NEWS FROM UNDERGROUND

For weeks now I’ve been asking contacts in the Election Integrity movement, all avid supporters of the mail-in ballot system, exactly how all those mailed-in ballots will be counted. For some reason, I could not get a straight answer, or any answer, to that question; but now I’ve finally got a lead, from my old friend Rebecca Mercuri, who probably knows more than anyone else about this urgent issue (one that’s been ignored for decades by the US “left,” both liberals and “progressives,” with catastrophic consequences for us all).

Let me add, just for the record, that I think the mail-in ballot system is a big mistake, for several reasons. First, committing to it months before Election Day has tacitly affirmed the panicky assumption that going out to vote as usual, in person, will have millions dropping dead (except for those who might storm polling places in memory of George Floyd, since, as we all know, they don’t catch or transmit “the coronavirus”). Normally (so to speak), a pandemic that commenced at the beginning of the year, cresting in March/April, then declining steadily, would not last well into November; nor will this one—unless, of course, the psychopaths in charge of this “New Normal” have planned to orchestrate that dreaded “second wave” which Bill/Melinda smilingly foretold a few months ago.

Also, vote-by-mail is just another way to vitiate the importance of Election Day—formerly a very useful gauge of national turn-out, but now a lot less telling, because of early voting (which I also oppose) and now the mail-in system. I believe Election Day should be a federal holiday, so everyone can vote that day. 

Finally—and related to what Rebecca tells us here—I think mail-in voting is a bad idea because it’s only going to make our voting system more opaque, since we’ll have even less idea of how our votes are counted, or if they are at all, than we have now, with black-box voting and vote-“counting.”

Which brings us to the gist of Rebecca’s email: Runbeck Election Services (RES)—whatever that is—will be in charge of “printing, mailing, and maybe even counting” many of the mail-in ballots this Election Day. So what is RES? It seems to have no partisan affiliation. Where exactly did it come from, and how did it get that contract? (Is it, like, CIA?)

Such are the questions people should be asking—and will be asked by those now more concerned about US electoral democracy (or what’s left of it) than about beating or “re-electing” Donald Trump. 

From Rebecca Mercuri:

Runbeck Election Services in Phoenix AZ seem to have cornered the market on printing, mailing, and maybe even counting a considerable amount of the mail-in ballots. <https://www.npr.org/2020/05/03/848347895/ballot-printers-increase-capacity-to-prepare-for-mail-voting-surge> What do we know about this company? (Answer: Next to nothing. In business since 1972.) Occasionally there have been errors in mailing out the ballots by this company. CEO Kevin Runbeck says “It’s a highly unusual event.” But is it? The mistakes we know about are just the ones that got caught. <https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article3412596.html>

If you look up Kevin Runbeck in public donation records, you’ll see that he has donated CONSIDERABLE $$$ to the “Printing Industries of America.” He doesn’t seem to contribute directly to candidates or parties (so he flies under the radar). Not as stupid as Wally O’Dell (President of Diebold) or some of the other election equipment company officers, whose names typically showed up under donations to the Republican Party. Runbeck just contributes to the PIoA (as far as I could tell). I haven’t looked up the other officers of Runbeck’s company, but I’m guessing there are more bread-crumbs of $$ there too, likely leading back to the PIoA. These donations show up in the public records because Printing Industries of America claims to be “a nonprofit trade association which advocates for the United States printing industry. It happens to be the world’s largest graphic arts trade association, representing more than 6,500 member companies and an industry with more than $174.4 billion in revenue and 1 million employees.” You can read more about them at <www.printing.org>. PIoA’s headquarters has moved around a lot. NYC (1902), Philadelphia (1908), Chicago (1912), Washington DC (1929). Since 2003 they’ve been located in western PA (near Pittsburgh). These cities all seem to have something in common (I think you can figure out what this commonality seems to be). I think it would be safe to say that if the Printing Industries of America are in your pocket, it might be possible to print up pretty much whatever you want on paper ballots.

If you haven’t looked closely at Runbeck’s company and the PI0A, now is the time. Will the municipalities and states be in control of their elections and the vote counting? Or will Kevin Runbeck be in charge (this IS among the services that they offer)? I’m not saying that they necessarily are nefarious, but with any type of centralized processing (whether it be creating or counting the ballots), there’s too many very easy ways to implement a bit of slight of hand that could easily rig the election. I can tell you exactly how to do it, too. I am seriously wondering if the “millions of fraudulently cast ballots” argument we keep hearing from T and the RNC is just a smokescreen to cover up what is REALLY being planned?