This pretzel logic insists that the employer in question was so underhanded that even a secret ballot was corrupted by the efforts by the employer to scare off employees from supporting the union. But, here is the thing that makes no sense: if the ballot is secret, since no employee's name was connected to the vote, and if the employer was that mean to the workers, WHY did they still vote against the union?

[...]

... Angling for a critical Senate swing vote to pass the "card check" bill that would make it easier to form unions, Pennsylvania labor leaders promised Sen. Arlen Specter that they will switch union members from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party to help him win a tough 2010 primary election, The Washington Times has learned.

Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President William M. George said he pledged Mr. Specter "all kinds of help from the union" in a series of meetings to woo the Republican senator's support for the bill, which would ease rules favoring secret-ballot elections to unionize workplaces.

"We are pushing to give him help in the primary, including changing Democrats to Republicans for the primary," Mr. George told The Times. "It's hard to do because of other races in the state ... but we'll do it for 'card check.' " ...

Because the act does not specifically say in plain language that the secret ballot will necessarily be eliminated in all cases, union activists and apologists claim that fears of the elimination of the ages old democratic practice of the secret ballot to assure a fair election isn't being eliminated. They claim that opponents of this act are merely engaging in hyperbole and fearmongering by claiming the secret ballot will be a thing of the past if the EFCA is passed. ...

... "It follows, therefore, that no rational unions would risk the election if they have in their possession authorization cards from just over 50% of the members of the unit they seek to represent." With open ballots -- the card-check system -- union supporters could coerce and intimidate employees who otherwise might change their votes in the course of a campaign. ...

[...]

From the lynchings of freed American slaves who dared to vote for the first time, to the purple-stained thumbs of voters in newly freed countries, the right to a secret ballot has been won through the spilled blood of freedom-loving patriots. It is the hallmark of a democratic society that must never be abridged. ...

Ken Hamidi is a state worker at the California Franchise Tax Board. Last night he walked into a union hall in Sacramento for an SEIU local 1000 meeting.

"We had every right to be here, very simple; it wasn't anything private or anything exclusive," said Hamidi.

But Hamidi says the union members did not want him there.

"Three, four people jumped at me, wrestled with me, then did all that," said Hamidi. "I was covered in blood and then over to the emergency room."

Photos of Hamidi in the hospital show him bloodied from the brawl. So why did this happen? Besides being a state worker, Hamidi says he's an unpaid reporter for a cable access show and a vocal critic of the SEIU. He calls the state workers' union corrupt.

"This is a union hall that is leased and is being furnished and equipped and everything with our money," said Hamidi.

Hamidi says he came to the hall to expose how he says SEIU union leaders are spending tens of thousands of dollars on a political race, he claims, they have no right to do. After he and a photographer walked in to the meeting, it didn't take long for Hamidi to be right out the door and on his way to the hospital.

... Vote buyers would be unable to see whether the voter performed his end of the bargain. ...

But Governor David B. Hill, a Democrat, opposed the Australian ballot system. Hill knew that the election reformers harbored ill-concealed prejudices against foreign-born voters, many of whom were illiterate or were literate in a language other than English. Because the Australian system requires literacy, it would close the polls to tens of thousands of Democratic voters.

Myers designed his voting machine to accomplish two purposes. First, it would compel secret voting. Second, it would enable illiterate voters to cast their votes without assistance.

To compel secret voting, Myers designed his machine around large booth or cabinet, equipped with three self-locking doors. Once a voter entered, the entrance door locked behind him. He accomplished his vote in the voting compartment. After voting, the voter had nowhere to go but to pass through the internal door which, when it closed, prevented him from returning into the voting compartment. Closing the internal door unlocked the exit door. When the voter opened the exit door, the mechanism released the lock on the entry door, sounded a bell, and made the machine ready for the next voter. ...

Unless steps are taken, the next polls will usher the end of Kenya as we know it.

ODM grassroots elections held last Monday show that Kenyan politicians learnt nothing from the 2007 election violence and continue with their usual tactics of bullying, hiring goons, holding parallel elections and seeking favors from top party leaders.

SOSBallot.org, a 501 c(4) organization, is currently pushing for constitutional amendments to be placed on the ballots of Arizona, Arkansas, Montana, Nevada and Utah. "Save Our Secret Ballot exists to give the citizens in the various states the opportunity to creat state level protections for secret ballots that would include union representation elections," Istook said.

Istook, who is also a former Congressman from Oklahoma and a Distinguished Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, is determined to stop the EFCA, which he says will enable unions to strong-arm otherwise unwilling workers into endorsing the formation of a union by eliminating the privacy of their vote. Instead, a far more public system of simply signing an authorization form will replace the secret ballot.

...

Unions, in an attempt to regain their dwindling power to crush business into submission, want 'card check' passed into law by the Democrat controlled congress. They expect the passage of card check as payola for all the work, money and corruption they have used to elect Democrats nationwide. Card check will legislate the private ballot as illegal. Card check will give unions the right and the power to intimidate workers in nonunion shops into becoming union members.

Reid made it apparent that the Democrats fully intend to pay the unions for their political work.

...

"Some students had issues getting ballots to actually vote, and there were just some very inappropriate comments made toward the students about what we were doing," Jones said. "They weren't happy with Student Association providing transportation. They were not happy that the students were out there voting, and many people complained that students were there."

"There were also some reports of voter intimidation," ...

Black spray-painted swastikas marred the front of Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in San Francisco's Castro district. Though the church itself is gay friendly, the proposed ban on gay marriage had support from prominent Catholics up to and including Pope Benedict.

Pastor Steve Meriweather told KCBS his parishioners actually share the vandals' sentiment against Prop 8. "I think it's unfortunate that they selected our community to attack," said Meriweather, "because it's the wrong one."

Some attending mass at Holy Redeemer in the heart of the Castro are calling it a hate crime. San Francisco Police have been called in to investigate.

The fact is, the SEIU orchestrated a sham vote on the contract, squelched its member's voices and stomped on nearly every American right in the process.

In an email to me on this issue it was asked, "I wonder how SEIU's Andy Stern can possibly square SEIU's supposed advocacy for 'employee free choice' with SEIU's vote rigging and voter intimidation practiced against his own members. ...