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Monday, October 20, 2008

They're Going to Steal It Again, Part III: Republican Voter Registration Fraud in California

Posted by Jill | 3:52 AM

Brad Friedman was on Faux Noise yesterday breaking the news that the head of the Republican voter registration group, Young Political Majors that was coercing people into registering as Republicans in order to sign a petition, has himself been arrested for voter registration fraud.

From the California Secretary of State's press release (posted at Bradblog):

Mark Anthony Jacoby, who owns the firm known as Young Political Majors (YPM), was arrested after allegedly registering himself to vote, once in 2006 and again in 2007, at an address where did not live. An investigation by the Secretary of State’s Election Fraud Investigation Unit revealed that Jacoby twice registered to vote at the address of a childhood home in Los Angeles although he no longer lived there.

The Secretary of State’s fraud unit and the Ontario Police Department arrested Jacoby near an Ontario hotel just before midnight Saturday. An arraignment date has not been scheduled yet.

“Voter registration fraud is a serious issue, which is why I vigorously investigate all allegations of elections fraud,” said Secretary Bowen, California’s chief elections officer. “Where there’s a case to be made, I will forward it to law enforcement for criminal prosecution.”

For his business, Jacoby traveled California and a number of other states collecting petition signatures and registering voters. Under state law, signature-gatherers must sign a declaration stating that they are either registered to vote in California or that they are eligible to do so. Jacoby allegedly registered to vote at his childhood address to meet this legal requirement.

Under California law, it is a felony punishable by up to three years in prison to register yourself when you are not entitled to vote and it is perjury to provide false information on a voter registration card.

On October 3, the Public Integrity Unit of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office charged Jacoby with four felonies: two counts of voter registration fraud and two counts of perjury. A warrant was issued for his arrest and bail was set at $50,000.

It's important to note that the Republicans are clearly embarking on a two-prong approach of stealing the election if they can through massive voter caging lists, voter intimidation at the polls, and rigged voting machines; and attempting to delegitimize Barack Obama if he is elected by blaming ACORN, which has done nothing other than hire unreliable people and then flag registrations gathered by these people that are likely to be fraudulent before passing them on AS REQUIRED BY LAW. On the other hand, we have Republican front groups doing the electoral equivalent of long-distance slamming, combined with deliberate registration fraud.

ACORN is required to submit all voter registration forms it receives to eliminate the possibility that voters might think they are registered when they are not. It is not unheard of for the trashing of voter registration forms to be used as a disenfranchisement tactic. In 2004, Voter Outreach of America was alleged to have thrown out registration forms decleared as Democratic because it was paid by the RNC to only sign up Democratic voters. Registration scams run by Christian Coalition goon Nathan Sproul were rampant during the last presidential election cycle. Funny how there was no Republican outrage over voter registration fraud when it's actually done by Republicans, instead of being done by employed individuals whose fraudulent activity is flagged by the organization that hires them as part of that organization's compliance with the law.

It's time to face the fact that Republicans do not want Democrats to vote. Period. I'm somewhat encouraged by the fact that the Obama campaign seems to at least have a clue about what's going on, and is putting together an apparatus to try to deal with it. The problem is that once voters are denied the opportunity to vote on November 4, it's too late to re-enfranchisement them. And they only have to disenfranchise enough people to gain enough electoral votes to win.

Labels: disenfranchisement, Republicans, vote suppression

1 comments

1 Comments:

Bob said...

The Obama campaign was designed to register new voters, get them to the polls, & fend off disenfranchisement attempts. That's what you learn from community organizin'.

10/20/08, 5:10 PM