Are Somali Pirates Voting in Ohio?

Originally posted on American Thinker. blog

Finally, the billy club-toting New Black Panther Party may have some backup in ensuring that Barack Obama wins a second term.  Why? Because it looks like a few Somali pirates may have managed to sneak past Janet Napolitano and are now in Ohio to assist the Democrats in moving America “Forward.”

Allegedly, volunteer poll workers in the Buckeye state reported seeing “van loads of Ohio residents born in Somalia” being ferried in to vote early.  Once at the polls, in lieu of Republican translators and UN poll watchers, the Democrats themselves were providing Somali/Arabic translation.  Seems the Obama campaign is getting out the vote by teaching Somali immigrants the ins and outs of the voting process.

Witnesses at the Columbus, Ohio Morse Road polling center reported Somalis arriving in buses, being handed a slate card, and being told by helpful Democrats to vote “brown,” for Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), all the way down the card.

On Ohio’s website, the Somali Community Association lists the following facts: 45,000 Somalis live in Ohio; 99.9 percent are Muslim; 40 percent have become U.S. citizens; and 57 percent are eligible to become U.S. citizens, emphasis on the “eligible” part.

Ohio law does require voters to provide proof of citizenship by presenting a utility bill or writing down a Social Security or driver’s license number and then checking a box. However, other than those three items, there is no other way to verify that the person doing the voting is a bona fide citizen of the United States.  Moreover, most poll workers tend to just take voters at their word.

Matt McClellan, press secretary for Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, explained, “There is a process to challenge a voter’s eligibility.” One problem – “the point in time for a challenge to be brought ended mid October” – too late!   According to Mr. McClellan, up until mid October “a poll worker could challenge a voter if they had questions as to whether or not they were registered or eligible to vote.”  However, if Democrats choose to forego raising the eligibility issue with, let’s say, busloads of Somali voters, then any illegal Somali votes will still be counted on Election Day.

Nonetheless, being a global citizen and all, regardless of the ensuing crisis Barack Obama has consistently attempted to maintain a spirit of camaraderie with the Muslim world, and that world includes Somalia.

For example, just a few months after Barack Obama’s momentous inauguration, Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden commandeered the American merchant ship Maersk Alabama, taking Captain Richard Phillips hostage at gunpoint.  Yet, during that crisis, President Obama acted sort of like a blasé Democrat poll worker.

In the midst of the crisis, while meeting with beleaguered homeowners at the White House seeking help from Obama to refinance their mortgages, a reporter asked the President if he was concerned about the ongoing piracy situation.  Declining to comment publicly, Obama admonished reporters when he said, “Guys, we’re talking about housing right now.”

Ultimately, Phillips was rescued when U.S. Navy SEALs peeled off two shots from 75 feet away, killing two AK-47-toting thugs.

Then, a couple of years after the 2009 Somali pirate incident, four American Christian missionaries, peacefully sailing the world distributing Bibles, were hijacked and held hostage off the coast of Somalia and were later killed by their pirate captors.  That tragedy incited a firefight with U.S. Navy warships, which was one of many that followed.

Speaking of the U.S. Navy, in 1993 Navy SEALs were in Somalia for the Battle of Mogadishu. Seventy-three members of the U.S. military were wounded and 18 died.  That was when “Masked gunmen dragged slain soldiers through the streets of Somalia’s capital … then set the bodies on fire as jeering crowds threw rocks and kicked the dead after a fierce battle in a neighborhood loyal to Islamic insurgents.”

Who would have thought that almost 20 years later some of the Somalis who may have jeered as the American soldiers’ burnt and desecrated bodies were being dragged naked through the streets of Mogadishu could be among those voting in the swing state of Ohio?

And so it seems that with nary a whisper of apprehension concerning potential election fraud from the Obama White House, Ohio Democrats have decided to emulate Somali pirates and attempt to hijack the election.

Lacking only motorboats, loaded AK-47’s and colorful headscarves, Democrat poll pirates right there in Columbus, Ohio attempted to seize and take hostage a Mitt Romney campaign bus carrying Republicans arriving to vote. That’s right, at the same polling site where busloads of Somalis voted Brown all the way to the bottom of the card, when a Mitt Romney bus pulled up “30 Democrats who were outside handing out the slate cards rushed over to the bus… yelled … and swarmed around its door when anyone attempted to exit the bus.”

Just wait – in the end, if the race in Ohio remains this close and voter piracy is exposed, when asked to comment about droves of Somali immigrants being bussed in to vote, Barack Obama will likely say something very similar to what he said during another Somali crisis: “Guys, we’re talking about Big Bird right now.”