|
David Tuthill
| |
09/25/06 Why are some
politicos suing AG for enforcing a state law?
As I said last week,
DallasBlog.com is my second favorite blog in town. Some really great
writers and thinkers are generating thought-provoking articles.
| Will Lutz has really stirred up
some action with his story
DEMOCRATS FILE LAWSUIT TO STOP ABBOTT'S VOTER FRAUD
CAMPAIGN
(9/23/06, DallasBlog.com). Since I have been a long
time critic of people preying on senior and disabled voters by confiscating
their mail-in ballots, I could not resist reading and responding to his report. |
|
|
|
09/25 Michael Davis:
A lot of it points to voter turnout. This
stuff works because turnout is so embarrassingly low in many races that
a few votes here and there does the trick. |
|
|
I don?t know what the answer is
to fixing that issue. I just know that
if more people voted then this stuff wouldn?t
matter as much.
Dallas
Progress - Independent News Media
http://dallasprogress.blogspot.com |
You really must read the Plaintiffs' petition, but this should make you sick:
| ... under
Section 86.006(f) of the Texas Election Code, individuals -- including
Plaintiffs -- are now subject to criminal prosecution in Texas merely
for possessing another's completed and sealed mail-in ballot for
the purpose of depositing that ballot in the mail.?
These provisions are plainly target at the
longstanding, widespread and legitimate activities of Plaintiffs and
other individuals, organizations and political parties in facilitating
voter participation and assisting voters who vote by mail. Notably,
those targeted by the enforcement of these provisions so far have been
overwhelmingly and disproportionately African-American, Hispanic, and
Democratic. Although purportedly enacted to prevent voter fraud,
the challenged provisions do nothing of the sort. Rather, the
plain intent and effect of these provisions, and of their enforcement by
Texas officials, is to suppress voting by disfavored groups and to
squelch completely legitimate, non-fraudulent activities of civic
organizations, including political parties.... |
First, you need to remember
that it was former State Rep. Steve Wolens (Democrat) who got Sec. 86.006(f)
enacted for us. He knew first hand how the vote harvesting racket has
corrupted local politics.
There is no excuse for anyone "possessing another's completed and sealed mail-in
ballot". That's all there is to it. Mail-in ballots are mailed with
self-addressed, self-stamped envelopes.
Let me tell you about some of the stuff that used to happen before Sec.
86.006(f).
Managers at nursing homes would order ballots for all their patients, fill them
in with votes for whatever candidate paid off the manager and mail the ballots
back without the patients ever knowing or been capable of knowing they had voted
for anyone. Comatose and senile nursing home patients voted with great
regularity.
Other senior voters were on a list of mail-in ballot voters from previous
elections. Vote harvester thugs went to their homes with applications for
ballots and demanded or coercee the senior voters to sign the applications.
Sometimes, harvester thugs didn't even bother contacting the senior voter.
They forged the senior voter's name on the application. The harvester
would hold the applications and turn them in on scheduled days because the
Election Department mails out ballots within a fixed time period from receipt of
the application for a ballot. The harvester thugs then watched their
assigned streets on the day the ballots should arrive to the senior voters.
Depending on the harvester thug's personal method, the harvester thug would then
outright steal the ballot out of the mailbox to fraudulently complete and vote
it himself or another harvester thug would demand the senior voter give him the
ballot for mailing. Senior voters are particularly vulnerable to physical
threats.
There's another method that was frequently used -- CASH payment for a mail-in
ballot. Candidate's paid vote harvester thugs X-$ for every collected
mail-in ballot. The vote harvester thugs in turn bought ballots from
senior voters or nursing home managers.
You've heard the term "campaign walking around money". Well, harvesting
mail-in ballots is where a lot of that money went. Really sleazy business.
Several years ago, a major vote harvester thug, now deceased, told a candidate
he was trying to get to hire him about the process he used. His harvester
thugs were friendly to the senior voters. As the harvester thug left with
the collected un-mailed ballot, he would say something to the effect to the
senior voter: "Hope you voted for my friend, Joe Blow." They never
mentioned the candidate the harvester thug was really supporting. Joe Blow
would be the opponent. If the senior voter said "Yes, I voted for Joe
Blow", that ballot never saw the light of day again. If the senior voted
said "No, I voted for the other guy", that ballot was delivered to the Elections
Department. Until the 2003 enactment of Sec. 86.006(f), there were always
many ballots mailed out by the Elections Department that never came back.
I wrote the following response to Will Lutz's posting:
Mail-in ballot vote
harvesting has been a horrible practice in Dallas County. Although
former DEMOCRAT State Rep Woolens' bill did not go far enough, it does
make the practice illegal.
No one outside of a family member or an election judge (on elelection
day) should touch a voter's ballot regardless of their physical or
mental condition.
Senior and/or disabled voters in minority communities have been
intimidated if not outright terrorized by vote harvesters into turning
over their mail-in ballots.
Have to ask three questions of Ken Molberg. (1) Are you opposed to
requiring picture ID's of voters (much less stringent than Mexican
voting rules)? (2) How does banning vote-harvesting discriminate against
Democrats? 3) Are you saying only Democrats confiscate old people's
mail-in ballots and that Republican senior voters never vote by mail?
Last I heard, Dallas County was including self-addressed, self-stamped
return envelopes with mail-in ballots. If a sighted voter is not capable
of marking their ballot and placing it in a self-addressed, self-stamped
envelope, I'm not sure that person should be voting.
If a voter is blind, the Feds have required Dallas County to spend
millions on new voting machines exclusive for the use of the blind. As
election judge in the last School Board election, I can attest that NOT
ONE blind person came in to vote or use that machine.
Mail-in vote harvesting hurts everyone. It's been a killer in city
elections. It has been the difference in honest candidates losing to
crooks in primary elections.
Atty. General Abbott is to be commended for standing up against vote
fraud.
Sharon Boyd, www.DallasArena.com
|
My response triggered this
reaction from former County Democrat Chair Ken Molberg:
...Sharon,
if so-called "vote harvesting" is something that is real rather than
imagined, I am surprised that our local law enforcement officials are
not onto it. What the AG appears to be doing in many cases is to go
after people who assisted elderly minorities in getting their ballots to
a mail box. No, and I certainly don't think R's don't vote by mail. I
don't really follow you here. In the last general election, there were
more than 25,000 mail ballots cast in Dallas County. Two-thirds were
cast for the Republican presidential candidate (unfortunately). I don't
think that anyone should be indicted for helping some of those people
get their ballots to the mailbox. The problem with your question,
however, is that it makes the ridiculous assumption that only Democrats
engage in improprieties in mail ballot voting. I think a stronger
argument could be made for the proposition that if fraud in the mail
balloting exists, two-thirds of it probably occurs among Republican
voters. Well, I'm not ready to say either one, Sharon.
I certainly do not believe that someone who has difficulty seeing or
whose motor skills are seriously impaired should be disqualified from
voting. To me, that is absurd and treacherous. I know too many people
who are housebound, some bedridden, who cannot mark a ballot. In fact
they cannot even eat on their own. Yet they are mentally fully qualified
to vote.
What should be required? A current voter registration card or appearance
on the current voter rolls. Nothing more. Do you forget that to obtain
that status you have to swear an oath that you meet specific requirement
and are warned that false information will subject you to legal
consequences?
I also believe we should have same-day registration.... |
Isn't it interesting that
"25,000 mail ballots" were cast in Dallas County in 2004? Sec. 86.006(f)
was enacted in 2004. That means either a bunch of vote harvester thugs
broke the law, or 25,000 mail-in ballots were voted and mailed by the actual
voters without any assistance from the vote harvester thugs.
I agree with Ken Molberg that physical infirmities should not
prevent someone from voting. If someone is incapable of feeding himself,
then he has a caregiver feeding him. If someone is incapable of feeding
himself, someone has the legal authority to manage that person's physical and
financial and legal needs. Sec. 86.006(f) does not interfere with that
designated caregiver from assisting the physically impaired voter.
Please, few realize they are swearing an oath when they fill out a voter
registration card. Many people fill them out at political functions
without reading anything except the blanks they fill in. We have to show
picture ID's to cash checks. Everyone should be required to show a picture
ID alongside their voter registration card when they vote.
A couple of years ago, I was calling voters. A Spanish speaking friend was
calling with me on my second line. There were several incidents where a
Spanish surnamed voter turned out to be not a citizen and was horrified to know
someone had registered him to vote. These were people who were here
legally and in the process of becoming citizens. Registering to vote would
have hampered if not cancelled their citizenship process.
So, don't tell me that everyone on the voter rolls has taken an oath -- or even
know they are registered to vote.
State Rep. Terri Hodge (subject of several Todd Bensman/Robert Riggs expos?)
was a big time vote harvester before Sec. 86.006(f). Hopefully, she has
retired from the dirty business -- but don't count on it. In her day,
Hodge would show up on Election Day with crates of mail-in ballots that she had
collected and had not mailed in.
There have been more than a few local elections that were won at the polls, but
lost because the victor had more mail-in ballots.
I'm glad the Attorney General is ENFORCING THE LAW. It's amazing to me
that anyone in politics would not want clean, honest elections. Vote
harvesters sell their services to the highest bidders.
sb
| |
|
