything. (See the links at this Wikipedia article for good discussions of what happens when someone makes unsupported assertions about private citizens.)

Concealment of Facts

DSouza and company fail repeatedly to analyze the stuff they present as evidence to show whether or not it proves what they claim. The Reuters article above discusses the problems with the specific geotracking: its not possible to prove that the person didnt have a good reason to follow the same routes and stop at the same places during the period in question. Drop boxes are usually in libraries or post offices, which get a lot of traffic for reasons unrelated to the election. Nowhere in this entire flick does DSouza, Engelbrecht, and company ever note the locations of any of the drop boxes. In the absence of this vital evidence, their entire case falls apart.

Their concealment of facts and failure to analyze what they present is best demonstrated by the part of the movie devoted to security camera recordings.Engelbrecht claims they matched security camera recordings of the drop boxes to their cell phone records, and shows a couple of clips from those security cameras. It should be noted that despite their claims that the people in the recordings visited dozens of drop boxes, they only show one recording of each person. The only evidence of these other visits are their assertions.

In one, a woman wearing blue disposable gloves that look like medical gloves drops an envelope into a drop box located near the door of a large building. Engelbrecht makes a great fuss over the fact that the woman goes straight to the drop box and doesnt have to look around for it. Theres what appears to be an ATM near the box, facing the camera. The possibility that the woman has been to that location to use the ATM isnt mentioned. Furthermore, the clip doesnt show every move the woman makes from her arrival, so its possiblethat she looked around off camera or at some time before dropping the ballot.

Engelbrecht mentions that the device associated with this person is from South Carolina and implies that means that this person is casting an illegal ballot. Engelbrecht does not provide the evidence which leads her to conclude that the device, which I assume is a cell phone since theyre whole case is based on cell phone data, is from South Carolina. I make another assumption that the number associated with the device has a South Carolina area code. First, obviously, cell phones are MOBILE. This person can legitimately have a South Carolina number and still live in Georgia because she moved recently, especially if she didnt change service carriers. Since 2003, cell phone carriers have to allow customers to port old numbers to new carriers. (Seehere.) Therefore, its possible that this person kept a number from a previous residence even when moving. Another possibility is that the woman is posting a ballot for a family member, which, as the Reuters article linked above notes, is legal in Georgia. Thus, this clip proves nothing.

Another clip shows a man walking a dog and placing a ballot in a box that is also at a polling place. This clip happens during daylight, and there is a line of voters observing the action.Phillips comments on the brazenness of the dog-walkers actions, adding people watching you cheat. Again, there is no actual indication that this man is cheating at all, just Phillipss accusation by voice-over.

In the final section of 2000 Mules devoted to what he claims his evidence,DSouza then shows several Power Point slides with numbers and simple multiplication equations on them. He shows the asserted number of mules for several swing states, the number of asserted illegal ballots, multiplies the two numbers and gets what he states are the number of illegal votes. He does this two times for each state, once with a lower number of mules and again with a higher number. Since he hasnt provided anything else at all, even of the useless quality of the Georgia security camera scenes, for any of those other states, these calculations are completely worthless. In case anyone needs reminding, statistics need to be connected to actual, provable events to have any merit as evidence. Stats are narrative in number form, and the numbers are only as good as the narrative, which in this case isnt even close to being good for anything.

It should be clear that after more than 60 lawsuits all being dismissed, that Trumps claims about the 2020 election are lies. That much others have confirmed, mostly the judges that heard those silly lawsuits. Its still worth paying attention to right wing propaganda to see the techniques they use to manipulate emotions in the absence of facts. Showing the world how the illusionist does his magic is the only effective way to counteract the illusion. 2000 Mules uses all the standard techniques: imagery, labelling, and concealment of facts that would alter the asserted interpretation. If we progressives want to defeat the right wing propaganda mill, we need to recognize those techniques and counter them.

Read more from the original source:
I Watch Bad Movies So You Don't Have To: "2000 Mules" An Exploration Of The World Of A Jackass - Daily Kos

Abe Hamadeh has built his campaign for attorney general around cleaning up elections in Arizona. Yet as a teenager, he boasted to an online message board about voting before he was legally allowed to and altering his mom's ballot.

The posts were among thousands Hamadeh made to an online message board beginning in 2007. When he wasn't bragging about altering ballots, he was offering antisemitic and sexist rants, backing Sheriff Joe Arpaio and arguing that voting should be limited to college graduates who pass intelligence tests.

As a candidate, Hamadeh smartly used money and the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump to sucker Trump into backing his campaign.

Of all Trumps endorsements, championing the 31-year-old retired Army captain and one-time Maricopa County prosecutor was among his most surprising. Hamadeh was a low-level prosecutor for the county for less than three years even though his campaign website brags the he "fought in dozens of trials."

Hamadehs upholding of the Big Lie led Trump to pluck him from a crowded field of Republicans during the primary, which ended in Hamadeh defeating former Tucson City Councilmember Rodney Glassman.Hamadeh faces Democrat Kris Mayes in November.

Abe Hamadeh knows what happened in the 2020 election, and will enforce voting laws so that our elections are free and fair again, Trump wrote in his June endorsement.

Hamadeh said so himself.

As Attorney General, I will rebuild the confidence of our elections by prosecuting election fraud to the fullest extent of the law, the political newcomer from Scottsdale said in a statement. Confidence in our elections is the cornerstone to our country. We must restore voters trust.

Online posts uncovered by Phoenix New Times dating back to the 2008 presidential election tell a very different story.

In June 2007, Hamadeh, then 16 years old, became an active member of the online message board Ron Paul Forums, a virtual gathering space for supporters of Ron Paul, a Libertarian, former member of Congress and three-time presidential candidate.

The most recent archived version of Hamadehs profile on the site shows that by October 3, 2010, he had posted 4,163 times.His posts quoted in this story include their original typos, misspellings and grammatical errors.

Many of the posts are attached to discussions about radical ideas for election reform. They include Hamadehs own eugenics-reminiscent proposition that only college-educated Americans who passed intelligence tests should be allowed to vote by law, not people who justgo to a DMV and sign up to vote.

'No I cannot vote, I just submitted my mothers absentee ballot, she votes who I vote for, she voted for Ron Paul, and Im saddened that I had to vote for Barack Obama, but it was the right thing I had to do.' Abe Hamadeh

Obama is getting all of this crap simply cause hes black, he has an Arab name, hesthe only senator who is black in the Senate, he is successful, and he is a HarvardLaw graduate, they're scared they might have a smart man in the white house, Hamadeh wrote. Based on Barack Obama's intelligence I casted my vote for him yesterday through absentee.

In the same discussion thread, Hamadeh claimed that then-Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who lived in Phoenix, was a radical fascist.

In a subsequent post, Hamadeh wrote this:No I cannot vote, I just submitted my mothers absentee ballot, she votes who Ivote for, she voted for Ron Paul, and Im saddened that I had to vote for BarackObama, but it was the right thing I had to do."

Under Arizona law, it's a felony for a person to knowingly mark a ballot "with the intent to fix an election for that person's own benefit or for that of another person" orto possess anyones early ballot other than your own. It's also illegal for anyone younger than 18 to cast a ballot.

The username on the account that posted the comments is Hamadeh. The birthday listed on the account is Hamadehs birthday, May 15, 1991. The location listed on the profile was Scottsdale, where Hamadeh lived, and the hometown listed on the profile was Chicago, Hamadehs place of birth. A post in January 2008 also indicated the use of an email address from which Hamadeh sent a November 2007 email to then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. The author of that email included a Phoenix phone number that is also associated with Hamadeh.

'If you think Jews arent big in america (2%) how come 56% of them are CEO'S Jews are influential and for the most part rich. its good were targetting Arabs now, next will target Jews.' Abe Hamadeh

Hamadeh's campaign didn't directly address whether or not he wrote the posts or committed voter fraud. Instead, in a statement to New Times, a campaign spokesperson said Hamadeh's digital footprint dates to a time when teenagers made comments "well before their minds were even fully developed."

Abe Hamadeh is the youngest statewide candidate in the country, and one of the first to be scrutinized on his digital footprint dating back to a time when he was 16 years old, the same time he thought he would grow up to become a wrestler in the WWE," saidErica Knight, a spokesperson for the Hamadeh campaign.

We are entering a new era of political opposition where candidates who have lived through their adolescent years on the internet are being judged and criticized based on comments they made well before their minds were even fully developed. It is now our responsibility to be careful where we draw the line," Knight added.

Brett Johnson, an election law specialist and partner at Phoenix-based Snell & Wilmer, said Hamadeh's post could have been the admission of a felony.

There are issues here, Johnson told New Times. It could or could not be a felony. In this case, you can prove the criminal act, but can you prove the intent?

The actions Hamadeh discussed in the years-old posts fall outside the state's statute of limitations, which is seven years forcharges of voter fraud. Hamadehs posts, though, still raise eyebrows for a candidate whose campaign centers on restoring sanctity in Arizonas elections.

We have all had life experiences where we, as individuals, have learned, grown and evolved into the people we are today, Knight said. Abe grew up, joined the military and became a great and highly accomplished patriot. Time in service changed, matured and, most importantly, provided Abe with the values he currently has and the deep love he has for his country.

Mayes, Hamadeh's opponent in the November election, criticized his record.

"Abraham Hamadeh has a track record of dishonesty and deceit," Mayes told New Times. "We see it in his interviews, his daily tweets and his public appearances. The Attorney General's Office requires honesty and integrity at its core, which Mr. Hamadeh does not possess."

Kris Mayes, the Democratic nominee for Arizona Attorney General, criticized opponent Abe Hamadeh for a "record of dishonesty and deceit."

Kris Mayes Campaign

Hamadeh was born and raised in Chicago by parents from Syria and Lebanon.

In 1994, a grand jury in Illinois indicted his father,jeweler Jamal Hamadah, on charges of conspiracy to commit arson after the Mikro Kodesh Anshe Tiktin synagogue was fire-bombed, according to the Chicago Reader. When he was arrested, Hamadah admitted to being in the U.S. illegally after overstaying a visitor's visa.

The charges were dropped after the two men who set the fire failed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify againstHamadah. At a later deportation hearing, the judge allowed him to stay stateside because his son, Abe, is a U.S. citizen.

In 2008, Abe Hamadehadvocated for cutting U.S. funding to Israel and indicated fervent opposition to Israel as a state in several of his posts on the Ron Paul Forum.

"If you think Jews arent big in america (2%) how come 56% of them are CEO'S Jews are influential and for the most part rich. its good were targetting Arabs now, next will target Jews," he posted in July 2007.

These days, Hamadeh vows to use the power of the attorney generals office to uphold Arizonas draconian abortion bans.In December 2007, Hamadeh venerated a commenter on the Ron Paul Forum who was met with downturned thumbs during a protest outside an abortion clinic in Orlando, Florida. Women always thumb down, they all complain about there right to choose to have an abortion," he wrote in the post.

In 2009, in response to a post in which the author indicated that conservative commentator Ann Coulter had endorsed Ron Pauls presidential bid, Hamadeh wrote, She is a BITCH, I don't give a $#@! if she votes for Ron Paul, but she better not be speaking at any, ANY rallies.

'Sheriff Joe Arpaio is probably one of the most honest people to have served this State.' Abe Hamadeh

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is probably one of the most honest people to have served this State, Hamadeh wrote.

He added that people are to dumb to make decissions on there own, they need the government to help guide them.

Now, hes gunning to become that guiding light.

Hamadeh's campaign said the posts don't reflect his present-day views.

Comments allegedly posted during his teenage years do not represent his current values and views, Knight said. I encourage the opposition to stop wasting time picking apart the actions of children and focusing on nonsense and start taking action to make sure the American dream still exists for the next generation.

The rest is here:
Abe Hamadeh Wants to be Arizona's Top Cop. As a Teen, He Bragged About Voter Fraud - Phoenix New Times