Republican plan to disrupt voting

[White knight]

A BBC investigation points to a Republican plan to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts.

It also uncovered secret filming of voters and voter registration forms being forged. Greg Palast reports from Florida.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_3950000/newsid_3957100/nb_wm_3957141.stm

A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.

Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".

It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."

Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.

Mass challenges

They may then only vote "provisionally" after signing an affidavit attesting to their legal voting status.

Mass challenges have never occurred in Florida. Indeed, says Mr Sancho, not one challenge has been made to a voter "in the 16 years I've been supervisor of elections."

"Quite frankly, this process can be used to slow down the voting process and cause chaos on election day; and discourage voters from voting."

Sancho calls it "intimidation." And it may be illegal.


A Republican spokeswoman did not deny that voters would be challenged at polling stations
In Washington, well-known civil rights attorney, Ralph Neas, noted that US federal law prohibits targeting challenges to voters, even if there is a basis for the challenge, if race is a factor in targeting the voters.

The list of Jacksonville voters covers an area with a majority of black residents.

When asked by Newsnight for an explanation of the list, Republican spokespersons claim the list merely records returned mail from either fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to verify their addresses for purposes of mailing campaign literature.

Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher stated the list was not put together "in order to create" a challenge list, but refused to say it would not be used in that manner.

Rather, she did acknowledge that the party's poll workers will be instructed to challenge voters, "Where it's stated in the law."

There was no explanation as to why such clerical matters would be sent to top officials of the Bush campaign in Florida and Washington.

Private detective


Democrat Congresswoman Corinne Brown says watches a private investigator film voters
In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows.

The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services.

On the scene, Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimidate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm


It worked once why not try it agian?

 

[dilloduck]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_3950000/newsid_3957100/nb_wm_3957141.stm


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm


It worked once why not try it agian?

Garbage---you better stick with the missing explosive story

 

[Democrat4Bush]

Democrat Congresswoman Corinne Brown

There goes all credibility right there.

The lady is a moonbat.

Part I: Rep. Corrine Brown - running on a record of fraud

In just seven years in Congress, Rep. Corrine Brown has eluded creditors, filed false financial disclosure reports and lied to the Internal Revenue Service.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/Aug1999/081699/criminalclass1-081699.htm

 

[no1tovote4]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_3950000/newsid_3957100/nb_wm_3957141.stm


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm


It worked once why not try it agian?

Denying the GIs the vote almost worked for the Dems in Fla, I guess the PA vote was the perfection of the idea as they are being disenfranchised throughout the entire state!

Give it a rest, there are far more dirty tricks being done by the Dems this year than I have ever seen in an election. Beginning with the "Preemptive Strike" directive where the DNC said that if there is no evidence of foul play to MAKE IT UP! Ending with the "get out the vote" groups at our grocery stores that threw away the registration of Republican Voters or sent them in past the deadline. In Colorado alone there have been far more dirty tricks by Dems than ever before.

Trying to point out a trick supposedly "discovered" by the BBC is ignorance to the extreme!

 

[White knight]

So one dirty trick deserves another? What is wrong with you people?

The GOP party mantra must work “I can’t think of a single mistake I/we made”
To not be able to admit when something is wrong is the sign of a dysfunctional mind.

It reminds me of a movie soon to be out, It should have only took a few months to film a movie about a hair style, It ended up taking three years because it was hard to find a guy willing to be honest with himself and admit he had a comb over hair style, even when it was so obvious to everyone else. http://humor.about.com/od/movies/v/ds061604.htm

12 steps to recovery program.

Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it

If you got proof of Democratic voter fraud, post it. So people willing to think for them selves can make up their own minds.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

So one dirty trick deserves another? What is wrong with you people?

The GOP party mantra must work “I can’t think of a single mistake I/we made”
To not be able to admit when something is wrong is the sign of a dysfunctional mind.

It reminds me of a movie soon to be out, It should have only took a few months to film a movie about a hair style, It ended up taking three years because it was hard to find a guy willing to be honest with himself and admit he had a comb over hair style, even when it was so obvious to everyone else. http://humor.about.com/od/movies/v/ds061604.htm



If you got proof of Democratic voter fraud, post it. So people willing to think for them selves can make up their own minds.

Can you admit tax cuts grow the economy?

Can you admit that diplomacy doesn't work with liars?

 

[Merlin1047]

If you got proof of Democratic voter fraud, post it. So people willing to think for them selves can make up their own minds.

Well, okey-dokey.

http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/massive.htm
Voter Fraud Investigation

Every vote counts - unless ballots are being cast by people who don't exist, are dead or who don't even live in South Dakota. A major case involving those voter fraud issues has been under investigation by the FBI for the past month. KSFY has learned the investigation mainly focuses on six counties including: Dewey, Pennington, Fall River, Charles Mix, Shannon and Ziebach, although there may be other counties involved.

The focus of the investigation centers on absentee ballot registration requests in counties with or near Indian Reservations across South Dakota. A letter recently sent out by the Democratic Party confirms Party officials were notified about possible ballot discrepancies in Dewey County, and when notified contacted authorities immediately. According to their letter, a Democratic Party contractor, Becky Red Earth-Villeda was fired after at least two of the people she registered were found to be invalid.

On October 12, we found evidence that in Ziebach County a woman somehow applied for an absentee ballot after she died. The absentee ballot application for Denise Red Horse is filled out just as it should be: she has an address, she signed where she was supposed to. The major flaw? Denise Red Horse died September 3rd in a car accident. Her application was signed September 21st, 18 days after she was killed.

This is just one of the discrepancies of which Attorney General Mark Barnett has been notified and the FBI is investigating. Barnett says there was one case where the lady had apparently registered in two different counties, another case shows a lady supposedly sent in an absentee ballot some days after she was actually killed in a car accident.

Red Horse's bogus application isn't the only suspicious item Ziebach County's Auditor, Cindy Longbrake has noticed in the past few weeks. She says one person filled out 150 registration cards, and she could tell they were all filled out by the same person. Longbrake says she thought, "She either didn't know what she was doing or, I understand, she was getting paid to do these and she didn't care how she was doing them."

There are several different politically motivated groups on and around Indian Reservations trying to register that particular population. Native Americans make up 8.3 percent of the state's population -which transfers into roughly 63-thousand residents. With close races, especially on the Senate side, every vote truly does count.

According to our sister station KOTA in Rapid City, two brothers are now being investigated for turning in forged voter registration cards to the Pennington County Auditor. The auditor says most of the voter registrations were duplicates which could have been done by copying names and addresses out of a phone book. The brothers were caught after getting the "voters" birthdays wrong.

By Shelley Keohane

$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.

The news marks the latest development in a widening controversy over voter registration and absentee ballots in and around American Indian reservations in South Dakota.

One out of every 10 new voter registrations in Shannon County is being investigated, said Sherrill Dryden, county auditor for Fall River County, which handles voter registration for adjacent Shannon County.

The problems are related to an effort to increase voter turnout among Indians in South Dakota for the Nov. 5 election.

Shannon County makes up about half of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Dryden said more than 1,000 new registrations have come into her office from the reservation this fall. Some were from new voters and others from people who have not voted for a while and needed their registration updated.

"We had different birthdays and different signatures. Some of the middle initials were wrong," Dryden said. "We just got suspicious when we see a birthday that's a day or two off or a year or two off. It just sent up a red flag."

The state and the FBI have been asked to investigate, she said.

But Shannon County is not the first South Dakota county to report such problems.

Elsewhere in the state, officials said duplication, registering dead people and forging of signatures have been reported.

About 17,000 new registrations have been reported since the June 4 primary, and the level of absentee voting has exceeded that of a presidential election year.

The state Democratic Party fired Red Earth-Villeda, a contract employee, after registration and absentee ballot problems surfaced in Dewey and Ziebach counties.

Jackson and Corson county auditors reported similar voter problems Thursday.

Jackson County Auditor Vickie Wilson said she turned over seven absentee ballot requests to local authorities this week. "I was fairly certain that someone other than the voter could have signed them," Wilson said. She said she also provided the FBI with a total of 20 absentee ballot requests for investigation.

The Jackson County Sheriff's Office is looking into the matter.

Jackson County Sheriff Bruce Madsen said three people have advised him that they did not sign the requests, and two others didn't remember signing them. Madsen said he only found one person so far who had confirmed signing a request.

He said this is the first time in his 27 years in the sheriff's office that he has had to investigate suspicious voter signatures. "It sure is going to throw some doubt into the election," Madsen said.

Wilson said she had also received several incomplete registration cards in the past few months, but she did not consider them suspicious.

Corson County Auditor Dorothy Schuh said Thursday she had turned over a half dozen voter registrations and absentee ballot requests to authorities for investigation. The FBI and the South Dakota Attorney General's Office are looking into those requests. This is Schuh's first year as auditor, but she had been in the office for five years and hadn't experienced any suspicious voter documents prior to this year.

Attorney General Mark Barnett said the state Democratic Party has not been implicated in the suspicious documents, and that party officials have cooperated with the investigation.

In a separate Indian voter program in Pennington County, two brothers are being investigated for forging signatures on voter registration documents. Pennington County Auditor Julie Pearson said authorities are looking into possible inaccuracies in 230 voter registration cards turned in there.

So far, four cards have been found with inaccuracies, Pennington County Sheriff Don Holloway said.

Pearson said the only problems now are with voter registrations. As for requests for absentee ballots, Pearson said rules do not require auditors to check signatures against a registration card. In Pennington County, as many as 10 percent of the total voters might vote absentee, Pearson said. "We expect a lot and we get a lot," Pearson said. "We cannot check every signature."

This is the first time Pearson has ordered a voter fraud investigation since becoming auditor in 1987.

Officials in Buffalo County, which contains a large section of the Crow Creek Indian Reservation, said they also are investigating a handful of new voter registration cards.

"I had a few questionable cards that I gave to the sheriff," said Buffalo County Auditor Elaine Wulff.

Buffalo County Sheriff Wayne Willman said he is still investigating the cards and has not made a report to the state attorney general's office. Officials would not give additional details on the matter.

Barnett said Wednesday he is not prepared to say there are widespread problems with voter registration in and around Indian reservations.

"It is too early to categorize it one way or another. My focus is on one person," Barnett said, referring to Red Earth-Villeda.

Barnett said he is not involved in the Pennington County case. Local authorities are handling that investigation, he said.

Auditors and deputy auditors in Lawrence, Butte, Meade, Harding, Perkins, Custer and Haakon counties told the Rapid City Journal this week they hadn't had any suspicious signatures or registrations so far this year.

The deadline for voter registration is Monday, Oct. 21.

Copyright © 2002 The Rapid City Journal
Rapid City, SD


Shannon joins counties with voter trouble

Corrine Olson
Argus Leader

published: 10/17/2002

One in every 10 new voter registrations for people in Shannon County during the past few months is suspect and under investigation, Fall River County Auditor Sherrill Dryden said Wednesday, adding to problems surrounding a push to increase the number of Native American voters in South Dakota.

Fall River County handles voter registration for the adjacent Shannon County, which makes up about half the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwest South Dakota. More than 1,000 new registrations have poured into Dryden's office from the reservation this fall, some from new voters and others from people who haven't voted for awhile and need their registration updated.

"We had different birthdays and different signatures. Some of the middle initials were wrong," Dryden said. "We just got suspicious when we see a birthday that's a day or two off or a year or two off. It just sent up a red flag."

Both the state and the FBI have been asked to investigate the problems, she said.

Questions in Shannon County are the latest in a widening controversy surrounding voter registration and absentee ballots in and around reservations in the state. The issue raises the political tension in South Dakota, where in less than three weeks voters will pick a U.S. senator and representative, both of which are close races that could help decide the balance of power in the Congress.

Last week, Attorney General Mark Barnett said one woman working as a contractor for the Democratic Party was under investigation after problems with registrations and absentee ballots surfaced in Dewey and Ziebach counties. The worker - Becky Red Earth of Flandreau, also known by her Dakota name, Maka Duta - was fired by the Democratic Party after questions about her work emerged.

Also, voter-registration cards are being checked for authenticity in Pennington County, a county official said. Two brothers, who were working under a separate Native American voter program, are under investigation in that county, which is home to Rapid City.

Red Earth worked as an independent contractor under the Democrats' program, called the Coordinated Campaign, for several months and in many parts of the state. The Democratic Party has not been implicated in the questionable documents, and Barnett has said officials have cooperated with the investigation.

Barnett said Wednesday he is not prepared to say there are widespread problems with voter registration in and around Native American reservations.

"It is too early to categorize it one way or another. My focus is on one person," Barnett said.

The attorney general's office has had a number of calls from auditors in recent days questioning what they think might be suspicious ballots, he said.

"We know it involves one person, and it could easily expand. We are trying to get up to speed on the one," he said.

Barnett said he is not involved in the Pennington County case.

"The locals are running that investigation as they have the full authority to do, investigate and prosecute," he said.

More agents are being assigned to look into the suspicious registrations and absentee ballots in an effort to quickly resolve the situation, he said.

"I will ask auditors and sheriffs to help separate the wheat from the chaff, have them check it out," he said.

Julie Pearson, Pennington County auditor, said authorities are checking into alleged inaccuracies in 230 voter-registration cards turned in there.

Pearson said employees first noticed inaccuracies in two cards received from two brothers who have been gathering registrations. The birth dates were wrong on both cards, and the middle initial was wrong on one, she said.

"We happened to know both people," Pearson said.

The cards were turned over to Pennington County Sheriff Don Holloway, who said four cards have been found with inaccuracies so far.

"It appears that they were filling out the cards themselves instead of getting them signed," he said.

Those who submit falsified voter-registration cards could face forgery charges, the sheriff said.

"If people have legitimate registrations to vote, we don't want to interfere with that," Holloway said. "We want to make sure the election goes off without a hitch."

Voter-registration project workers are paid for each person they register, Pearson said. She said the area coordinator, Mary Janis, has been working with the auditor's office.

"She's been nothing but cooperative," Pearson said.

Confirmation cards are mailed to verify newly registered voters, the county auditor said. Cards that are returned as undeliverable are suspect, Pearson said.

People attempting to vote under those names could be required to provide some identification or proof of residence before they are given ballots, she said.

Reporter David Kranz and the Associated Press contributed to this article.

© 2002 Copyright Argus Leader.
AP materials © 2002 Associated Press.

First person charged with voter fraud

10/18/2002 11:16:09 AM
Jack Siebold and Carl Agnelly

A KOTA Territory man is the first person to be charged with voter fraud this election.

Police say Lyle Nichols is charged with five counts of forgery of voter registration cards. Nichols is one of two brothers hired by the Native American Voter Registration Project.

They collected and submitted 226 registration cards. The Pennington County Auditor's office found that two of those newly registered voters were dead.

If convicted, Nichols could be sentenced to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine for each of the five felony counts.

Last week, accusations of voter registration fraud began to surface in several counties. Dead people had been registered, people were registered in counties other than where they live, and names were misspelled, signatures didn’t match.

Throughout the state, there are massive voter registration drives being conducted by both political parties, tribal governments and national organizations.

Nichols currently is the only person charged.

There is another voter fraud investigation involving a woman paid by the South Dakota Democratic Party to register people. Becky Red-Earth Villeda says she is innocent, that the accusations against her are an attempt to stop the registration of Native Americans. Red-Earth Villeda was fired after discrepancies were found in two applications she collected.

©Associated Press

 

[fuzzykitten99]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_3950000/newsid_3957100/nb_wm_3957141.stm


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm


It worked once why not try it agian?

:rotflmao:
:rotflmao:
:rotflmao:


that's a great joke! tell us another one!

 

[dmp]

I wonder how many of those 1,886 listed are dead, felons, or already registered in anothere state?

99%?

 

[White knight]

:rotflmao:
:rotflmao:
:rotflmao:


that's a great joke! tell us another one!

G.W. will steal the Election in Florida again..

 

[dmp]

G.W. will steal the Election in Florida again..

that implies he stole it last time. (shrug). It'd be more accurate to state he 'prevented the Democrats for LEGISLATING Gore as the winner, instead relying on actual, valid votes to decide.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

A BBC investigation points to a Republican plan to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts.

It also uncovered secret filming of voters and voter registration forms being forged. Greg Palast reports from Florida.

You got to be kidding. Isn't Greg Palast the same "reporter" who covered the 2000 election and wrote all kinds of anti-Bush material back then, supposedly with tons of proof that never really materialized? He makes outraegous claims based upon a couple minor infractions mixed with a whole lot of imagination. If he had had the proof for the many outraegous claims he has made in his writings, he would be front page news and the star reporter he thinks he is. But he didn't, and he isn't.

I believe Palast skedaddled off in a funk to live in Europe and write a book when nobody in the U.S. would listen to him. Now he's just back to try to stir up more trouble with his typically ridiculous allegations.

 

[insein]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_3950000/newsid_3957100/nb_wm_3957141.stm


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm


It worked once why not try it agian?

Knight, you claim to be an intelligent, well-informed person. I assume by you posting this, you believe its content. Im sorry to say that you my friend are a victim of your own criticism. You have been advocating that you dont follow the one-liners and hype. To look for the real evidence.

Felons can not vote. There were alot of felons during the 2000 election that were black. However, there was a higher percentage of White people that were felons that lost their right to vote on that list.

To say that there is a plan to purposely disenfranchise black people is a ridiculous statement. When it comes from a racist like Corrine Brown's mouth and pushed by a foreign news organization with many documented efforts of attempting to interefre with our election, i become completely skeptical of the whole thing.

 

[Jimmyeatworld]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_3950000/newsid_3957100/nb_wm_3957141.stm


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm


It worked once why not try it agian?

The BBC? Uh huh. You want to know how unbiased the BBC is going to be on the coverage of elections that are none of their damn business? The panel for their election night coverage is going to consist of Columnist Richard Littlejohn, Michael Moore, George Soros, former Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal, and Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Gee, wonder who they are gonna be pulling for and when the screams of voter fraud are going to start.