Pork rinds, cigs and six-packs: corruption in Virginia's backwoods

[DoYouEverWonder]

Mar 4, 2006

Just the good ol' boys, Never meanin' no harm, Beats all you've ever saw, Been in trouble with the law Since the day they was born.

Welcome to Virginia's newest sitcom, "The Dukes of Appalachia," in which every rural stereotype you ever heard of is called into play.

Beats all you ever saw.

Is this for real? Fourteen people in the town of Appalachia, in far Southwest Virginia, were indicted Thursday on 269 counts alleging 917 criminal acts relating to the fixing of the town's 2004 election and other crimes.

It all came undone because of pork rinds.

The scheme, according to prosecutors, was to put a man named Ben Cooper in as mayor, town manager and, in effect, head of the police department. It involved bribing, tricking or coercing people to vote for specific candidates, either at the polls or through absentee ballots, they say.

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&%09s=1045855935174&c=MGArticle&cid=1137834500915&path=!news!columnists

Townspeople shrug, go on

Townspeople shrug, go on

March 04, 2006

The town bookkeeper, Sharrett is also the mother of Owen "Andy" Sharrett, one of the two town council members accused of buying some votes with cigarettes and beer.

The indictment also charges members of the Sharrett family -- six of them in all -- with voting early and often by stealing mail-in ballots from residents' mailboxes and the post office. The defendants then voted for themselves by forging the voters' signatures and mailing the absentee ballots back to the registrar's office, the indictment alleged.

As Appalachia absorbed the news Friday, there was also the question of whether the mayor, a fixture in most parades, would make an appearance that night.

Mayor and acting town manager Ben Cooper was at the heart of the alleged conspiracy, according to a 300-page indictment that contained allegations of more than 1,000 violations of election laws. Cooper, like the rest of the candidates on the ballot, ran as an independent.

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/wb/xp-55254

Makes you wonder how many other places this sort of stuff is going on? This is why Repugs love Absentee Voting so much and do everything to make it as easy as possible to vote absentee.

EARLY VOTING is the way to go, with pen and paper!

[Selatius]

1. They're like a bunch of cockroaches

You flip on the light, and they scatter, but for every one you see, there's several more in the dark.

[BeFree]

2. Where do you think republicans learned?

Small town America, taken all the way to the white house. They've mastered it in the last few elections by using every trick in the book whilst inventing a few more. And this rag makes fun of the little guys and lets the big boys go? What a piece of crap.

[Blue_Tires]

3. wow...

i'm ashamed to even share the same state with their ilk!

[porkrind]

4. Pleased to meet you...

won't you guess my name? :)

[underpants]

5. And it DIDN'T involve Kilgore's mother?

now THAT'S amazing