Political Discussions
Guilty plea in voter fraud case
Posted by satijournal • 6/18/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: politics, voter fraud
No, it's not ACORN. This is not fabricated voter fraud; it's the real deal.
Owner of registration company pleads guilty to voter fraud 5:35 PM | June 16, 2009
The owner of a voter-registration company pleaded guilty Tuesday to voter-registration fraud, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/06/owner-of-registration-company-pleads...
October 20, 2008 SACRAMENTO — The owner of a firm that the California Republican Party hired to register tens of thousands of voters this year was arrested in Ontario over the weekend on suspicion of voter registration
fraud.
Jacoby's arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department late Saturday came after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by people employed by YPM. The voters said YPM workers tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters.
The firm was paid $7 to $12 for every Californian it registered as a member of the GOP.
articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/20/local/me-fraud20
So where' the outrage? Or is voter fraud only bad if it can make Democrats look bad?
User Comments
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"No, it's not ACORN. This is not fabricated voter fraud; it's the real deal."
You are denying that ACORN is involved in voter registration fraud? You really should stop burying your head in the sand. ACORN has already been in hot water over voter fraud and some people from ACORN have been convicted.
From the WSJ:
"Other Democrats on the ground have complaints. Fred Voight, deputy election commissioner in Philadelphia, protested after Acorn (according to the registrar of voters and his own investigation) submitted at least 1,500 fraudulent registrations last fall. "This has been going on for a number of years," he told CNN in October. St. Louis Democrat Matthew Potter, the city's deputy elections director, had similar complaints.
Elsewhere, Washington state prosecutors fined Acorn $25,000 after several employees were convicted of voter registration fraud in 2007."
online.wsj.com/article/SB124182750646102435.html
Any and all fraud connected with our most fundamental basic freedom, the freedom to vote for our representative government, is wrong. It should not be allowed to happen and where it does happen, it should be dealt with swiftly and in a severe manner so as to prevent it in the future.-
Elsewhere, Washington state prosecutors fined Acorn $25,000 after several employees were convicted of voter registration fraud in 2007."
That's a lie:
In a case in Washington state where 7 temporary employees of ACORN were charged with submitting fraudulent voter registrations, ACORN agreed to pay King County $25,000 for its investigative costs and acknowledged that the national organization could be subject to criminal prosecution if fraud occurs again. According to the prosecutor, the misconduct was done "as an easy way to get paid [by ACORN], not as an attempt to influence the outcome of elections."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Community_Organizations_for_Reform_Now...
Here's a little background on your source:
John Fund's book on voter fraud is a fraud
In his recent book Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Democracy (Encounter Books, September 2004), Wall Street Journal op-ed columnist and author John Fund uses distortions and half-truths to impugn Democrats who, he states in his introduction, "figure prominently in the vast majority of examples of election fraud described in this [Fund's] book."
mediamatters.org/research/200411010001 -
So you are still denying that ACORN or their employees have been convicted of fraud?
"Clifton Mitchell helped register nearly 2,000 voters for the community group ACORN. But not one of them actually existed.
"I regret it. I paid the price for it," he said.
Mitchell was convicted last year and spent nearly three months in prison. He's one of the few ACORN workers convicted of voter registration fraud."
www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/22/voter.fraud/
Wait, I know - the author of this article at CNN is also in on the conspiracy to malign that saintly organization called ACORN?
sati, you watch too much Bill Maher.
Big laugh, siting mediamatters as a source! HA. -
You should read the articles you cite:
"There are no known instances of fictitious people actually voting," Schnapper said. "You look at some of the names: Mickey Mouse. Dr. Seuss. Mickey Mouse only votes in Disneyland. He's not going to show up at a critical precinct in West Virginia or North Carolina."
Schnapper said that if anyone should be upset, it's ACORN.
"The victims of this are the people who paid these workers $8 an hour to go out and find legitimate voters, and ... they didn't get their $8 worth; they put down phony names," Schnapper said. -
Um, its called VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD. I am aware of what I cited.
But according to you, ACORN voter registration fraud is made up. Not real. Fictitious.
I stand by what I said -
"Any and all fraud connected with our most fundamental basic freedom, the freedom to vote for our representative government, is wrong. It should not be allowed to happen and where it does happen, it should be dealt with swiftly and in a severe manner so as to prevent it in the future."
That's how I feel about it, how about you, sati? Are you ready to say that all voter registration fraud and voter fraud is bad? Or only when it is Republicans doing it? -
By the way, here are some tidbits about Dr. Schnapper -
watchdog.net/contrib/98006/eric_schnapper
www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/eric-schnapper.asp?cycle=08
Seems he regularly contributes to the Democratic Party and that is his right to do so. I applaud him for it. However, doesn't that taint his ability to be unbiased about this?
I cited that article because you steadfastly refuse to admit that ACORN is doing anything wrong. I am glad that Jacoby got arrested. He needs to be in jail and the GOP doesn't want help from anyone whose idea of that help is fraud. -
Hey, you're the one who cited the article. But what exactly did ACORN do wrong? They were screwed by the people they hired.
It's one thing to hold people responsible when a crime has been committed. Right-wingers are desperately trying to find a crime. That's what they did to Clinton in the 90s in a desperate attempt to bring him down and spent some 60 million dollars doing so. It's how they got Bush elected because there are enough uninformed people who bought into it. It's anti-democracy.
And the thing about this case is, Jacoby was directly hired by the Republican party. ACORN, no matter what you think of them, was not hired by Obama or the Democratic party to do anything.
the GOP doesn't want help from anyone whose idea of that help is fraud.
There's a lot of evidence that's not a true statement. -
What did ACORN do wrong?
"...Catherine Cortez Masto, Nevada's Democratic Attorney General, told the Las Vegas Sun that Acorn itself is named in the criminal complaint. She says that Acorn's training manuals "clearly detail, condone and . . . require illegal acts," such as requiring its workers to meet strict voter-registration targets to keep their jobs."
online.wsj.com/article/SB124182750646102435.html
Obama used to be a lawyer for ACORN. No. No ties there.
You still haven't given your position about ALL voter registration fraud. I am against it no matter its political affiliation. You?
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I'm too lazy to read the original articles. What kind of scale are we talking about? Or was this thread just to bait Republicans? If so, it looks like you caught one.-
No, but if the voter fraud was perpetrated by a democrat, we'd never hear the end of it. Look at all the coverage the ACORN story got, and that wasn't even voter fraud! John McCain claimed in one of the debates that ACORN "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." There needs to be some accountability for lying.
You might not care about it, but Bush was elected due to dirty politics and possible election or voter fraud. And we've been paying for it ever since. -
@mark - I didn't know you were a Republican?!
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And another thing... I'm tired of democrats rolling over and playing dead. It's time they stood up for something and expose the GOP for what it is: a lying, fear mongering, hate mongering, incompetent group that would do or say anything to gain power.
Look at all the lies being spread about the health care reform. And the lies about Obama apologizing for the U.S. And the lies about who's responsible for all the debt we're accumulating. And about Obama being a socialist. The list goes on.
If we're not careful, the Democrats are going to lose control of congress next year. -
@Sati:
So what kind of scale are we talking about? And why did anticrocks get all self-righteous about alleged cases on the other side when you were talking about the head of a company who confessed?
Forget tit for tat. What scale are we talking about? And this was registration, not actual votes. Presumably that also deserves consideration?
In the end, this shouldn't be about Democrats versus Republicans, though I know all too well that that is how the GOP plays. I just don't want to play the same way. It's not about rolling over and playing dead. I'd rather just hit the GOP with big stuff. This is hardly a GOP-wide event, is it?
@anticsrocks:
Your response to me is downright bizarre. Reading what you want to read instead of what I wrote---again? I was making fun of the GOP by talking about baiting them. You guys are just way too easy to bait here. All we have to do is mention voter fraud or love of country, and all brain functions cease. Instead of actual thought, we get Pavlovian responses. That's what I meant by baiting. You took it. -
No mark you took my bait. I know perfectly well what you meant, I just threw it back at you, and you went for it. Really, it was too easy. Somebody needs to get a sense of humor.
By the way sati, read this article about your precious, holier than thou Democrats:
www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/23872.html -
So you admit that you're not really here to discuss things, just bait people? That would explain the latent trollishness I have sensed in other places. Never noticed any humor. Might be a translation thing. I'm not fluent in radical right-wing-speak.
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What scale are we talking about? And this was registration, not actual votes. Presumably that also deserves consideration?
It was a trivial charge that he pled guilty to, probably in a plea bargain, but their actual registration fraud was much more wide spread (such as getting people to register as Republicans by lying to them about what they were signing).
The real problem is, this company was hired directly by the GOP. Combine this kind of thing with Diebold's fraudulent activities, and many other problems and we have a serious attack on our democracy.
There needs to be some dramatic election reform before another election is stolen. -
I suppose this should be a top priority always, as systems change and new opportunities for fraud arise. This should be one issue where bipartisanship is possible.
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I doubt it. Most Republicans are generally against election reform because they benefit most from fraud. There are enough who would support it to overcome a filibuster, but work needs to start now for any new rules to be in place for next years election.
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@mark - think what you want. You've resorted to insults against me in the past, this is nothing new for you. I was told you are a college teacher...funny, but I expected better than that from someone in your position.
@sati - as I told Anok, whenever voting reform is mentioned, the Democrats are opposed to voters having to show ID to vote. Wonder why that is?
And for the record sati, you STILL haven't said what your position is on this issue. I have stated it more than once and Anok mirrored my thoughts also. You are strangely silent on this. Hmmm. Maybe you are only against voter registration fraud when it is against the Republicans. Maybe you think it is okay when it favors Democrats. Your silence on this speaks volumes. -
You're not the first person to make this criticism. News flash: I am not on these boards as a professor or teacher of anything. I never make any claims to special authority, because my field of expertise is rarely relevant. Moreover, the behavior and attention my students merit is of an altogether different order than what I can or want to muster on these boards. Context matters.
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@mark - think what you want. You've resorted to insults against me in the past, this is nothing new for you.
Antics, you've insulted everyone here who doesn't agree with you. Almost every one of your posts contains some personal attack. And now you're trying to play the victim? Sorry, it ain't gonna work.
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sati, please provide the posts where I have insulted everyone here.
If memory serves, you took a personal revelation that I made about my need for a heart transplant on a another thread and started insulting me with such phrases as *unplugs antics' pacemaker*, etc... So you are a fine one to talk about insults. Glass houses and all that.
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On both sides of the issue - those who did something illegal, should pay the appropriate fines and/or punishment.
If the head of this registration company confessed that he infact instructed his employees to act illegally, then he needs to pay the piper.-
Agreed Anok, which is what I said at the beginning here. Seems mark wants to call names and sati wants to say only Republicans are evil and Democrats are saintly. Every time election reform is brought up, requiring people to show ID to vote, the Democrats oppose it. Yet it is the "evil Republicans" sati always blames. Sigh.
ACORN's rules are inherently flawed and lead to the registration fraud. -
No, I'm against all voter fraud, voter registration fraud, election fraud... any kind of fraud. There needs to be election reform to deter fraud. Got it?
ACORN's rules are inherently flawed and lead to the registration fraud.
Repeating that over and over is not going to make it true. -
Finally. Sure is hard to pin you down on some subjects. Good thing we are on the same page on this. So when ACORN is found guilty of fraud of any kind, you will denounce them, I am guessing?
And while we are on that subject -
"Repeating that over and over is not going to make it true."
I don't have to repeat it. A very nice lady who used to be Chief of Staff to Governor Bob Miller, former Governor of Nevada is saying it for me. Oh, and you will like this part, sati. Governor Miller is a Democrat. Anyway, his former Chief of Staff, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto is on record saying this:
“By structuring employment and compensation around a quota system, ACORN facilitated voter registration fraud,” Masto said. She accused ACORN executives of hiding behind and blaming employees, and vowed to hold the national nonprofit corporation accountable for training manuals that she said “clearly detail, condone and … require illegal acts.”
kansasprogress.com/wordpress/index.php/tag/nevada-attorney-general-catherin...
What I think has happened to ACORN is that somewhere along the way, back when it was a good, honest organization, it was hijacked by political ideologues. Now it is serving a far left agenda and even ousted its own members who were blowing the whistle on its activities.
"Perhaps the most controversial accusation revealed by whistleblower testimony was the scheme by which ACORN and Project Vote are paid by foundations per voter registered and the submission of copies of actual voter registration cards to the foundations, which is a violation of federal law.
I spoke with whistleblower Anita MonCrief at the hearing. “ACORN itself is sometimes paid by foundations per registration and, in some cases, they would send copies of the voter registration cards straight to the funder,” MonCrief said. “Workers are improperly trained. … They are trained to never ask, ‘Are you registered to vote?’ because if the person says ‘Yes,’ they have to move on. They ask, ‘Did you vote in the last election,’ and if the person says ‘No,’ they register them again. This is how they duplicate registrations and flood the offices.”"
This is straight from one of the ACORN Whistle Blowers - here is the link -
www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31172
I don't understand how you can defend ACORN when they turn in 90,000 voter registration cards in Nevada and the Nevada Secretary of State's office was unable to verify HALF of them! Normally about TWO PERCENT is the amount of voter registrations that cannot be verified. How can you defend that? -
I don't understand how you can defend ACORN when they turn in 90,000 voter registration cards in Nevada and the Nevada Secretary of State's office was unable to verify HALF of them! Normally about TWO PERCENT is the amount of voter registrations that cannot be verified. How can you defend that?
Straw man. -
I think that any system that pays people to register people to vote is inherently flawed, because then the right to vote becomes a money making game, and thus, invites corruption.
Although I don't blame the ACORN higher ups for the fake registrations (and they are fake, which is different from fraudulent, but does require legal attention because it screws up the demographics) - however I do hold the notion that paying the volunteers per registry card set them up for it.
On the f lip side, I don't know all that needs to be known on this case, but if fraudulent (not fake, fraudulent as in, people registering under names of the deceased, which enables them to vote multplie times and trying to vote multiple times) registrations occurred by his command, that's a serious problem. And I think that goes beyond paying volunteers per card.
My advice has always been this:
Never register to vote anywhere other than your town hall
ENd of story. Don't register at the DMV, don't do it at the grocery store, don't do it at rallies, don't do it at social service counters, don't give ANY information to door-to-door "volunteers" (they are probably lying, and just want your personal info - which happened here a few years back ID theft run amok). These places have no experience with registration, they don't take the appropriate info, they don't have the ability to check the info you provide, and they h ave no incentive to take good care of your registration, or send it to your registrar prior to the voting deadline.
They tend to lose your card, mail it in late, or with incomplete info, rendering you unable to vote.
Just don't do it! -
There's talk of including voter registration with driver's licence renewal/issuance. That might be a good idea. People who don't drive would have to get some other form of ID to make them eligible to vote. That would give everyone a photo ID and eliminate the problem of people registering where they don't live.
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then "they" can cross reference your voter registration party affilliation with other profiling methods whilst the licence-tracking-chip alerts them of your whereabouts... excellent! -
No no no no noooooooo The DMV is the LAST place on Earth that should have anything to do with voting registration! They are the worst about it!
States cannot ask for photo ID only for proof of residence, nor should they. It isn't a reliable form, since the DMV barely requires something that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that that's where you live.
A utility bill in your name is better, post stamped paystubs (in an unopened envelope) is better. Any kind of mail that shows you have some sort of vested interest in actually living in the house you are claiming to live in. Although state ID's like licenses are generally accepted - think about this - my father kept his out of state license for 5 years, while it was still valid, and had an in state license for his current address. He could legally vote in both places, if the only thing checked was the license.
Tax records and voting registrations elsewhere are also checked, by the way, at registration,in the state data base. If the voter has a record of voting in another town, or has property taxes in one town but not another, the registrars office is notified, and they are removed from the active list until the issue is rectified. -
There's no good way to prove you live somewhere. You could give your employer an address where you only receive mail. You might not have any utilities in your name. Maybe you're shacked up with someone and have no permanent address.
But the problem isn't really with voter registration fraud or voter fraud. Voters don't have the real power. It's the people who count the votes who have the power to flip an election. -
...and the Governor/little brother of one of the candidates... and his Atty. General... and the Supreme Court nominated predominately by that particular party...
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Regardless - leaving voting registration in the hands of the DMV, or using photo ID only as verification of primary residence and identity is a bad, bad decision. I've been doing this long enough to know - it's a bad idea.
The DMV loses about half of all the cards people give them, and the other gets mailed in after the deadline. Rendering a large portion of people who can't vote. It's a constant problem here, so much so that during large elections the registrar's office sends out registration cards and notices to re-register downtown PARTICULARLY if they did it at the DMV. They also include warnings not to register
anywhere but the townhall.
And while vote counting can sway an election (or machine tampering, actually. Since hand counts are rarely the primary method) - being able to vote in mulltple counties, under multiple names absolutely sways elections. And there's really no way to catch the perpetrator unless you have them red handed.
Better to cross your T's and dot your I's at your registrar's office. -
here in the People's Republic of Spokane County we have only vote by mail elections... it may be like that in the entire state. In any case you have to have an address to get your ballot
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That's different. You have no polling places?
Hmmm. It would make our jobs a lot easier -
here in the People's Republic of Spokane County we have only vote by mail elections... it may be like that in the entire state. In any case you have to have an address to get your ballot
That may be the solution. With mail in ballots or any kind of paper ballot, it's possible to do an accurate recount. With electronic voting machines, you can't unless there's a vote verification print-out, which is rare. And thousands of votes can be flipped in an instant.
I kind of like voting in person, though. -
voting in person w/ paper ballots is good.
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Maybe sati is on to something. I mean we could let ACORN take over the entire process. They could register everyone, living or dead, then we could allocate (more) taxpayer money for them to pay people to cast everyone's vote. Then we could all sit at home and wait on wealth redistribution!!
*straw man* Indeed sati. You just won't admit that ACORN is corrupt. LOL. You are funny - predictable, but funny. 90,000 voters registered and the state of Nevada can't verify half of them? The best you could come up with is straw man? The numbers don't lie, and remember it is a Democratic Secretary of State and Attorney General that are going after ACORN. Not dastardly Republicans.
*sigh* Once again, I shall ask. Even though you won't answer me, but here goes.
When ACORN is convicted of voter registration fraud, will you condemn them, or will you instead say that it is some form of conspiracy? -
Why do all your comments have to have some kind of personal attack? Just debate the issues like a rational human being.
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sati, pay close attention, I am about to do something you rarely ever do and never on the first try. I am about to answer a question that has been put to me.
"Why do all your comments have to have some kind of personal attack? Just debate the issues like a rational human being."
First of all, this isn't a personal attack. It is sarcasm. Secondly, I use it because you won't address the issue I brought up. I addressed your issue of this thread, which was about voter registration fraud. I condemned it, further stating that no matter which party was at fault it was wrong. I asked you what your stance was, you FINALLY answered after I had to pose it to you more than once. Then after proving that ACORN was both under investigation and in some cases guilty of voter registration fraud, I asked if you were going to denounce ACORN when it was proven they were corrupt. You keep avoiding the question sati. This is a pattern with you. You post something, and when anyone proves you wrong, you just ignore it. Your modus operandi is to just blame Bush and every Republican that has held office for the last 100 years. I try to debate things with you, but you run away from debate when someone shows you to be wrong. You started this thread claiming that ACORN was not into voter reg. fraud. When I showed you that it was, you denied it and accused me of lying.
"Elsewhere, Washington state prosecutors fined Acorn $25,000 after several employees were convicted of voter registration fraud in 2007."
That's a lie:"
You then went on to denounce my source. So I used other sources. You finally said ACORN got screwed by the people they hired, yet you fail to give the same leeway to the GOP who hired Jacoby. You want it both ways. When ACORN employees commit fraud, they are innocent. When the GOP hires someone who does it, they are guilty as hell. Hmmm. How rational is that?
So once again, I am sorry if I hurt your feelings. That was not my intent. Your continual refusal to answer legitimate questions can be annoying. When you do that it prevents rational debate.
Just answer the damn question. When ACORN is convicted of fraudulent voter registration practices, will you denounce them? And this entire conversation begs the question - Why do you like ACORN so much? You got a dog in the fight? -
Why do you say I like ACORN so much? To be honest, I don't like some of the things they do, but the lies spread about them by republicans makes me defend them. And if you look beyond the right-wing talking points, ACORN does some good things for a lot of people.
I have a question for you. When there's solid evidence that Republicans have destroyed our economy, have gotten us stuck in two quagmires, and have destroyed our standing in world affairs, will you denounce them? Because that's already happened. -
Sati - we actually have paper ballots, and an electronic tabulator. Although we used to have the lever machines, which I liked a lot more for ease of use, as far as the new tabulators go, they're almost fool proof. (Nothing is 100% admitidly).
The tabulator reads the paper ballot like a school test, then drops the paper ballot into a locked box. (There is a separate box for write-in ballots, which is also locked). The registrar's office is required to keep the paper ballots, and all tabulator print-outs (three copies in the AM, and three in the PM) for a specified amount of time, depending on the type of election. (Municplie, State, Federal all have different requirements).
The election results can be contested up to a certain period of time, and are subject to hand recounts to determine accuracy of the machines. We do about one recount a year, just to check. The machines have been spot-on every time.
I see no problems with the current system we have, and only voter fraud on an individual level can then mess things up. (Although there is an argument about the memory cards being able to be tampered with, it is very difficult to do, and would have to either occur at the plant in which they're programmed, or a very, very stealthy hacker would have to break into the city hall, into the registrar's office, into the lock boxes, into the machines themselves and then reprogram each individual memory card, one at a time. I'm thing it's not worth the time and effort to go through all that).
The ballots are held under lock and key, and are delivered by the police on election day, and the locked bags are then kept in a locked cabinet until they need to be used. It's really overkill, but I can't argue that it' snot secure! -
Are these the same machines that they used in south Florida 8yrs ago?
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Absolutely not!
You get a paper ballot (just like an absentee ballot), you fill in the circles for the people you want to vote for (like a test, or lottery ticket - with a pencil) and you stick it in the tabulator. If the machine can't read the ballot, it spits it back out at you, and the person has a chance to remedy their mistake. If they dart out of the room, you can take the ballot, and slide it into another locked compartment, to be hand counted at the end of the night.
If the intent to vote is clear, you can count it. If the ballot is blank or otherwise not clear (marks all over the place with no clear intention to vote) the ballot is deemed "spoiled" and put into a separate envelope for the record.
They are not thrown away nor ignored.
It's a neat system. Hard to mess up. -
"I have a question for you. When there's solid evidence that Republicans have destroyed our economy, have gotten us stuck in two quagmires, and have destroyed our standing in world affairs, will you denounce them? Because that's already happened."
Okay sati, but I asked first. Answer my question and I will answer yours. -
Heh, heh. Didn't think you would answer me, sati.
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(I didn't feel like scrolling all the way up to hit the reply button)
It's a neat system. Hard to mess up.
That sounds like a good system up in Boston. The problem is there are no standards for our voting systems. And with electronic voting, there's nothing to stop a private company from putting in a little code to flip some of the votes. This whole business about the code being proprietary and no one, including the government can look at it, is bull crap.-
good thing niether of our political parties are nuts-deep in the private sector
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I agree with you about the computerized systems. No way, no how should the polling place and voting machines be networked in any way, shape, or form.
The tabulators were not that expensive to purchase, nor was the training difficult to understand. I don't see why they aren't used everywhere.
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If you're really concerned about election fraud, how about blogging about Iran? www.bloggersunite.org/event/free-iran
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