Hector Roos' Recommendation on 2014 Election

Hector Roos' Personal Election Recommendations

I have 3 easy recommendations:

1. Vote "NO" if you don't understand what the ballot means.
2. Vote your Conscience. No one knows how you vote.
3. Go ahead and vote, you can just leave any question blank you come across.

Detailed recommendations:

Vote NO on all County questions.

You are being asked for permission to have a reduction on the size of the green spaces at our parks in every question save the courthouse. And the Courthouse is a grant of money that is not attached to a plan on how to spend (this is exactly the wrongheaded kind of ballot question that gets us in trouble).

Vote YES on 1 and 2 to the amendments of the Florida Constitution. Vote NO on 3 to the allowing judicial appointments.

Proposed Amendment 1 is regarding putting tax monies we are already paying for in a "lock box" to go for nature restoration including our ever important waterways (the legislature right now just has a law requiring them to spend some of the money rather than a true financial dedication).

Proposed Amendment 2 is Medical Marijuana. My mother passed away this year to a very painful and debilitating cancer. Marijuana was the only medicine that gave her any pain relief. ALL pharmaceutical drugs she was told to take cause horrific side effects. This story is far too common. VOTE YES ON 2.

Proposed Amendment 3 if passed allows an outgoing governor the right to fill judicial vacancies without any electoral punishment for playing favorites. Imagine this power in the hand of any radical socialist who happens to make it to the governors mansion. A series of upcoming retirements could allow the next governor or two to transform the temperament of the courts.

Regarding Governors: No one has been more pro-business in Florida than Rick Scott but that doesn't mean he's perfect or automatically deserves re-election. Ask yourself if you feel that life in Florida has improved since Scott took office and vote accordingly. If you are not satisfied, I recommend you don't vote for Charlie Crist.

Regarding every other election (i.e. State House and local municipality): No one wants to say you're on your own but the reality is that these are the people who make the most decisions over your life and it comes down to whether you trust them to do the right thing when the lobbyist comes with an offer or their friends applies pressure to them.


Closing remarks:
Participate and make your world one voice stronger. This is a life best lived over time and you should think about political change over time BUT DON'T BE AFRAID TO DEMAND THE RIGHT CHANGE IMMEDIATELY!

Thank you for your time.

Further Response to the North Miami Election

The former North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns lost in a run-off election to Lucie Tondreau earlier this month is a way that was incredible and somewhat unbelievable at least from a political science stand point. It doesn't matter if Tondreau herself was involved in a voter fraud scheme but the numbers show that something strange occurred to generate the vote totals we saw.

Burns is now suing to have Tondreau removed as mayor not because of voter fraud but because Tondreau didn't live in North Miami at least a year in order to establish the proper residency requirement. It is the first time to candidates challenged on the basis of their residency.

However, voter fraud is a perennial issue in Miami-Dade County. It is an issue that cannot be ignored even though for Kevin Burns it is expedient to bypass.

I write more why voter fraud in North Miami is a bigger problem people in the city must confront or accept that this will be a regular part of their elections from now on:

Kudos to Kevin Burns for going after residency, but he shouldn’t have punted on Voter Fraud

Investigating voter fraud is simple to do in concept but difficult to accomplish. First off, you need people who know who to ask the right questions of just to figure exactly what happened during the election. Next, you need to figure if anything that you know happened was illegal and then determine whether or not it was enough to change the results of the election. Determining if fraud was committed, who did it and why is a daunting task (unless Lucie Tondreau herself was directly involved that is). Adding to the difficulty is that in North Miami, Lucie Tondreau won with more than 800 votes so figuring out how 800 people committed voter fraud is very challenging. 

This is why Kevin Burns is challenging the results of the election by going after the matter regarding Lucie Tondreau’s residency... 

Read more at: http://www.votersopinion.com/?p=9969

Ron Paul Miami becomes Open Government Miami

It's no secret that my activism began from my support of the presidential campaigns for the retired Congressman Ron Paul. I wrote a piece for the DailyPaul.com, a leading Ron Paul supporter site, describing in better detail what I want to accomplish with Open Government Miami:

The vacancy left behind with the Ron Paul Campaigns will be filled with a journey for activists to establish responsible, public policy initiatives. We are the pressure that makes the change. 

This is a labor of love: Six years ago I began a journey of discovery into the bowels of Miami's Banana Republican Politics. Today, I find myself a lot more introspective and have found out that most of the problems in today's politics begins with mistrust. Mistrust and government tend to go hand and hand, no? But this mistrust comes because of The People's general ignorance and miseducation which leads them to mistrust everyone's motivations. Rather unite, we fracture and crumble. 

This dangerous ignorance starts from a lack of understanding of an individual's role in society. They see themselves as a unit rather than a member of the whole, individually expressed. We are a product of our society after all. 

There is a willful and very deep ignorance that people have toward government. Too many people have abandoned trying to learn about government because our political system is "broken" (a straw man argument). But they give up on the institution without realizing that there is none other that ties us all together as strongly. So I tell people, "It's the only way we can stay involved in each other's lives. And the only way we can figure out how to do business together, too." 

Remember, government has an enormous role on every decision we make from the moment we wake up to the moment we lay down to sleep. Government cannot be ignored, it won't let you. 

Open Government Miami is designed to relate educational opportunities where you can learn how to become a civic and political activist (they are NOT the same thing!) and hopefully make great friends and have great experiences. Plus, I will let you in on juicy bits of knowledge of how elections and the public policy are used regularly to enrich a few key industries here while leaving the rest of us lagging behind (i.e. urban blight, a weak business climate, water pollution and many other such issues).

Read more: http://www.dailypaul.com/289455/ron-paul-miami-becomes-open-government-miami

The Voter Fraud Story You Haven't Heard

Voter fraud has been in the news with scandal from the campaign of now-Congressman Joe Garcia and just yesterday the same fraud committed by campaign aides of City of Miami Commissioner Francis X. Suarez who is vying for the Mayor's seat this November.

Real voter fraud is much more organized and conspiratorial then the Internet schemes of these two related voter fraud scandals. Real voter fraud stories are rarely ever heard about because the fraudsters completely got away with it.

Voter fraud usually comes in 5 ways:

1. Voter Registration Fraud
2. Absentee Ballot Fraud
3. Illegally or Improperly "Assisting" Others to Vote their Absentee Ballot
4. Vote-Buying
5. Hacking Voter Machine or Vote Counting Database

There are few thoughts to figure out which kind of fraud happened and who perpetrated it:

1. Voter Registration Fraud usually occurs by "changes of address" schemes to register voters who live outside the voting district to participate in the election (such as out-of-towners, homeless, public employees, etc.. The real residence of these voters can be proven by real estate tax searches, corporation records and other easily accessible public databases.
2. Absentee Ballot Fraud usually occurs in several ways such as casting absentee ballots stolen from mailboxes and requesting absentee ballots without permission (with or without an improper change of address). Rumors can indicate this happening and so can any reports made to authorities. Since this type of fraud is done in combination with voter registration fraud and "change of address" schemes then it can be detected in the same way.
3. Illegally or Improperly "Assisting" Others to Vote their Absentee Ballot occurs regularly when absentee ballots are cast by the infirm, incapacitated and elderly who cannot vote by themselves (or otherwise protest their ballots being marked without permission). Rumor can offer details regarding how and who ran this scheme. Analysis of voting patterns can point groupings of voters residing in institutions such as group homes or assisted living facilities that can further investigation.
4. Vote-buying is popular because it is cheap and done during Election Day or Early Voting that drives droves of registered voters by bus to a voting location in exchange for $10-$20 (i.e. $2,000 for 200 votes). The only way to know if this happens is when people speak about it happening (word of mouth). Rumors will offer names of those organizing this scheme. Details will offer clues that can establish who were paid to vote against the list of voters who cast ballots. Analysis of voting patterns among lower quality (lower propensity) voters can indicate this scheme from happening.
5. Hacking Voter Machine or Vote Counting Database is rarely done except in tight elections or else it will be detected by voter polling prior to the election but most especially by exit polling. On rare occasion, the reporting of election results can be so compromised that vote tallies can be completely switched out. This type of fraud involves people who have access within the chain of custody involving ballots, electronic voting machines and the voter count database (which means election volunteers, staff and the third-party vendors involved).

Usually you can only detect the type of fraud being committed well after the election is over and certified and the voter history is made available publicly. However, if you are aware of how to rig elections you can catch it in the midst of it happening or just warn voters of this happening.

Rumors, gossip and even campaign finance reports can help you pin-point the type of fraud and using voter history to determine particular voting patterns that occur in each type of voter fraud.  

We can also narrow the suspects by knowing who are the local ballot brokers and the usual suspects for voter fraud. We can also figure out who these people are who committed fraud by reviewing who stands out in the campaign finance report as well as identifying any PACs or third-party groups such as religious, civic or governmental organizations (like CRA or a Development Authority) associated with them.

Keep tuned in to this blog and I will share more info about voter fraud specifically how it gets done and how to stop it.