It seems that the Dems are pretty desperate to maintain control of their seats... http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,65437,00.html
From the article: Federal sources said the key suspect in the investigation is a former staffer of the state Democratic Party, whom is alleged to have falsified voter forms. The party itself has not been implicated. Officials said that because of the size of the alleged fraud, they expect to find accomplices. Bret Healy, executive director of the state Democratic Party, said the worker was fired as soon as the party learned of the allegations. Healy said party officials notified the U.S. attorney. So much for a coordinated left-wing conspiracy.
This is likely the work of two brothers, and two really stupid brothers at that. Prosecute them, as they should be. But to insinuate that this is a massive Democratic Party conspiracy when Democrats and Republicans are working together to eliminate this type of fraud is pot/kettle territory.
Yeah, right, local party officials knew nothing about this. If you check other stories on this scandal it is apparent that the local Democratic Party will be implicated in the scam. Of course, it's no conspiracy at the national level. The Democratic Party is a fiefdom of local corrupt bureaucrats and party workers. This is a well-known fact, I'm not stating anything that's outside the obvious. Only soccer moms believe the Dem Party is pure from evil. Do the Republicans cheat in some districts? Oh, I'm sure they do but it is nowhere near the massive level of corruption and vote scams initiated by Democratic activists.
Those Democratic brothers just should have copied those Republican brothers...illegally close an overwhelmingly Reep precinct, illegally scrub thousands of Reeps from the voting rolls, have snafus at many Reep precincts. And then, if that's not enough, send suited thugs in to disrupt legitimate gvt. bodies trying to count votes. No need to reinvent the wheel, guys.
How'd that whole New Jersey thing work out for you guys? Fox News and Wall Street Opinion Journal - what, did Rush sleep in today? I wish I could remember the name of that wing-nut talk show host who called the Korean leader "Kim Jong the Second."
$12,000 paid to person in voter fraud probe By AP and Journal Staff The South Dakota Democratic Party reportedly paid the person at the center of a voter fraud investigation more than $12,000 in the last three months. The figure comes from Federal Election Commission records from July, August and September. They show that Becky Red Earth-Villeda received 18 paychecks totaling $12,867. The reason given for the money were administrative or voter drives. One check for $3,500 was credited to travel expenses. Democratic Party spokeswoman Sarah Feinberg said the contractors are paid by the number of voter registration cards and absentee ballots they collect.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/oct0203.html#101802241am Why am I surprised that this "fraud" business is a manufactured story? Oh, wait. I'm not.
For anyone who doesn't want to click on Dan's link, and/or is able to find another source with a different explanation... Here's what I gather. There are two different things. On the one hand, an unaffiliated group is working to register voters on Indian reservations, and there's apparently some fairly serious fraud. OTOH, the Dems have been caught in some pretty minor crap...the absentee ballot for a Eunice Taylor in one county ended up in another county for another Eunice Taylor. Until I read otherwise, this is a minor, innocent mistake. Reeps and some of their media whores are trying to conflate these two stories into massive Democratic fraud. What's interesting is that the TV station that has been pimping this story is in bed with the Thune campaign. In the case of one reporter, literally. Damn conservative, biased media. Again.
I love how Josh makes it seem as though only one TV station and some conservative columnists are "pimping" this story. For those keeping score at home: Democrats screw up voter registration drive in South Dakota - it's "minor". Republicans screw up voter registration drive at FAMU - massive GOP conspiracy.
Who's Josh? Did you read Dan's link? Obviously you didn't. What the Dems did is screw up something in "early voting." The voter registration problem is an independent advocacy group. And you also didn't read articles back then, either. What the Reeps did is close a precinct, so hundreds of students at an HBCU didn't vote, probably winning the election for Bush. (Remember, the Supremes voided the late handcounts because they were handcounts. There were a handful of counties where the number of votes was small, so they did the first recount by hand. Bush picked up ~300 votes in those counties, so that, given the Supreme Court's ruling, if it had come to it, Bush's margin would have been (IIRC) 137 votes. Something like that. And far fewer then the number of FAMU students who didn't vote.) WakeUp...it's a good idea to read links before commenting on them. When you don't do that, you look like a fool. That's Ian crap.
Josh is the name of the author. Did you read Dan's link? And Dems got to have the polls in St. Louis stay open later then they should have, thus garnerning more votes.
Dante covered this, but obviously, you didn't read the link. That's Joshua Micah Marshall's website. Duh. Yeah, "independent". The precinct was not closed. It opened late, and some FAMU students didn't get to vote because of that. Also, several FAMU students had their registrations f'd up, and were told that they had to vote in other counties or precincts. Try to keep your distortions straight. I'm reminded of a Wilco song. Anyone want to help me out?
Yeah, last week. I thought he was referring to me, because he attacked the author's words, without providing any evidence/links to support that attack. There's a difference between breaking the law and not breaking the law.
Are you sure about that? I'll admit if I'm wrong, but I coulda sworn that there was a specific precinct for the campus, it was closed, and the registrations transferred to the nearest precinct. But 1) you can't do that in VRA states without pre-clearance 2) alot of the registration transfers were snafued Were those who were moved told? I want to say they were not, but I'm not so sure about that. I'm listening to Mermaid Avenue as I write.
The issue in STL in 2000 was what to do with hundreds of people who were on line, waiting to vote, when the polls officially "closed". There is precedent for letting those people vote. Would you have preferred them to shut the doors when people showed up on time and couldn't get in due to not their desire but a poor beauracracy?
Yes, he would have. They were all coloreds. They should be happy we freed them. They're all uppity, wanting functioning polling places.