Ron Paul supporter adamant of 20 vote discrepancy during caucus

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
January 6, 2012

GOP officials in Iowa have dismissed reports circulating online that there was a significant flaw in vote counting during Tuesday’s caucuses, and have ruled out the possibility of overturning the results.

“Iowa GOP officials have been in contact with Appanoose County Republican officials tonight and do not have any reason to believe the final, certified results of Appanoose County will change the outcome of Tuesday’s vote.” wrote Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Straw in a statement Thursday night.

“Out of respect to the candidates involved, party officials will not respond to every rumor, innuendo or allegation during the two week process,” Strawn added.

The statement came in response to claims of discrepancies by a Ron Paul supporter in Appanoose County, who told an Iowa TV station that he believes there was a 20-vote discrepancy in the numbers he recorded from his caucus and the numbers that the Iowa Republican Party reported.

“When Mitt Romney won Iowa by eight votes and I’ve got a 20-vote discrepancy here, that right there says Rick Santorum won Iowa,” Edward True told KCCI TV. “Not Mitt Romney.”

True, 28, of Moulton, said he helped count the votes and jotted the results down on a piece of paper to post to his Facebook page. He said when he checked to make sure the Republican Party of Iowa got the count right, he was shocked to discover that they hadn’t.

Monitoring a 53-person caucus meeting, True is adamant that Romney received only two votes. The Iowa Republican Party’s website, on the other hand, recorded that Romney received 22 votes from the meeting.

[iframe http://www.mrctv.org/embed/108904 560 360]

True filed an affidavit Thursday with details of his account,  in which he wrote

“To not bring forth such a serious discrepancy in public right away, seem[s] to me to [be] the same as silencing the people.”

“This reminded me of a quote from the Father of our Country, George Washington: ‘If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.'” True added.

Following comments by an anonymous state party spokesman that  “True is not a precinct captain and he’s not a county chairperson, so he has no business talking about election results,” True responded on his Facebook page, noting

“Dear Iowa GOP, I am a nominated delegate for my Precinct and the true winner from the vote count in my caucus was Santorum with 21 votes. I am not a person in a position controlled by you I am in a position to serve the interests of the people I was nominated by. The 1st Amendment of the Constitution gives me the right to speak up and make sure the numbers are correct and reported honestly.”

Commenting on Fox News’ “On the Record” Thursday, Santorum said that he had spoken with Iowa officials who had told him that “there was one county where there was a 20-vote mistake in my favor, but there was a 21-vote mistake vote in Romney’s favor. So it actually netted out to what I understand is a one-vote difference.”

Iowa GOP officials did not refer to any such “mistakes” in their official statement.

While there is a two-week certification process, Iowa officials say that there were no discrepancies and the results will stand.

Whether these are mistakes or something more underhanded is going on, it once again highlights how the voting process can potentially be easily manipulated.

On the eve of the caucuses, we reported that the final vote tally was to take place at a secret undisclosed location.

Normally taking place at state party headquarters in Des Moines, the Republican Party of Iowa announced that the final count would instead be shifted to an unknown location. Officials cited non specific “security concerns” about Occupy protesters disrupting the tabulation process, despite the fact that Occupy protest leaders confirmed that there were no plans to disrupt the caucuses.

Several more anomalies were reported during the Iowa caucus voting process, including ‘computer glitches’ delaying vote counts, lax voter ID requirements, reports that lights went out during vote tallies.

In addition, hours before voting was underway, Republican strategist Dee Dee Benkie revealed during a radio show appearance that the GOP establishment were particularly worried about Ron Paul’s numbers and were offering sweetheart deals to move large voting blocks to vote for Romney or Santorum.

Insiders were also worried, however, that moving too many voters to Santorum could damage Romney’s chances and further aid Paul’s case. Thus a delicate balancing act was required.

Watch Rob Dew of Infowars Nightly News break down all of these cases reports of possible vote fraud in Iowa:

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

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