More tampering with absentee ballots found

[DoYouEverWonder]

March 7, 2006

Virginia town suspends four indicted employees

APPALACHIA, Va. Four employees of the Town of Appalachia who were among 14 people indicted last week on charges of election fraud and corruption -- have been suspended from their jobs without pay.
The town council voted yesterday to suspend two police officers, the parks and recreation director and the bookkeeper.

About 60 people turned out for a special session called by Mayor Ben Cooper, who faces more than 200 charges. Cooper had announced plans to resign, but instead only surrendered his duties as town manager. Another indicted councilman, Owen "Andy" Sharrett, wrote a letter of resignation but had rescinded it by the time of the meeting.

The indictment alleges a scheme to fix the May 2004 election to put Cooper, Sharrett and a third council member in office by tampering with absentee ballots and buying votes with alcohol and cigarettes.

http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=4596973&nav=23ii


Voting in person, with pen and paper is the only way to vote. Absentee ballots should be reserved only for people who really can't vote any other way.

[sendero]

1. I would like to see legislation..

... that makes election fraud a serious offense punishable by LIFE IN PRISON WITH NO POSSIBILITY OF PAROLE.

What could possibly be worse than subverting Democracy?

[Wilms]

3. Well said. n/t

[babylonsister]

4. Hell, the powers that be can't agree on how to legislate

the infiltration of lobbyists. Can they legislate how we vote, or is it a question of what's in it for them?
I've become very cynical.

[mitchtv]

2. Absentee ballots should be reserved only for people

Absentee ballots should be reserved only for people who really can't vote any other way. Sorry to disagree, but absentee is the best way to vote. FYI Oregon is all mail in ballots.

[Wilms]

6. "Absentee is the best way to vote"?

Please explain.

Right out the gate it seems ripe for vote buying, coercion.

I know I'm stepping on a sacred cow of some Oregonians, and the points I indicated may be part of the Repub charges, but "the best way" needs a bit of qualification before I can go all bouncy frog over it.

[mitchtv]

11. the simplest reason ever

It is a paper ballot. 2. the voter is better educated, at least I am, as I can sit at my table at night with all reference available to choose.

[Wilms]

12. Doesn't cut it.

1. I vote on a paper ballot, too. But it gets OpScaned, just like the absentee votes, and it's not any more secure except you MIGHT get to recount it.

2. Anyone can sit at a table at night with all reference available. That's what I do. Then I take the product of my work to a polling place and transfer my notes to a ballot.

Any other advantages?

[DoYouEverWonder]

13. Voting in person is more secure

because #1 you have sign in the register and you have to show ID, this makes it much more difficult for the cheats to steal your vote.

Anyone can fill out your absentee ballot and you may never even know it. That's what the repugs are counting on. They especially love the lists of inactive voters. They send in requests for their ballots, intercept them and most of the time the voter never even notices because they weren't going to vote anyway.

[Wilms]

14. I enjoy the ceremony.

Greeting my neighbors. Saying hi to poll workers. Putting the "I voted" sticker on my dog's collar.

It's Norman Rockwell, in a good way. :)

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. Since everyone uses the same system in Oregon

it is hard to see how they compare to the rest of the 49 states, that don't use this method. I am curious, since everyone votes by mail how do they deal with voter registration and how do they verify that the ballots are valid?

Aside for Oregon, the problem I am seeing in many places around the country is that the Repugs are targeting the absentee ballots because it is so easy to steal ballots and vote for people or change their votes without their knowledge. This is why I'm opposed to absentee voting for the 2006 election or at least until we tighten up the rules again and make it harder to tamper with these ballots.

[soldier101]

5. sometimes only way

Not only do I travel a lot. I was deployed during election time. Absentee was the only way. And sometimes my trips come up at a moments notice.

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. Then you should be eligable to vote absentee

however I know that in 2004 they made if very easy for people overseas to vote absentee either by mail, email or fax and because it is so easy, you don't even need a witness's signature anymore, it is also very easy to cheat. It is unfortunate that the system has become so corrupted that at this point voting absentee should be avoided at all costs unless you have no other choice.

[ReadTomPaine]

9. What's with all these pulled resignations...

Sounds like they may have been tossed a lifeline from somewhere.

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. Here's a couple of more voter fraud cases in the news lately

The common thread, in all these voter fraud stories that I see is absentee ballots.


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

Mar 4, 2006

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.

Corruption and petty retaliation supposedly followed. The indictment claims Cooper even used the police to force their way into the home of a man he didn't like, where they simply took his money. The next day, it says, Cooper had the man's water turned off.

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


Voter fraud trial starts Monday
Mar 03, 2006

VIDALIA — The first of five Ferriday voter fraud defendants will go to trial Monday, 11 months after her arrest.

In a hearing Friday morning, attorney Butch Wilson of the Attorney General’s office asked to separate the trial of Henrietta Williams on 16 counts from that of Justin Conner, James Skipper, Emerson Slain and Willie Robinson.

The trial starting Monday will handle only a portion of the counts against Williams. Her charges differ slightly from the others because they include the absentee ballot of Maude Lee Williams.

Charges against the other four defendants center on the absentee ballots of Estella, Lillie and Frederick White.

http://www.natchezdemocrat.com/articles/2006/03/04/news/news16.txt