Category Archives: chicanery

“What Are All These Ballots Doing On Some Guy’s Bed?”

A picture’s worth….an investigation?

Share
Posted in absentee ballots, chicanery | Comments Off

“Republican National Hispanic Assembly expected to file formal complaint for suspicious votes”

Absentee ballot fraud alleged in Bakersfield.

Share
Posted in absentee ballots, chicanery, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

“FBI seeks source of prostitution, corruption allegations against Sen. Robert Menendez”

WaPo: “Months after the FBI began probing allegations against Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), investigators are now looking at whether someone set out to smear him while he was running for re-election last year and then ascending to his new post as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to four people briefed on the inquiry.”

Share
Posted in campaigns, chicanery | Comments Off

“Alleged voter fraud in Little Armenia being investigated”

LA Times:

Prosecutors are investigating allegations of voter fraud in Little Armenia, part of a Los Angeles City Council district where two candidates are waging a bitter battle for an open seat.

According to a spokeswoman for L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey, prosecutors are trying to determine whether backers of one candidate illegally filled out mail-in ballots for dozens of voters in the Armenian enclave in East Hollywood. The May 21 election will decide who succeeds Eric Garcetti, who is running for mayor.

Share
Posted in absentee ballots, chicanery, election administration | Comments Off

“Vote fraud alleged in Mount Vernon; Group calls on state and feds to intervene”

Gannett:

A group calling itself Concerned Citizens of Mount Vernon is claiming the 2012 school vote was rife with fraud and has sent letters to the U.S. Department of Justice and state attorney general requesting monitors for this year’s election and budget vote….

A review of documents obtained by The Journal News showed that in some cases, the group’s concerns were unfounded: Votes they thought were fraudulent appear to be legitimate. But the review did uncover instances of phantom addresses, duplicate names and, in at least one case, a dead voter.

Share
Posted in chicanery, election administration, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

“DIRTY TRICKS: Mysterious Conservative Group Sending Out Push Polls In South Carolina Special Election”

Alleged nasty push poll:

- “What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert Busch if I told you she had had an abortion?

- “What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert Busch if I told you a judge held her in contempt of court at her divorce proceedings?

- “What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert Busch if she had done jail time?

- “What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert Busch if I told you she was caught running up a charge account bill?

- “What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert Busch if she supported the failed stimulus plan?”

- “What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert Busch if I told you unions contributed to her campaign?”

If you are thinking we should just ban false campaign speech, read this.

Share
Posted in campaigns, chicanery | Comments Off

“James O’Keefe Wannabe Botches Denver Elections ‘Sting’”

Interesting.

Share
Posted in chicanery, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

“Davidson County Election Chief, Under State Scrutiny, Lawyers Up”

A ChapinBlog.

Share
Posted in chicanery, election administration | Comments Off

“‘All the President’s Men Revisited’: Watergate again, but not just a nostalgia trip”

WaPo on new documentary.

Share
Posted in campaign finance, campaigns, chicanery | Comments Off

“In Poll, Most New Yorkers Say Corruption Is a Big Problem”

NYT reports.

Share
Posted in campaign finance, chicanery | Comments Off

Nun on the run?

Perhaps i’m misinterpreting this headline in this voter fraud case.

Share
Posted in chicanery, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

“It Might Be America’s least super super-PAC”

WaPo on ProgressKy. Hard to imagine Senator McConnell having better luck.

Share
Posted in campaign finance, campaigns, chicanery | Comments Off

“F.B.I. Looking Into Allegations That McConnell’s Campaign Was Wiretapped”

NYT:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it was looking into allegations by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky that political opponents bugged his campaign headquarters.

Mr. McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, blamed the “political left” for an anonymous recording of a meeting at his campaign headquarters that appeared on the Web site of Mother Jones, a liberal magazine, on Tuesday morning. The recording captures Mr. McConnell and his aides outlining possible attacks on potential opponents, especially the actress Ashley Judd.

Share
Posted in campaigns, chicanery | Comments Off

“Russia Takes Legal Action Against Election Monitors”

NYT reports.

Share
Posted in chicanery | Comments Off

“Debate Over Allowing Secretly Indicted Nelson Castro To Twice Run For Re-Election”

NYDN: “The decision by federal and Bronx prosecutors to allow government mole Nelson Castro to twice run for re-election to the Assembly while secretly under indictment has raised some eyebrows. Several lawmakers and state government officials questioned whether the voters in Castro’s Bronx district were best served by not knowing their assemblyman was indicted in 2009 on felony perjury charges in a voter fraud case when he ran again in 2010 and last year.”

Share
Posted in chicanery | Comments Off

“Candidate claims election fraud”

Keep your eye on this dispute in Colorado.

Share
Posted in chicanery | Comments Off

“Assemblyman Eric Stevenson Arrested for Alleged Corruption”

Politicker: “Moments ago, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office announced yet another New York State elected official, Bronx Assemblyman Eric Stevenson, has been arrested and accused of taking bribes. Earlier this week, New York’s political world was rocked when corruption charges were leveled against State Senator Malcolm Smith and Councilman Dan Halloran. Mr. Stevenson’s charges will be formally unsealed at noon today. ‘Stevenson is accused of taking bribes in exchange for official acts, which included drafting, proposing, and agreeing to enact legislation that would benefit the co-defendants’ businesses,’ the release announcing the press conference declared.”

Is this what Frank Sinatra meant, in referring to New York, as “Hey Number One!”

Share
Posted in bribery, chicanery | Comments Off

“Felony Charges Dropped Against Colin Small, Republican Accused Of Destroying Voter Registration Forms”

Important HuffPo report: “Eight felony charges against Colin Small, the Republican contractor accused of destroying voter registration forms, were dismissed by a Virginia judge on Tuesday. The judge dismissed the felony charges under a probable cause standard during a preliminary hearing, Small’s lawyer said….’Coincidentally, my client was in charge of being a Republican vote-drive guy, and in my conversations with the Commonwealth, they confirmed that all of the eight persons were Republican Mitt Romney supporters,’ Holloran said. ‘So it made absolutely no sense that a guy that’s trying to corral Republican votes would dump Republican votes.’”

You will recall that some Democrats made a big deal of this incident as part of a large conspiracy to destroy Democrats’ voter registration forms.

Share
Posted in chicanery, election administration, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

“Scott Mooneyham: Absentee ballots and voter fraud”

Interesting column:

For the last two years, a substantial investigation has been underway in North Carolina into allegations of real voter fraud, the kind that can turn an election.

You don’t hear much about it in Raleigh or in the state Legislative Building. After all, this alleged fraud doesn’t fit very well into the narrative that North Carolina needs a voter photo ID requirement in order to prevent fraud.

The SBI investigation, looking into the 2010 Yancey County sheriff’s race, is centered on allegations that jail inmates had their charges reduced around the same time that they filled out mailed-in absentee ballots witnessed and provided by sheriff’s deputies. Those ballots, of course, would not require a photo ID.

Share
Posted in absentee ballots, chicanery, election administration, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

“Lawmakers Charged in Plot to Buy Spot on Mayoral Ballot”

NYT: “State Senator Malcolm A. Smith, a contractor and real estate developer who rose to become the first black president of the State Senate, and City Councilman Daniel J. Halloran III were arrested early Tuesday on charges of trying to illicitly get Mr. Smith on the ballot for this year’s mayoral race in New York City, according to federal prosecutors…Mr. Smith, according to the complaint, agreed with a cooperating witness and an undercover F.B.I. agent, who was masquerading as a wealthy real estate developer, to pay off leaders of Republican county committees in New York’s five boroughs. The bribes were to be paid to obtain specific certificates authorizing him to run for mayor as a Republican even though he was a registered Democrat.”

Share
Posted in ballot access, chicanery | Comments Off

“Officials looking at 129 votes from 2012; Suspected cases of election fraud involve only a small percentage of the total ballots cast”

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports.

Share
Posted in chicanery, election administration, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

“Former registration worker pleads guilty in ballot petition fraud case”

News from Indiana.

No, a voter id law wouldn’t have helped—Indiana has one!

Share
Posted in chicanery, election administration | Comments Off

“Board of Elections seeks UPS records”

Cincinnati Enquirer: “Two cases of alleged voter fraud in Hamilton County were in court this week, as defense lawyers sought to have their clients placed in a diversion program. The court actions came at the same time that county elections officials subpoenaed records from nine of Hamilton County’s 11 UPS stores after a registered voter alerted the board that 47 voters had registered via the stores’ mailbox service.”

What did Brown do for you?

Share
Posted in chicanery, election administration | Comments Off

“University of South Carolina professor hacks Courier-Journal online poll to ‘get the discussion going’”

Courier-Journal:

An unscientific online poll conducted on The Courier-Journal’s website was hacked Thursday by two University of South Carolina students and a professor.

The poll, hosted by Polldaddy, asked website viewers, “Should overseas U.S. military personnel be allowed to vote via the Internet?” It referred to an initiative by Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes to make voting easier for overseas personnel.

Although most respondents had voted “yes” Thursday afternoon, the poll showed 91 percent opposed by the time it was taken down Friday by The Courier-Journal. By that time, the poll had logged 67,121 votes, far more than the 2,000 to 4,000 votes typically recorded by The Courier-Journal’s online polls. Editors said that the purposely skewed results no longer represented the views of the website’s users.

The hacking was overseen by Duncan Buell, a computer science professor at the University of South Carolina who monitors electronic voting.

You can find a related press release at this link. It begins: “Should we take an online vote on the definition of ‘irony’?”

Share
Posted in chicanery, election administration, internet voting, The Voting Wars, voting technology | Comments Off

“White says defense was deficient”

AP: “Former Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White said in court documents Thursday that his attorney didn’t mount any defense to protect him from the conviction that forced him from office.”

Share
Posted in chicanery, SOS White | Comments Off

“Cyberattack on Florida election is first known case in US, experts say”

Must-read NBC News report:

An attempt to illegally obtain absentee ballots in Florida last year is the first known case in the U.S. of a cyberattack against an online election system, according to computer scientists and lawyers working to safeguard voting security.

The case involved more than 2,500 “phantom requests” for absentee ballots, apparently sent to the Miami-Dade County elections website using a computer program, according to a grand jury report on problems in the Aug. 14 primary election. It is not clear whether the bogus requests were an attempt to influence a specific race, test the system or simply interfere with the voting. Because of the enormous number of requests – and the fact that most were sent from a small number of computer IP addresses in Ireland, England, India and other overseas locations – software used by the county flagged them and elections workers rejected them.

Computer experts say the case exposes the danger of putting states’ voting systems online – whether that’s allowing voters to register or actually vote.

 

Share
Posted in absentee ballots, chicanery, voting technology | Comments Off

“Troy voter fraud trial finally comes to a close”

WNYT: “After 3 ½ years and 3 trials that did not result in any convictions, the Troy voter fraud trial finally ended Thursday night.”

Share
Posted in absentee ballots, chicanery, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

“New court filing: Documents were deleted from GOP redistricting computers”

JS Online:

Documents were deleted from state redistricting computers last year even after a lawyer for the Legislature told lawmakers’ aides to preserve all records on the computers, according to documents filed Wednesday in federal court.

Nine hard drives were recently given to groups suing the state because of questions about whether legislators and their attorneys had turned over all the documents they had been ordered to provide. One of the nine hard drives was unreadable and the outside of it was dented and scratched, which suggested its metal housing had been removed, according to affidavits in the case.

In addition, some of the hard drives had a program installed on them that could remove electronic data and hide the fact that files had been deleted, according to the filing. So far, however, a computer expert has not been able to determine if the program was actually used.

Share
Posted in chicanery, redistricting | Comments Off

Kevin Ring Seeks En Banc DC Circuit Court Review of Lobbying-Related Conviction

See here.

Share
Posted in bribery, campaign finance, chicanery, lobbying | Comments Off

“Hannah Giles Paid $50,000 to Fired San Diego ACORN Worker in Settlement Last July”

This item appears at the Brad Blog.

Share
Posted in chicanery, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

“Nun Resigns After Voter Fraud Accusation”

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports.

Share
Posted in absentee ballots, chicanery, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

“Nun, 2 others Face Vote Fraud Charges”

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports.

Derek Muller: From this story: (1) voter fraud exists, (2) it’s rare, (3) none of these would have been stopped by photo ID.

.

Share
Posted in chicanery, election administration, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

Full Wendy Rosen Statement on “Civil Disobedience” and Voter Fraud No More Convincing

In this post, I noted that former Maryland Democratic congressional candidate Wendy Rosen tried to explain away her double voting in two states as an “act of civil disobedience.”  I wrote: “Civil disobedience? Perhaps the full statement will make that sound less ridiculous than it sounds from this brief quote. If anyone has the full statement please send it along.”

Well the full statement is no more convincing and in fact contradicts what Rosen had said earlier about why she double voted: “The statement released today appears to contradict her explanation she gave to the Baltimore Sun last fall. Rosen told the paper she registered in Florida in order to support “a very close friend’ who was running for St. Petersburg City Council as well as to vote for local issues there, according to the paper’s published report on Sept. 14.”

(h/t Democracy Chronicles).

Share
Posted in chicanery, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

Voter Fraud as an Act of “Civil Disobedience?”

The Baltimore Sun reports that former Maryland Democratic congressional candidate Wendy Rosen pled guilty to voter fraud charges for voting in two states. She will serve five years probation and pay a $5,000 fine.

“Rosen apologized to campaign supporters Friday but also said she hoped the incident would shine a light on what she described as more serious examples of voter fraud. She argued that some states take great efforts to keep the poor and minorities from voting, for instance. ‘What I did wasn’t right, it wasn’t smart, but it was [an act] of civil disobedience, not arrogance, and if it somehow … helps to bring this problem to light, it will be worth the pain I’ve endured over these last six months and into the future,’ Rosen said in a statement.”

Civil disobedience? Perhaps the full statement will make that sound less ridiculous than it sounds from this brief quote. If anyone has the full statement please send it along.

Share
Posted in chicanery, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

Former Indiana Sec. of State Charlie White Files Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit Against Prosecutors in his Criminal Voter Fraud Case

Check out the complaint.

Wow.

Share
Posted in chicanery, residency | Comments Off

“To Mark Watergate’s 40th Anniversary, Common Cause to Convene Two -Day Conference at National Press Club; Watergate figures, policy experts, reformers, journalists to e xplore lessons learned and their resonance today”

See the program and the press advisory.

Share
Posted in campaigns, chicanery | Comments Off

“Florida finds evidence of voter registration fraud”

AP: “Two employees of a company once aligned with the Republican Party of Florida admitted to law-enforcement authorities that they forged voter registration forms.”

Share
Posted in chicanery, The Voting Wars, voter registration | Comments Off

“TRUE THE VOTE COMMENT ON CORRECTED VOTER SUPPRESSION REPORT”

Statement in response to this and this from FairVote:

“We stand by True the Vote’s report. Everything we said about the major conclusions in the report are correct. In a supplementary section, there was a methological error and it has been acknowledged and addressed. While we appreciate those who have zealously brought this to our attention for accuracy purposes, we would like to point out that patently false statements published by Stanford Law Professor Pam Karlan in a Duke Law journal about the Voting Rights Act and the Bush administration have never been corrected. We call upon those guardians of accuracy to address her false scholarship.”

For context, those living in Bizzaro world have attacked Pam Karlan (and me for not attacking Pam Karlan).

Share
Posted in chicanery, fraudulent fraud squad, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

Hacking the Papal Vote?

Interesting CNN report.

Share
Posted in chicanery, voting technology | Comments Off

“Miami ‘Phantom Ballots’ Case Highlights New Frontiers for Fraud”

Doug Chapin writes on this important Miami Herald report.

It seems to me that with Miami’s sad history of absentee ballot fraud, it may be worth considering allowing absentee balloting available in the jurisdiction only for those with a copelling need.

Share
Posted in chicanery, election administration, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

“When does Improper Political Activity Become a Crime?”

Nonprofit Law Prof Blog: “When does improper campaign intervention become a crime?  At the least, there has to be an instance of campaign intervention.  But is that all?  According to a federal information to which the defendant is set to plead guilty, the answer is ‘yes’ surprisingly.  A short but interesting story in yesterday’s Wapo describes a federal information in which the crime is hard to find.”

Share
Posted in bribery, campaign finance, campaigns, chicanery, tax law and election law | Comments Off

“Miami-Dade has authority to enact absentee ballot law, judge rules”

Miami Herald: “In its effort to crack down on voter fraud, Miami-Dade County has the authority to limit how many absentee ballots a voter can possess, a judge ruled Friday.”

Share
Posted in absentee ballots, chicanery, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

“‘I voted early’ sticker leads to arrest, fraud charges”

News from Fla.

Share
Posted in chicanery, felon voting | Comments Off

“EXCLUSIVE: Did nun vote for dead colleague?”

Cincinnati Enquirer: “A Greater Cincinnati nun is suspected of illegally casting a ballot for another nun who died before last November’s election, a new case of alleged vote fraud that emerged as local officials move to wrap up their investigation into election improprieties last fall.”

The alleged fraud occurred with an absentee ballot.

Share
Posted in absentee ballots, chicanery, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

“Chicago Called Most Corrupt City in Nation”

See here.  In other news, gravity has once again kept me from drifting off the earth’s surface.

Share
Posted in chicanery | Comments Off

“County clerk’s office tells of possible campaign problems in Cicero”

Chicago Tribune: “Allegations such as voters being offered pizza coupons and campaign workers insisting on handling mail-in ballots for town residents have sprung up in Cicero as the heated race for town president heads into its final week. The Cook County clerk’s office has notified law enforcement officials, including the state’s attorney’s office and the U.S. Department of Justice, of such allegations and other claims of voter intimidation and voter fraud in the western suburb.”

Share
Posted in absentee ballots, chicanery, vote buying | Comments Off

“GOP chair: Vote fraud will be prosecuted”

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports.

Share
Posted in chicanery, election administration, The Voting Wars | Comments Off

The Backstory on Allegations Against Sen. Menendez

Must-read NYT report.

Share
Posted in chicanery, ethics investigations | Comments Off

“G.O.P. Chief in Florida Pleads Guilty”

I missed this news from earlier in the week: “Averting a prolonged and heated political drama, Jim Greer, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, walked into an Orlando courtroom on Monday and pleaded guilty to grand theft and money laundering charges.”

Share
Posted in chicanery | Comments Off

“Supreme Court Justice David Prosser’s case appears stuck in neutral’

The latest from Wisconsin.

Share
Posted in chicanery, judicial elections | Comments Off