By Roy Cerling
This note is in response to Col. Gudmundson’s January 9 Fillmoare County Journal commentary on retaining the electoral college.
I take exception to some of the arguments used. In fact I believe the editor Mr. Sethre should sometimes reject commentaries due to their utter lack of journalistic standards.
I complain because, while Col. Gudmunson is entitled to his opinion, he is not entitled to his own facts. There must be some common basis for discussion. Repeating these fictions as if they were fact only aggravates the partisan divides that so sorely bedevil our nation.
For example, in paragraph four the colonel claims that President Obama has encouraged illegal immigrants to vote. This is utter nonsense. It is true however, that the Fox Business Network used a deceptively edited clip of President Obama to make it appear that he had done so. I advise the colonel to read the transcript of the entire interview.
In paragraph five, the colonel claims that Illinois union members were bussed to Iowa in order to vote twice. I have not been able to find any convincing evidence that this happened. It sounds just a little too delicious to be true.
I caution the colonel to think twice before believing any of these stories that are just a bit too juicy to be true. Recall the old adage: If it’s too good to be true… it’s probably a fraud. There were a great number of fake news stories spread via social media during the last election cycle. Please don’t repeat them for this audience.
In paragraph three, the colonel implies voter fraud in Detroit. The headlines scream “Too many votes in 37% of Detroit Precincts.” The headlines fail to note there were too few votes in 24% of Detroit precincts. While this does point to some very serious vote count problems in Detroit, the issues appear more likely caused by human error or voting machine malfunctions than outright fraud. Further investigation is certainly warranted – but claiming fraud does not help when the problem may be as mundane as outdated election equipment.
Colonel Gudmunson — There are many folks in Fillmore County who read your commentaries. Since you help to shape opinions, I believe you owe it to your readers to pay closer attention to the accuracy of the claims you use to justify those opinions.
Jen says
The real problem was voter suppression. Also something called voter purging. Also we just can’t have someone that can’t pee standing up in the oval office according to 55% of white female voters, makes me sick.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-gops-stealth-war-against-voters-w435890
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/election-2016-tracking-reports-voting-problems-across-united-states-n673236
We need to keep an eye on voter laws over the next year , it worked for them before they will try do it again.
Roy says
Hi Jen,
Your point is well taken — voter suppression may well have played a factor in the end result of the election.
But the topic of the Colonel’s commentary was the electoral college. I didn’t want to veer too far off topic.
cheers,
Dennis says
Roy – Thanks for the comment and I strongly support your admonishment of the FCJ for not exercising their editorial responsibilities. Admonishing them might be productive whereas admonishing Stan is most likely futile.
Also, the vote discrepancies reported in Detroit are really discrepancies between votes recorded by the voting machines and the votes according to the poll sign-in books. Certainly troubling, but not indicative of any massive voter fraud when you look at the actually discrepancies:
77 precincts +1 vote
62 precincts +2 votes
37 precincts +3 votes
20 precincts +4 votes
52 precincts +5 or more votes
81 precincts -1 vote
29 precincts -2 votes
19 precincts -3 votes
7 precincts -4 votes
8 precincts -5 or more votes
Thomas E. H. says
This. This is what I was looking forward to reading. Thank you.
The Fillmore County Journal could take note that editors need to fact-check information. What’s expressed by Stan Gudmundson can still be said, but some form of corrections to be made by the FCJ if his false statements continue. Using false information to divide people is wrong, and the FCJ shouldn’t support it by posting his works without fact-checking his claims.
So, thank you again, Roy. I also found his information baseless; here are some sources:
http://www.snopes.com/more-votes-than-voters-in-detroit/
http://www.snopes.com/obama-encouraged-illegal-aliens-to-vote/
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/nov/18/blog-posting/no-3-million-undocumented-immigrants-did-not-vote-/
http://www.factcheck.org/2016/10/trumps-bogus-voter-fraud-claims/
http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/cces/news/perils-cherry-picking-low-frequency-events-large-sample-surveys
If anyone wants to fact-check the sources, go ahead. Each link provides their primary source for data.