Cleveland GOP Cheats Ron Paul In a Straw Poll

The Daily Paul reports:

On Wednesday, I posted how the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County (RPCC) -- the county where Cleveland, Ohio is located -- had an online straw poll for President. Someone within the Party had twice manually revised down the vote total for Ron Paul, purposely skewing the vote in favor of establishment candidates (see original post: www.dailypaul.com...). The Daily Paul community came through big, voting Ron Paul up so high so fast that the RPCC decided to pull the poll altogether.

Since they pulled the poll, the RPCC has claimed they traced the vote total to a single IP address, thereby wholly delegitimizing the vote, and further trying to mock, alienate, and write off Ron Paul and his supporters. Fortunately, I have contacted a reporter with a reputable Cleveland paper who intends to run this story. We have well documented the RPCC’s actions and she has everything she needs except for one crucial thing…

The reporter wants us to recreate the massive vote surge on a “test” online poll that she created on a site

I wouldn't put it past those scumbags to pull a stunt like this.

The GOP has been running scared of Paul this entire time.

They are shooting with almost everything they got, Lets hope they dont start useing real bullets (Kennedy).

reply to post by mnemeth1


I haven't heard word boo about Ron Paul in the papers around Cuyahoga County, except through the interwebs, the occasional TV snippet and radio.

If your reputable paper is the Plain Squealer..uh, I mean Dealer. I would take it with a grain of salt...at first anyway.

They are not a centerist newspaper, and definately lean left.

I live right outside of Cleveland and haven't heard about this on the news or anything.

Wow! Just wow! The telling part of the quote is this:

The Daily Paul community came through big, voting Ron Paul up so high so fast that the RPCC decided to pull the poll altogether.

So it's okay for the "Daily Paul community" to intentionally skew the poll to vote Paul up, but it's not okay for the party to take off those votes all coming from the same IP address.

Purely and simply: That is abject blatant hypocrisy. It also proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Paul supporters intentionally spam the straw polls. This is precisely why many straw polls refuse to put Paul's name as an option. They know that as soon as the Daily Paul community finds out about it, they will rush over en masse to skew the poll. The Paul campaign is FAMOUS for this kind of behavior. This is not an isolated incident.

This is exactly the kind of thing that people who are not committed Paul supporters hate about the Paul campaign. This has the effect of muting Paul's message. It is counter-productive. People who otherwise might listen to what Paul is trying to get across are turned off by these juvenile antics of his supporters. The same exact thing happened in the last election. Paul supporters stooped to parlor tricks, deception, rule-bending, and yelling in an attempt to get Paul nominated. If they resort to the same kind of naive politics as they did last time, the exact same thing is going to happen this time.

This calls into question Paul's ability to lead. If he can't control his own campaign, how can he possibly lead the country? If he condones this behavior, how can he possibly lead the country? These kind of antics have to stop now if Paul is going to have any chance at all.

reply to post by schuyler


How is getting your supporters to vote in an online straw poll "intentionally skewing" the poll?

That's the entire point of online straw polls.

There's nothing stopping the other candidates from doing the exact same thing.

Are you suggesting that campaigns should not encourage their supporters to vote in online straw polls?

That's nuts.

Originally posted by schuyler
Wow! Just wow! The telling part of the quote is this:

The Daily Paul community came through big, voting Ron Paul up so high so fast that the RPCC decided to pull the poll altogether.

So it's okay for the "Daily Paul community" to intentionally skew the poll to vote Paul up, but it's not okay for the party to take off those votes all coming from the same IP address.

Purely and simply: That is abject blatant hypocrisy. It also proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Paul supporters intentionally spam the straw polls. This is precisely why many straw polls refuse to put Paul's name as an option. They know that as soon as the Daily Paul community finds out about it, they will rush over en masse to skew the poll. The Paul campaign is FAMOUS for this kind of behavior. This is not an isolated incident.

This is exactly the kind of thing that people who are not committed Paul supporters hate about the Paul campaign. This has the effect of muting Paul's message. It is counter-productive. People who otherwise might listen to what Paul is trying to get across are turned off by these juvenile antics of his supporters. The same exact thing happened in the last election. Paul supporters stooped to parlor tricks, deception, rule-bending, and yelling in an attempt to get Paul nominated. If they resort to the same kind of naive politics as they did last time, the exact same thing is going to happen this time.

This calls into question Paul's ability to lead. If he can't control his own campaign, how can he possibly lead the country? If he condones this behavior, how can he possibly lead the country? These kind of antics have to stop now if Paul is going to have any chance at all.

For every action there is a reaction. The fact is, there would have been no need to vote Ron Paul up if those conducting the poll were being honest about the results.

Mnemeth1,

This is absolutely incredible to hear of such blatant corruption, even though of course it has been pretty common these days.. It still is not easy to hear about this without wanting to go right to these people and physically punish them for being such outright scumbags..

I am glad to hear that you are able to help see that this doesn't just get swept under the rug, and if you and me, and anyone else aren't willing to help do something about these things, then no one will, because it is really our responsibility as Americans to always do something about corruption in our country... We are the government..

Lately the mis-information campaign being run by the media and others, has included calling anyone who rants about government doing some wrong, an anti-government person label, when what they really are is being anti-corruption..

This sort of thing needs to be severely punished, and if there is anything at all that I can do to help, please let me know...

I will be sending some emails to people, and making phone calls about this, with the goal of getting this thing publicised as much as possible. Every little bit helps...

Thanks for the heads up about this... IT really burns my butt hearing of things like this, and the people running these psyops against Ron Paul and supporters is really getting old..

reply to post by mnemeth1

Someone within the Party had twice manually revised down the vote total for Ron Paul, purposely skewing the vote in favor of establishment candidates

Things like that make me fearful that come election time, even if Ron Paul wins in a landslide victory, the votes will be altered to elect the candidate of their choice.