October 13, 2004
| Voter Registration Shennanigans
From NBC 9News :
With just 21 days left until an election in which every vote will count, the 9News I-Team has uncovered voter registration fraud that could cause chaos on Election Day for hundreds, possibly thousands of Colorado voters.9News has discovered a record number of fraudulent voter-registrations across the state. Secretary of State Donetta Davidson tells 9News she is concerned about what the I-Team has uncovered and wants those responsible prosecuted. “It has just gone rampant,” she told reporter Deborah Sherman in an interview Monday afternoon.
Most of the fraud has come from registration drives, where people at grocery stores or on the streets ask you to sign up. 9News has learned many workers have re-registered voters multiple times by changing or making up information about them. 9News has documented 719 cases of potentially fraudulent forms at county election offices show fraudulent names, addresses, social security numbers or dates of birth in Denver, Douglas, Adams, Boulder and Lake counties. Information from other counties is still coming in.
Some voter registration application forms are completely bogus. Others belong to legitimate voters, who have had one or two facts changed that could affect their registration when they show up at the polls November 2nd. Tom Stanislawski registered to vote six years ago. But this summer, someone signed him up again and changed his party affiliation. “My concern would be I’d walk in November 2nd and be unable to vote,” he said.
And from CBS KLAS TV8 :
Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.Anyone who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected.
The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at democrats. Thee focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.
The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.
Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.
[…]
So the people on those forms who think they will be able to vote on Election Day are sadly mistaken. We attempted to speak to Voters Outreach but found that its office has been rented out to someone else.
The landlord says Voters Outreach was evicted for non-payment of rent. Another source said the company has now moved on to Oregon where it is once again registering voters. It’s unknown how many registrations may have been tossed out, but another ex-employee told Eyewitness News she had the same suspicions when she worked there.
[…]
The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee. Similar complaints have been received in Reno where the registrar has asked the FBI to investigate.
To gauge the reliability of George Knapp’s “I-team”, this from the National Institute of Discovery Science :
George Knapp is a Las Vegas-based investigative reporter and commentator employed at KLAS-TV (CBS). He has reported on such diverse topics as organized crime, government scandals, national politics, and UFOs. Knapp has earned more journalism awards than any Nevada broadcaster, including four Emmys. His original series about UFOs and Area 51 was selected by United Press International as the winner of its “Best Individual Achievement” award for the nation in 1990.
My advice? Just make sure before you vote that someone hasn’t changed your registration.
Posted by Alan Brain at October 13, 2004 12:17 AM
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It’s hard to know what’s worse, this stuff (assuming that it’s true) or the massive efforts to register a bunch of bogus voters. Either way, the credibility of our system is under attack, and that isn’t good for anybody.
Posted by: TL
at October 13, 2004 09:41 AM
The one truly stupid move was paying the canvassers $2 per registered voter. It wouldn’t take a nanosecond to figure out that many of them would game the system to get a better payday.
Posted by: old_timer
at October 13, 2004 11:12 AM
TL is correct. OT is waythehell off the mark on this one. The System isn’t being gamed for money.
This is a whole other sort of thing.
Seems as how one of those fraudulent voter registration scams is at work up in Portland. KGW television (kgw.com) is reporting that a guy was registering voters, but his employer was paying him Only for Republican registrations — not Democratic registrations.
In this state, anyone registering voters (I’ve registered 70-75 thus far this year myself) simply must turn in All registrations — regardless of party affiliation. To do otherwise is illegal.
The guy is in custody. Jail Time is in order, if the case proves out.
But it’s not just that it’s illegal — it’s that it tampers with the basic foundation of The Republic.
The Republicans’ effort on this one is both shameful and utterly dishonorable. If this is the self-described Party of Patriotism, the name is ill-placed.
Go ahead — spin it, excuse it, try to lay the blame somewhere else. On this one, there’s simply no excuse.
Posted by: Don
at October 13, 2004 02:47 PM
Don goes and blames everything squarely on the Republicans.
But he warns other posters against laying blame against Democrats without proof.
Hypocrisy at its finest.
Posted by: Connolly
at October 13, 2004 06:26 PM
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