Long ago (think Nixon Southern strategy days) there was a fiendishly clever way to rob voters of their votes. It involved organizing a "voter registration drive" usually in a poor or minority areas. The drive's promoters would collect voter registration applications from the citizens in that area and assure them that the drive's organizers would see that they were properly filed with the correct Board of Elections.
Instead, they would throw them down some sewer.
The would be voter would show up on Election Day to find out that his name was not in the book and he was not eligible to vote. So, although the voter could later apply to vote, for THAT cycle at least, the voter's vote had been stolen from him.
This led to rules that require, sometimes upon pain of criminal prosecution, voter registration drives to turn in every single application it collects, even if it has a good faith reason to believe the application is defective--such as an application by Mickey Mouse.
Now you know why ACORN is turning in funky applications, because it is required to do so--but I digress.
Once again, persons of ill will have found a way to rob voters of their registrations. This time, it involves falsely registering people to the Republican party without their knowledge or consent.
Dozens of newly minted Republican voters say they were duped into joining the party by a GOP contractor with a trail of fraud complaints stretching across the country.
Voters contacted by The Times said they were tricked into switching parties while signing what they believed were petitions for tougher penalties against child molesters. Some said they were told that they had to become Republicans to sign the petition, contrary to California initiative law. Others had no idea their registration was being changed.
Why would they do that you ask?
The firm, which a Republican Party spokesman said is paid $7 to $12 for each registration it secures, has denied any wrongdoing and says it has never been charged with a crime.
The 70,000 voters YPM has registered for the Republican Party this year will help combat the public perception that it is struggling amid Democratic gains nationally, give a boost to fundraising efforts and bolster member support for party leaders, political strategists from both parties say.
Here's the scoop, enthusiasm for the Obama candidacy has caused overwhelming numbers of new Dems to register. My own beloved Nassau County, Long Island went from red to blue a week or so ago for the first time in a generation. The GOP has nothing to answer that, except cheating.
Another report of Republican-related voter registration problems surfaces in California.
Yesterday the Los Angeles Times reported on the Republican voter registration outfit who had allegedly been illegally changing thousands of registrations from Democratic to Republican.
Last night the head of that GOP backed group, Mark Anthony Jacoby of Young Political Majors (YPM), was arrested by the California State Election Fraud Taskforce and the Oxnard Police.
According to California Secretary of State Debra Bowen's press release, Jacoby himself had committed voter registration fraud and perjury by lying on his own voter registration form. (That's similar to what Ann Coulter did, though she not only committed felony voter registration fraud, she also committed actual voter fraud, as well, even though such fraud is exceedingly rare.)
It was my pleasure to break this story today on Fox "News" of all places! Thanks to VotersUnite! editor John Gideon for getting it posted as I was on the roll towards the studio. I'll have the video up of my appearance on Fox, and the "Fox News Alert" I was able to do, later tonight.
Please note, this isn't the first time there have been serious problems with GOP-gathered voter registrations in CA, as outlined recently at Alternet. Looks like the GOP's voter registration record for errors far outpaced ACORN!
Whaddaya know?
Ireland Says No Major Problems With Early Voting. True?
"There's no conspiracy here, absolutely none," according to Secretary of State Betty Ireland when it comes to reported early voting problems in Jackson and Putnam counties.
A few voters say the touch screen machines didn't correctly record their votes. They say they voted Democrat, but the machines said Republican. County clerks in both counties say hundreds of other voters have cast ballots with no problems and the situation could be due to voter error.
Ireland says the machines are not programmed by the clerks or by her office, but by the firm Casto & Harris, "who has been working with clerks for 35 years in West Virginia to handle our election matters," she said.
A representative of the machine vendor will visit both counties to check out the machines according to Ireland.
The secretary of state says there's heightened awareness and excitability with this election. "We just want folks to settle down and help be part of the solution," Ireland said.
She advises voters to ask for help if they get a machine that doesn't appear to be working correctly. She says it's also okay to cancel a ballot and switch machines.
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