In a development that is alarming in more ways than one, Jeh Johnson and DHS are making noises that we should federalize states’ voting systems because of hacking by the Russians and others. That should send a very cold shiver down your spine. Not only have the feds pretty much taken over the mainstream media, they now want to control our elections. Let me see… where have I heard that before? Oh yeah! Every single dictator on the planet has done the very same thing, just not as slyly. If this happens, we are no longer a Constitutional Republic. We become an outright banana republic run by despots.

Yahoo! News broke the hacking story first:

The bulletin does not identify the states in question, but sources familiar with the document say it refers to the targeting by suspected foreign hackers of voter registration databases in Arizona and Illinois. In the Illinois case, officials were forced to shut down the state’s voter registration system for 10 days in late July, after the hackers managed to download personal data on up to 200,000 state voters, Ken Menzel, the general counsel of the Illinois Board of Elections, said in an interview. The Arizona attack was more limited, involving malicious software that was introduced into its voter registration system but no successful exfiltration of data, a state official said.

The FBI is now warning all states that they should start securing their voting systems to avoid hacking in the next election. Let me ask you this, shouldn’t the states have been doing that all along? Why now? DHS and the FBI are now referring to the election systems as critical infrastructure, like the power grid and Wall Street. First off, they’ve never done a thing about the power grid. They want to nationalize utilities so the government controls them too… but no one has done a thing to invest in modernizing and strengthening the power grid. As far as Wall Street goes, that is a reference to banking which they have pretty much already nationalized, but I guess they want to ‘further’ control it. Don’t you see the power grab here? Venezuela anyone? The feds now have control over our power grid, media, food and financial sectors. Now they want an iron grip on voting… exactly what do you think will happen? We don’t have a two party system anymore. They are basically in cahoots with one another, so voting has already been compromised. Now this.

Frankly, I fear the Russians hacking the system to mess with our elections. But that doesn’t mean that I want to hand over our voting process to the federal government any more than I want the Internet handed over to the UN and foreign countries, which Obama is making happen as well. Nationalizing the voting process is breathtakingly unconstitutional. If it happens, you will never be able to trust the results ever again. There was a reason our Founding Fathers wanted the states to have the power over elections and it was to prevent something like this. An arrogant move towards a despotic regime and it’s happening right before our eyes.

The talk of nationalizing the voting structure started before the Russian hacking of Arizona and Illinois’ election boards. This has been talked about for a while now. It should be all over the news, but as usual… crickets.

From Jeh Johnson:

“We should carefully consider whether our election system, our election process, is critical infrastructure like the financial sector, like the power grid,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said.

“There’s a vital national interest in our election process, so I do think we need to consider whether it should be considered by my department and others critical infrastructure,” he said at media conference earlier this month hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

DHS clarifies further on their website: “There are 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof.”

What happens when those in power control everything that defines out country and our survival? To let them control all this instead of putting it under the purview of the states and private entities is simply insane. It’s begging for a dictatorship.

A White House policy directive adds, “The federal government also has a responsibility to strengthen the security and resilience of its own critical infrastructure, for the continuity of national essential functions, and to organize itself to partner effectively with and add value to the security and resilience efforts of critical infrastructure owners and operators.”

Johnson also stated that the primary issue is that there isn’t a central election system since the states run elections. “There’s no one federal election system. There are some 9,000 jurisdictions involved in the election process,” Johnson said.

“There’s a national election for president, there are some 9,000 jurisdictions that participate, contribute to collecting votes, tallying votes and reporting votes,” he said. Yes and that runs so well. Not. It’s already corrupt and rigged and now they want that to apply to ALL ELECTIONS. They are using security and the fact that we are vulnerable as an excuse to seize power over voting. It doesn’t take a genius to see it.

Georgia’s top election official is flatly digging in his heels and saying no thank you to the fed’s so-called assistance. He’s correct in saying that the Obama Administration is ginning up a cybersecurity threat to intrude on states’ authority. That is exactly what is happening and I totally agree with Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp.

“It seems like now it’s just the D.C. media and the bureaucrats, because of the DNC getting hacked — they now think our whole system is on the verge of disaster because some Russian’s going to tap into the voting system,” Kemp, a Republican, told POLITICO in an interview. “And that’s just not — I mean, anything is possible, but it is not probable at all, the way our systems are set up.” I think the Russians are a serious threat, but the power and the responsibility should still reside with the states. Somebody needs to actually, you know, read the Constitution.

In an earlier interview with NextGov, Kemp warned: “The question remains whether the federal government will subvert the Constitution to achieve the goal of federalizing elections under the guise of security.” Trust, me they will… Obama has nothing to lose and he’s setting the stage for Clinton. Kemp sees a “clear motivation from this White House” to expand federal control, citing Obama’s healthcare law, the Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation and the increased role of the Education Department in local schools.

Kemp is far from alone. Election officials in other states are now ringing the alarm bells as loudly as they can, but it is hard to be heard in a media vacuum that squelches your voice. Many election officials see the classification of their election systems as critical infrastructure as the first stage of a more intrusive plan. They are not wrong here.

“I think it’s kind of the nose under the tent,” said Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos, who is a Democrat. “What I think a lot of folks get concerned about [is] when the federal government says, ‘Well, look, we’re not really interested in doing that, but we just want to give you this,’ and then all of a sudden this leads to something else.” Oh, you bet it does.

“Elections have always been run and organized by the states,” said Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill, another Democrat. “And I think there has always been a fear that there would be federal intervention that would not recognize differences among the states.” Yes, there has and rightly so. Things are so whacked out, I’m now agreeing with Democrats. SMH. Merrill went on to say that having this kind of rhetoric this close to a major election is not helpful. That’s an understatement.

This kind of thing makes you paranoid. First you worry that the Russians are rigging the election for one of the candidates. Then you worry that the feds are just waiting to pounce on an excuse to make our elections utterly meaningless. This gives either candidate fodder to claim if they lose, that everything was rigged.

Bruce McConnell, a former DHS deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity under Obama, outright rejected Kemp’s suggestion that states should fear greater federal involvement in elections. “I think it’s pretty clear today which is the greater risk to the republic: citizens losing complete confidence in our election system, or the states working carefully with Washington to prevent disaster while keeping the 10th Amendment well in mind,” said McConnell, now the global vice president at the EastWest Institute. He was referring to the Bill of Rights provision that declares limits on federal authority. Which is exactly what the feds are trying to nullify and subvert.

A number of lawmakers from both parties have urged the administration to improve cyber-protections for parties, political groups and election offices. So did a bipartisan group of security experts from the Aspen Institute, who said in July that “voting processes and results must receive security akin to that we expect for critical infrastructure.” Right, yes… the Aspen Institute, which is a Progressive Marxist front. Of course they would be for this.

Johnson said on Aug. 3rd that DHS “should carefully consider” the critical infrastructure question. Twelve days later, he held a conference call with state election officials in which he discussed a possible role for Washington. Kemp was not happy with this and again, I don’t blame him. He found it troubling. Agreed. He also pointed out that it all has to do with the definition of ‘critical infrastructure’. Again correct… they are controlling the language here, so it gives the feds a foot in the door.

The White House is now coming forward and claiming that Kemp and others who are concerned about the constitutional implications of this are wrong about the law. “The concern about … ‘we’ll be designated as critical infrastructure and then we’re going to be regulated’ is just based on a false premise,” said the former official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. The official instead argued the benefits of this fascist move.

Kemp was unmoved by these word games and argued that it was clear during Johnson’s conference call with state election officials that a regulatory push “was obviously something that had been in the works.” “Everybody that was on that call was in lockstep with Secretary Johnson,” he added. On that same call, state officials accepted the offer to create an election cybersecurity partnership committee. Careful folks… that looks a lot like political candy to me.

Say it with me… TOTALITARIANISM. That’s what this amounts to. To federalize voting is to strip the states and voting Americans of that power and hand it to the government.

Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible. Totalitarian regimes stay in political power through an all-encompassing propaganda campaign, which is disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, a single party that is often marked by political repression, personality cultism, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of speech, mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror. A distinctive feature of totalitarian governments is an “elaborate ideology, a set of ideas that gives meaning and direction to the whole society.”