Second Term - A Novel of America in the Last Days (The End of America Series Book 1) Read Free Page B

its
pre-selected location in late October and would then be ready for voting on
election day. The first voter would have no idea that he or she was voting on a
machine in which the top race had already been decided, at least on this small
part of America’s voting grid. Mike looked around the room and mentally
calculated what these margins would mean, multiplied by over four hundred
machines, assuming they were all similarly pre-voted. But were they?
    Mike pulled out two
more machines, at random, and quickly confirmed his worst fears. All had been
manipulated to give large, varying margins for the incumbent President. He
realized that when one added the normal St. Louis voting imbalance for the
President’s party, that this would be a vote of historic proportions. The
margins from the City would clearly overcome the more rural areas of Missouri,
throwing the State’s electors into the President’s column and helping to propel
him towards a second term.
    Mike recognized that
the only way that the pre-cast votes could be caught before the voting started
was by the employees who worked in his office, the very persons who had
exclusive access to the machines. The voting machines would be delivered to the
various polling locations, and then checked by his fellow election officials to
be sure the machines were ready for votes to be cast. The election officials
merely had to initial a one page form attesting that the machines bore no votes
at the beginning of voting, and were thus ready to vote. No one else would, or
could, look at the total vote counter on the machine to confirm a clear machine,
with all counters set at zero, before voting started. Classic vote fraud. Right
before his eyes.
    With a sinking heart,
Mike Chapel knew that he would have to go to the media – and, as a consequence,
his job would soon be terminated Great, he thought, an economy with increasing
unemployment, and I go and get myself fired. Brilliant. He took several pictures
with his cell phone of the jiggered voting machines, including serial numbers, locked
them back up and replaced each where they had been when he first entered the
room. As he left the building, Mike called his brother, a lawyer in St. Louis,
who was an officer in the local Republican Party organization.
    “Jim….Mike….We need
to talk….Not on our cell phones. Meet me at Panera Bread, the one near your
house….In a half hour. This is important. No….I can’t tell you now….No….I
haven’t been arrested….Not yet….anyway.”
    The following Tuesday
Mike Chapel held a well-attended media conference arranged by his brother, on
the steps of City Hall on Market Street, six blocks south of his election
offices. He disclosed his evidence of massive voting fraud planned for the
upcoming Presidential election. Missouri media gave lead item/front page
coverage to his allegations, which were then carried nationwide. Both national
political parties quickly issued statements decrying any fraud, or “attempts to
create fraud where none actually exits”, as the White House Press Secretary
phrased it. The spark lit at the media event soon led to the ignition of an
electoral tinderbox which had apparently just been waiting to burn.
    Three
days later, Mike Chapel was arrested and charged with various federal crimes,
including voter fraud, illegal manipulation of voting devices, interference
with a federal election, perjury, unlawful entry to governmental facilities and
hate crime defamation of public officials. His brother, Jim Chapel, was
arrested for conspiracy to commit the same crimes which his brother was accused
of committing. The U.S. District Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri
announced that the Department of Justice would prosecute the case against the
Chapels, at the same time releasing video pictures of Mike Chapel entering the
St. Louis Election Commissioners office late on the prior Saturday. The DA claimed
that the evidence would prove that Mike and Jim Chapel