Wash. Post reported that McCain campaign manager warned of "rampant voter fraud," but not that illegal votes are almost never cast
SUMMARY: The Washington Post quoted McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' claim that reports of investigations into ACORN have suggested "rampant voter fraud as it relates to voter registration." But the Post did not point out that actual instances of illegal votes cast as a result of registration fraud, e.g., using false names, are extremely rare. Federal statistics show that between October 2002 and September 2005, the Justice Department charged 95 people with "election fraud" and convicted 55, of whom only 17 were convicted for casting fraudulent ballots.
In an October 18 Washington Post article, staff writers Robert Barnes and Mary Pat Flaherty quoted McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' claim that reports of investigations into the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) have suggested "rampant voter fraud as it relates to voter registration." But in reporting Davis' remark, Barnes and Flaherty did not point out that actual instances of illegal votes cast as a result of registration fraud, e.g., using false names, are extremely rare. Indeed, following Sen. John McCain's assertion during the October 15 presidential debate that ACORN is "on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy," the Post's Alec MacGillis noted in a "Live Fact Check" of the debate: "[T]here is a difference between submitting bogus forms and actual voter fraud. It is not voter fraud until someone shows up at the polls pretending to be [Dallas Cowboys quarterback] Tony Romo or Mickey Mouse and tries to vote. And there is no evidence yet of a wholesale push to send people to the polls under bogus names."
Indeed, U.S. Department of Justice crime statistics cast doubt on the existence of widespread voter fraud. According to a report by the Justice Department's Criminal Division on prosecutions between October 2002 and September 2005, the Justice Department charged 95 people with "election fraud" and convicted 55. Among those, however, just 17 individuals were convicted for casting fraudulent ballots; cases against three other individuals were pending at the time of the report. Further, on April 12, 2007, The New York Times reported, "Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews."
Additionally, a 2007 report titled "The Truth About Voter Fraud" by New York University's Brennan Center for Justice stated: "[W]e are aware of no recent substantiated case in which registration fraud has resulted in fraudulent votes being cast":
There have been several documented and widely publicized instances in which registration forms have been fraudulently completed and submitted. But it is extraordinarily difficult to find reported cases in which individuals have submitted registration forms in someone else's name in order to impersonate them at the polls. Furthermore, most reports of registration fraud do not actually claim that the fraud happens so that ineligible people can vote at the polls. Indeed, we are aware of no recent substantiated case in which registration fraud has resulted in fraudulent votes being cast.
From Barnes and Flaherty's October 18 article:
In a conference call, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said the reports about investigations of the community organizing group ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) suggested "rampant voter fraud as it relates to voter registration."
During the debate, Davis said, [Sen. Barack] Obama had a chance to clarify his associations with ACORN but chose instead to "create a fog around the issue by not taking the opportunity to spell out his historical relations" with the group.
Davis then went on to say that on Election Day "and the day after," people have to be able to believe that they had "a fair and honest election" and that the person they chose "seems not to have a cloud hanging over this election." He later said that "when John McCain gets elected president," the party wanted to be sure the election process was the best it could be.
For the past two weeks, the RNC has steadily ratcheted up its response to the ACORN voter registration drives, sending out seven media advisories before Wednesday's debate questioning tactics used in ACORN registration drives.
In a conference call this week, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Republicans' ACORN attacks are part of "pulling out their old playbook."
"I think what they're doing right now is a form of intimidation, which is to raise a lot of questions out there, create a lot of confusion, and I think it's in the interest of trying to intimidate voters," he said.
The Democrats called for their own investigation.
Robert F. Bauer, the Obama campaign's general counsel, asked Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey to expand a special prosecutor's investigation to include a leak about the FBI investigating ACORN on suspicion of voter fraud.
The only thing "Rampant" is John McCain's hysteria.
How can anyone even consider voting this paranoid and his prom queen?
Yeah, but they're just like you and me, and will keep that socialist from taking office...
McCain and the republican party are doing everything they can to pit us against each other. Nancy PuffnStuff segregated Virginia into real and fake parts; Palin implied that parts of America are anti-American; and Bachmann-McCarthy lumped Democrats, Liberals and anti-Americans together and called for a witch hunt. Even if McCain were to win, how does he expect to govern in this divisive atmosphere he is creating.
If, God forbid, Gramps and the moose killer win, there will be two types of Americans, patriots and suspects.
Guess which ones we'll be.
or even plumbers and suspects !!!
Privatizing patriots and socializing suspects.
When Obama wins, it will be at least 4 years of faux news fomenting hate and right wing propaganda. These cretins will not roll over or become rational. They need to do what a bacterial infection does, die off so the patient (America, reality and truth) can make a come back and heal.
They know McCain is going to lose in a landslide, and are working in advance to cast doubt on Obama's victory. The margin will be too great for them to cheat their way to victory as they did in 2000 and 2004, so they want to start now with accusations of Democratic fraud.
Maybe they can get the Supreme Court to throw out all those newly registered voters.
Or they can get electronic voting machines to illegally flip votes, because that kind of voter fraud is OK to republicans.
http://www.sundaygazettemail.com/News/200810180251
Republicans seem to engage in all types of voter fraud:
* * * * * * * * * *
Republican Voter Registration Chief Arrested for Fraud in California
The head of a signature-gathering firm hired by the California Republican Party was arrested over the weekend for allegedly lying about his address to to vote in the state.
Monday, October 20, 2008
The head of a voter registration group hired by the California Republican Party was arrested over the weekend for allegedly lying about his address in the state in order to vote illegally, the office of California's secretary of state announced Sunday.
Mark Anthony Jacoby, the owner of a signature-gathering firm called Young Political Majors, was taken into custody by Ontario police just after midnight Saturday and booked with a felony punishable by up to three years in prison.
Jacoby allegedly registered himself at his childhood home in Los Angeles, even though he no longer lives there. It is voter fraud to register if ineligible and perjury to provide false information on a voter registration card. Jacoby was charged with two counts of each relating to his 2006 and 2007 registration.
"Voter registration fraud is a serious issue, which is why I vigorously investigate all allegations of elections fraud," said Bowen, California's chief elections officer. "Where there's a case to be made, I will forward it to law enforcement for criminal prosecution."
<more>
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/20/republican-voter-registration-chief-arrested-fraud-california/
Having worked in a public library, where as one of our services we registered people to vote, I know of which I speak. We issued the forms, collected them and then sent them into the county election office, it was not up to us to dispute or decide which ones to send in. I wish these so called educated reporters would attempt to be accurate for once in their lives. It is not voter fraud till someone attempts to vote under misleading information, i.e. bogus name or in Ann Coulter's case the wrong address. Now it can be called registration fraud but maybe someone did change their name to Mickey Mouse, it is not up to the person collecting the form to make that decision, it is up to the Board of Electors in that county. Like everything else bandied about by the Republicans it will prove to be much ado about nothing.
Right...we only submit bogus voter registrations to spend leftover tax funds budgeted for this activity so next year's budgets will not be reduced. You know the game...use it or lose it. We really don't have any intentions of actually letting these votes be counted. It's just something we do for fun. Some people just have too much time on their hands. The illegals involved are just practicing for when they become naturalized, legitimate citizens.
Next thing you know, voter fraud only becomes a felony if the candidate for whom the bogus ballot was cast actually wins the election. Then, and only then can the perpetrator be prosecuted. Give me a break! "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck."
In the last election in Houston 4000 dead people voted. Is that legal?
In the last election in Houston 4000 dead people voted. Is that legal?
That's not what happened. Here's the story, according to a Houston TV station:
Texas Watchdog compared Harris County's voter registration roll with the Social Security death index and found more than 4,000 matches -- registered voters that, it appears, are already dead.
And a few of these people appear to have voted after they died - probably because someone used their SSN when THEY registered to vote.
Further down in the story is the following information:
The State Auditor's Office conducted an audit of the voter registration system at the Secretary of State's Office last November.
Auditors identified 49,049 registered voters state-wide who may have been ineligible to vote. Approximately 23,576 may have been deceased and another 23,114 were possible felons. And they found more than 2,359 duplicate records.
The auditor did not find any instances in which potentially ineligible voters actually voted, but they wrote, "Although the Secretary of State's office has processes to identify many ineligible voters and remove them from the State's voter registration list, improvements can be made."
http://www.click2houston.com/investigates/17671375/detail.html
In other words, sloppy record keeping, but no bog, bad conspiracy to commit voter fraud.
I like the claims by some of the right leaning posters here how it's about voting legally. No one here has an issue with that, but do take issue with the fact that republicans illegally purge voters, cage votes, illegally forcing legal voters into casting provisional ballots which rarely get counted, and all the other corrupt practices republicans undertake to keep people from voting.
Thanks John McCain for all you do for this great country of ours...
Hate You Can Believe In: ACORN Deluged with Threatening and Racist Voicemails and Emails
By Josh | October 18, 2008 - 9:42pmIt’s bad enough that the employees of ACORN have had to endure days of baseless and outlandish attacks by John McCain and the RNC. But after McCain outrageously claimed before a national audience on Wednesday night that ACORN was “maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy,” the group came under attack, literally. In the following days, ACORN’s Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized and at least one employee received a death threat.
And for nearly two weeks, ACORN offices across the nation have been subjected to an onslaught of racist and threatening voicemails and emails. We have secured copies of some of the most disturbing and offensive messages and have reproduced them below in order to show the very real consequences of the Right Wing’s overheated and misplaced “voter fraud” rhetoric.
Warning: the emails and voicemails below are highly explicit and have only been edited to remove personally identifying information. Please also note that, where relevant, the proper authorities have been notified.
I have to link the rest, because you're gonna see and hear a whole lotta the n word...
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/hate-you-can-believe-acorn-deluged-threatening-and-racist-voicemails-and-emails
I don't know if I can thank you for this, Snoopy, though I saw it earlier. Do you feel the fear I feel?
Wow. I bet the low-lifes who wrote those e-mails all consider themselves to be "good Christians", too.....
Um, who is doing "everything they can to pit us against eachother?"
Any more obviously staged shots you want to share with us? Any of you clowns realize that halloween is right around the corner? Any of you have an ounce of humor left in your bodies?
I've seen so many "Grampy McCain" scarecrows I've lost count. I don't have a digital camera or I'd post some here- except I wouldn't, because I have a sense of humor. Get off your sorry persecution horse and go buy one, please.
Lynching a blackman in effigy is equivilent to becoming a scarecrow by effigy.
Computer says nah.
ACORN could register a gazillion fake people, and it wouldn't change the results of all the polling which says McCain is further behind than any victor since the late 1940s, when the modern polling era began.
I am scared as HELL! The "Swift Boaters", both mini and maxi are jacking up the hate and lie machines to steal this election, too. The main reason I am so damn scared is the knowledge that there ARE millions of MORONS who are happy to believe that Obama is a Muslim extremist and anti-american. Thanks to Sarah and her drooling mobs we now have the makings of SERIOUSLY out-of-control people from certain parts of the country. The truth means nothing to them when emotion is the ONLY driving force. McCain and Palin represent a country that is nothing like the America I know and love. My paranoia includes the MSM that aids and abets, either by stupidity or on purpose, a divisive climate over the land. The "voter fraud" bull is but another right-wing ploy to deny large numbers of voters the right to cast a ballot in November. Shame!
Hey Maddog, I know you're not really scared. Even though you're a black man who's close to the 3/4 century mark( if I've got my facts straight), these idiots are the last gasp of the hardcore conservative base,and even if their number is in the millions, there's hardly a testicle in the entire group.
They will vote, those tha can leave the house, and those that live until November, but most of them are insane dittoheads whose nurses will sedate them om election day.
You're right, they are a mob of morons voting on emotion and fear,but I don't think most of them are capable of doing anything beyond calling Rush Limbaugh and mailing angry letters to their local newspaper.
Hate to bust yo' bubble, bubbela, but I is a old white bastid who still don't truss them nut-cakes who, as you said, lissen to Russ Limberger and such. You seem to have far too much faith in the inability of trolls and wingnuts to crawl to the polls. When the chips are down (McGoo), they step up to da plate for the status quo.
I haven't seen anything from this Jason33. Thanks for the heads-up.
Another form of voter fraud targets student democratic associations, trying to infiltrate them and give them a bad name by association as Bill Ayers was tasked during the 60's.
The same coopting provocateur is dragged out by McCain's campaign to do the same dirtying of an uninvolved stalking victim Obama, victimized by the same lunatic in his early political career.
The preceding post is from the stoned virgin troll Jasonl33. Mommy will put him to bed soon. ignore.
We know Ann Coulter registered in two districts, on her own volition without ACORN stepping in. In my state during the hotly contested governor race of 2004, it was found convicted felons were voting without judges rescinding their voting rights after completion of the sentence. They also found a few votes from dead people which turned out toi have died after legally voting by mail. But I don't think it is rampant as Mr davis would like to whip it up.
Illegal votes are "almost never" cast? Oh, what was I worried about?
Elections are almost never stolen, either, so why do oversight? And I can't tell you how many times I stupidly buckled my seatbelt for a quick drive to the store, and you know, I've never been in an accident yet!
Illegal votes are "almost never" cast? Oh, what was I worried about?
Elections are almost never stolen, either, so why do oversight? And I can't tell you how many times I stupidly buckled my seatbelt for a quick drive to the store, and you know, I've never been in an accident yet!
It's one thing to regidster to vote as "Mickey Mouse". It's another thing to show up at the polling place with a driver's license or other photo ID that identifies you as "Mickey Mouse". That's why illegal votes are almost never cast.
And speaking as someone who is now disabled as the result of three motor vehicle accidents that were not my fault (including one that happened less than four miles from my home), please keep using your seat belt. Ever for the quick drive tot he store. You never know when you'll be sharing the road with a bad driver.
This whole story line is baloney.