STEALING The Election

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-01-2004
STEALING The Election
45
Thu, 10-09-2008 - 8:39am

CLEVELAND - Two Ohio voters, including Domino's pizza worker Christopher Barkley , claimed yesterday that they were hounded by the community-activist group ACORN to register to vote several times, even though they made it clear they'd already signed up.


Barkley estimated he'd registered to vote "10 to 15" times after canvassers for ACORN, whose political wing has endorsed Barack Obama, relentlessly pursued him and others.


Claims such as his have sparked election officials to probe ACORN.


"I kept getting approached by folks who asked me to register," Barkley said. "They'd ask me if I was registered. I'd say yes, and they'd ask me to do it again.



"Some of them were getting paid to collect names. That was their sob story, and I bought it," he said.


Barkley is one of at least three people who have been subpoenaed by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections as part of a wider inquiry into possible voter fraud by ACORN. The group seeks to register low-income voters, who skew overwhelmingly Democratic.


"You can tell them you're registered as many times as you want - they do not care," said Lateala Goins, 21, who was subpoenaed.


"They will follow you to the buses, they will follow you home, it does not matter," she told The Post.


She added that she never put down an address on any of the registration forms, just her name.


A third subpoenaed voter, Freddie Johnson, 19, filled out registration cards 72 times over 18 months, officials said.


"It feeds the public perception that there could be , and that makes the pillars fall down," said local Board of Elections President Jeff Hastings.


Registering under a fake name is illegal. But officials usually catch multiple registrations and toss them.


The major risk of fraud growing out of mass canvassing involves the possibility of ineligible voters filing absentee ballots, and thus avoiding checks at polling places, said Republican National Committee chief counsel Sean Cairncross.


The subpoenas come as Republicans have ramped up criticism of ACORN. Officials in Nevada raided ACORN's Las Vegas office Tuesday, accusing the group of signing people up multiple times - in some cases under phony names, like those of Dallas Cowboys.


ACORN's Cleveland spokesman, Kris Harsh, said his group collected 100,000 voter-registration cards; only about 50 were questionable, he claimed.


As for workers, "We watch them like a hawk," he said.


jeane.macintosh@nypost.com


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Thu, 10-09-2008 - 8:44am
wow

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-08-2008
Thu, 10-09-2008 - 8:52am

I don't know what state you live in, but in most of them, only the most recent registration counts. And, as long as the people registering multiple times aren't trying to do so at different addresses, they can only vote once, anyway. If the same "James Q. Peabody" registers fourteen times at the same address over the course of a month, only ONE "James Q. Peabody" from 1234 Jerkwater Street will be on the voting rolls, come election day.

Should MORE than one "James Q. Peabody" be listed at any one address, it would make the poll workers, who have both an address-based and an alphabetical list of voters notice that there was more than one...because you could see them all, one right after the other. If anything, this would almost certainly make it LESS likely that James Q. Peabody would be allowed to cast a normal ballot, since the poll workers would ask whether there was a father and son, etc, living together at the same residence. When they found out this was NOT the case, they'd likely make the one person cast a provisional ballot (which are often discarded unless the election is close), or let the FIRST "James Q. Peabody" vote....but not anyone else coming to vote under the same name. The net effect of this would probably be either nil or actually AGAINST greater voter turnout.

I know this because I have worked both as a poll worker and as a voter-registration drive worker at various different times. The people who register others to vote are often paid on a per-signature basis....and so they've definitely got incentive, if they're unscrupulous individuals, to register "I. P. Freely" or "Bart Simpson" (and fake the signature), or to register a REAL person "again, just to be sure," because THEY want the $1 per registration or whatever they're being paid. But, as I said - if it's a real person, re-registering at the same address doesn't change anything on the voter rolls, and if they re-registered at a DIFFERENT address, they wouldn't be allowed to vote at the previous address anymore. And if the people registering voters are simply faking cards in order to get paid, then there won't be anyone named "I. P. Freely" showing up to vote from 1234 Jerkwater lane anyway.

This is simply bullroar, drummed up by the right wing. Not that I think there aren't unscrupulous individuals out there doing voter registration, just like there are unscrupulous individuals at, say, Bear Stearns or Lehman or AIG, LOL....only that (since they have to affix their own names to registrations they collect, in most states) it is a low-level crime for which THEY are solely responsible, and for which THEY will pay whatever small penalty is involved, rather than some massive, subterranean evidence of "voter fraud." That' just right-wing paranoia and hooey.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-07-2008
Thu, 10-09-2008 - 9:14am

No I am sorry you are incorrect here.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Thu, 10-09-2008 - 9:18am

But this is ok, right???


: Advanced








AP
Report: Voter purges in 6 states may violate law



Thu Oct 9, 1:07 AM ET



NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of eligible voters have been removed from rolls or blocked from registering in at least six swing states, and the voters' exclusion appears to violate federal law, according to a published report.






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The New York Times based its findings on reviews of state records and Social Security data.


The Times said voters appear to have been purged by mistake and not because of any intentional violations by election officials or coordinated efforts by any party.


States have been trying to follow the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by removing the names of voters who should no longer be listed. But for every voter added to the rolls in the past two months in some states, election officials have removed two, a review of the records shows.


The newspaper said it identified apparent problems in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina. It says some states are improperly using Social Security data to verify new voters' registration applications, and others may have broken rules that govern removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election.


Democrats have been more aggressive at registering new voters this year, according to state election officials, so any closer screening of new applications may affect their party's supporters disproportionately, the Times said.


The result is that on Election Day, voters who have been removed from the rolls could show up and be challenged by political party officials or election workers.


The six states seem to have violated federal law in two ways. Some are removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election, which is not allowed except when voters die, notify the authorities that they have moved out of state, or have been declared unfit to vote.


And some of the states are improperly using Social Security data to verify registration applications for new voters, the newspaper reported.


"Just as voting machines were the major issue that came out of the 2000 presidential election and provisional ballots were the big issue from 2004, voter registration and these statewide lists will be the top concern this year," said Daniel P. Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University.


iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2008
Thu, 10-09-2008 - 9:23am

They asked the "registrants" ONLY to provide their names and signature. NO ADDRESS. Then ACORN puts down addresses where they can illegally receive the registrations and ask for absentee ballots. This is widespread FRAUD.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-25-2008
Thu, 10-09-2008 - 9:25am

Note in your post:


The Times said voters appear to have been purged by mistake and not because of any intentional violations by election officials or coordinated efforts by any party.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2006
Thu, 10-09-2008 - 10:22am

Can a felony ever be considered a "low level crime".



iVillage Member
Registered: 10-08-2008
Thu, 10-09-2008 - 11:06am

OK, so who is going to actually go VOTE in this person's name? The person him/herself? How would they know to do that, if the signature-gatherers aren't even filling in the address, SSN, etc, until after they leave the voter behind? If the voter is just printing and signing his name, how would (s)he know where to go vote all seventeen times?

You think they're keeping all these registrations in a database somewhere, so that on election day, a bunch of ACORN staffers (and there's not that many of 'em in any given office) can all run around all over the city to different polling places, voting hundreds of times each?

Or, perhaps, is it a case of individual signature gatherers putting nonsense on a voter reg card so that they can get paid a few extra bucks, and these "junk" registrations will either lie fallow, or get caught as invalid at the registrar? From the signature-gatherer's perspective, as soon as they get their cash-out, it's a done deal. They don't care, as long as no one in the office catches on to the fact that they've put 123-45-6789 as a SSN. As long as it's not obviously fraudulent to a cursory glance, they're gonna get paid.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2008
Thu, 10-09-2008 - 11:10am
They are filling in THEIR OWN addresses so that they can request an absentee ballot. VOTER FRAUD. And yes, there ARE many, many of them who are able to carry out this fraud. They don't have to run around to different polling places, simply mail in the absentee ballots.
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-08-2008
Thu, 10-09-2008 - 11:14am
Uh, sure it can. That's why states classify felonies by class. Class A felonies are things like murder, etc. It varies from state to state, but for example, in Wisconsin, it runs all the way down through Class D, F, all the way past Class H to Class I. Want to know what qualifies for a Class I felony? According to this law firm in Wisconsin, in the case of theft....

If the value of the money, funds, credits, securities, assets, property, proceeds from sale, or loan does not exceed $500.00, then the theft can be charged as a Class A misdemeanor, unless the person was previously convicted of a misdemeanor or felony for trespass, theft, possession of items to commit a burglary, unauthorized release of animals or wire fraud, then a Class I felony.


Did you get that? Less than $500 is a class A misdemeanor, UNLESS the convicted person has had a previous misdemeanor conviction for something as minor as "unauthorized release of animals" (or another misdemeanor theft charge), then it becomes a Class I felony. In other words, a nineteen-year-old who's twice gotten caught swiping a bag of chips from the corner liquor store....is guilty of a felony. And that's just one example.

Low level crime? I report, you decide.

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