IA - Voter fraud suspect arrested in Des Moines

[ArianeEmory]

Interesting cases, bluesneakers, thanks.

(As someone who lived through the 2000 election and literally worked in the news industry *in Palm Beach County* throughout that whole sordid affair, it's interesting to see what measures have been enacted. (And that all that stuff is a felony charge!) I couldn't even stand to read about this stuff for years afterwards.)

 

[bluesneakers]

Interesting cases, bluesneakers, thanks.

(As someone who lived through the 2000 election and literally worked in the news industry *in Palm Beach County* throughout that whole sordid affair, it's interesting to see what measures have been enacted. (And that all that stuff is a felony charge!) I couldn't even stand to read about this stuff for years afterwards.)

I used to work at the polls and honestly the ugliest it ever got was when I would have to tell people not to talk about the election while they were in the building, and that since no talking was allowed I couldn't answer any of their questions.

OT favorite question: "How many electoral votes does Ross Perot have so far?"

 

[Cubby]

Ross Perot, I forgot about him, lol.

Seriously, I can't believe someone would be so stupid as to risk becoming a felon to vote multiple times. Can see it now, "Felons for <insert name of candidate>".

Now my curiosity is peaked, how many people are incarcerated for voter fraud?

 

[i.b.nora]

Florida

Two women busted for election fraud in Miami-Dade

A 74-year-old woman tasked with opening envelopes sent by Miami-Dade County voters with their completed mail ballots was arrested Friday after co-workers caught her illegally marking ballots, resulting in an unknown &#8212; but small &#8212; number of fraudulent votes being cast for mayoral candidate Raquel Regalado.

Investigators linked Gladys Coego, a temporary worker for the county elections department, to two fraudulent votes, but they suspect from witness testimony that she submitted several more.

Coego, of Westchester, turned herself in to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on Friday morning. She was charged with two felony counts of marking another person&#8217;s ballot. Coego was released after posting a $10,000 bond.

In a separate election-fraud case, authorities also arrested a second woman Friday on charges of unlawfully filling out voter-registration forms on behalf of United for Care, the campaign to legalize medical marijuana in Florida.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article111029767.html#storylink=cpy

 

[bluesneakers]

Ross Perot, I forgot about him, lol.

Seriously, I can't believe someone would be so stupid as to risk becoming a felon to vote multiple times. Can see it now, "Felons for <insert name of candidate>".

Now my curiosity is peaked, how many people are incarcerated for voter fraud?

OT
Your Cubbies are breaking my heart.

 

[bluesneakers]

Ross Perot, I forgot about him, lol.

Seriously, I can't believe someone would be so stupid as to risk becoming a felon to vote multiple times. Can see it now, "Felons for <insert name of candidate>".

Now my curiosity is peaked, how many people are incarcerated for voter fraud?

Still looking for totals. So far I've found this:

Voter Fraud: Non-Existent Problem or Election-Threatening Epidemic?

Out of the 197 million votes cast for federal candidates between 2002 and 2005, only 40 voters were indicted for voter fraud, according to a Department of Justice study outlined during a 2006 Congressional hearing. Only 26 of those cases, or about .00000013 percent of the votes cast, resulted in convictions or guilty pleas.

The price for that one vote is up to 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 for citizens and could mean deportation for immigrants.

That's exactly what happened to Usman Ali, a Pakistani immigrant who had lived in the United States as a permanent resident for 20 years. Ali checked the "yes" box to register to vote while applying for a driver's license in Florida.

Although he never tried to vote, Ali was deported back to Pakistan for allegedly committing voter fraud.

Ohioan gets 5-year prison term for illegal voting

Others convicted

Melowese Richardson was the third person convicted this year of illegal voting in the Cincinnati area:

&#8226; Sister Marguerite Kloos, 55, of Delhi Township, Ohio, voted last fall via absentee ballot for another nun who died before she could cast her vote. Kloos lost her job as a dean at the College of Mount Saint Joseph and was placed on probation. She could have her conviction erased and be eligible to vote again.

&#8226; Russell Glassop, 76, of Symmes Township, Ohio, submitted his wife's absentee ballot after she died in 2012. He was placed on probation but could have his conviction erased and be eligible to vote again.

&#8226; Richardson, 58, of Cincinnati, was convicted of casting illegal votes in 2012 when she was a poll worker. She was sent to prison for five years.

I wonder if because people assume it's common they also believe it's easy to get away with? So instead of thinking "I might get five years and a felony" they think "Oh hey, just doing what everyone else is doing."

 

[ArianeEmory]

Interesting about the nun. Just goes to show it's silly to try to "profile" who is more likely to commit voter fraud.

I wonder 1) how they knew it was her since it was mailed in, and 2) if she was perhaps carrying out a friend's last wishes or something.

 

[Jax49]

Interesting about the nun. Just goes to show it's silly to try to "profile" who is more likely to commit voter fraud.

I wonder 1) how they knew it was her since it was mailed in, and 2) if she was perhaps carrying out a friend's last wishes or something.

I was on a message board yesterday and an idiot bragged he'd voted for a relative who died a couple of days before their ballot arrived. What a stupid thing to do--and to announce it to the world (the site uses Facebook). SMH. Anyone chancing prison for votes it just way past stupid, IMHO. No matter who they support.

 

[Tawny]

My feeling is that humans on both "sides" are still humans, and have roughly the same human instinct to "cheat", so any voter fraud probably balances itself out.

In other words, believing that people in one political party are somehow more "honorable" than in another party disregards the reality of human nature, and smacks of fuzzy thinking.

(Although possibly I'm giving certain extremists too much credit.)

Either way, agree it was a silly and pointless gesture on the part of the accused.

(I voted early. The system in my state caught that my address had changed (election mail returned) and marked it me as inactive. I was able to fix it on site, and my early voting precinct appeared to be running smoothly. Doing my bit for a swing state.)

Yep. When given the opportunity to take advantage of something and not get caught, roughly 3% out of everyone will take that chance, and that's when there are no consequences. An example: Honor system where you leave the money and take the product. So add in felony charges and prison time, and that number will go down. People just won't risk that to cast one extra vote for their party.

I'll keep searching for that link.

--

If anyone is interested, you can find a lot of really solid resources and stats done by law firms and universities on the voter fraud myth. Voter fraud is exceptionally rare.

 

[Jax49]

If the woman in Iowa is convicted, she'll lose her voting rights and will have to appeal to the governor to have them reinstated (unlike some states where restoration is automatic).

In Iowa, a person&#8217;s voter registration is cancelled if the person is convicted of a felony. Voting rights may be restored by application to the Governor's Office after completion of the sentence, any required probation, parole, or supervised release, and all court costs, fees, and restitutions have been paid.

 

[Paige SC]

Voter fraud is a wildly under reported (via national MSM), pervasive problem.

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2016/09/22/cbs4-investigation-finds-dead-voters-casting-ballots-in-colorado/

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/politics/Man-Accused-With-Filing-Fake-Voter-Registration-Applications-399027631.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/he-fought-in-world-war-ii-he-died-in-2014-and-he-just-registered-to-vote-in-va/2016/09/29/5e0bffee-8670-11e6-ac72-a29979381495_story.html

http://6abc.com/politics/action-news-investigation-voting-from-the-grave/1575596/

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/10/27/2-investigators-chicago-voters-cast-ballots-from-beyond-the-grave/

 

[Tawny]

The numbers appear to be 4 here, 19 there, etc. That's not some widespread national crisis and it's certainly not one party responsible. It's on both sides and 19 out of how many millions in Virginia? Mountains out of molehills.

"In all, the analysis showed 119 dead people have voted a total of 229 times in Chicago in the last decade." Over ten years, 229 votes were cast vs the millions upon millions of legitimate voters.

 

[rob]

Yeah, but let's not ask folks to actually show up in person and show an ID. That is so discriminatory.
MOO

 

[bluesneakers]

The numbers appear to be 4 here, 19 there, etc. That's not some widespread national crisis and it's certainly not one party responsible. It's on both sides and 19 out of how many millions in Virginia? Mountains out of molehills.

"In all, the analysis showed 119 dead people have voted a total of 229 times in Chicago in the last decade." Over ten years, 229 votes were cast vs the millions upon millions of legitimate voters.

 

[CoolJ]

Yeah, which sucks because this is an interesting subject! I would never dream of trying to commit voter fraud and wow, did she get caught quickly! As did the other two mentioned. I agree with you it doesn't matter which side a person is on the law is the law and fraud is wrong. It's amusing though, in this case, when we've heard so much about the election being rigged one way and this was an attempt to rig it the other way.

I've been looking up other old cases and plan on paying close attention to see how often this happens during the next two weeks.

I think the problem is, you won't be able to see how often this happens. If we are relying on MSM to give us the truth, we already know due to to recent email leaks that MSM is in someone's pocket.

 

[bluesneakers]

I think the problem is, you won't be able to see how often this happens. If we are relying on MSM to give us the truth, we already know due to to recent email leaks that MSM is in someone's pocket.

There are links throughout this thread - including the original story- to incidents of arrests and charges, as well as to research and analysis.

 

[Maroon10]

I think the problem is, you won't be able to see how often this happens. If we are relying on MSM to give us the truth, we already know due to to recent email leaks that MSM is in someone's pocket.

Don't forget that the Emmy's are rigged as well. Major voter fraud intended to prevent the Apprentice from winning. Yeah, ok.

 

[CoolJ]

There are links throughout this thread - including the original story- to incidents of arrests and charges, as well as to research and analysis.

But what about the incidents that don't get reported on MSM? How do you factor those into the equation?

 

[bluesneakers]

But what about the incidents that don't get reported on MSM? How do you factor those into the equation?

That's in the research.

I'm not sure what you want me to say - should we not pay attention to cases like Ms. Rote's and the others, simply because there may or may not be other instances not reported in the MSM? Does one have to be reported in MSM to be arrested, charged, or even deported for voter fraud? Not every crime of every type is reported but there are still records, research, scholarly studies, etc. to be read and reviewed.

 

[bluesneakers]

Vote of Confidence: Researcher is Well-Cited Expert Dispelling Voter Fraud Allegations

Q&A with Lori Minnite, and associate professor of public policy and administration at Rutgers University&#8211;Camden, and author of the book The Myth of Voter Fraud (Cornell University Press, 2010)

What did you continue to find?

As my investigations progressed, the research problem shifted from documenting the empirical evidence of voter fraud to understanding the huge gap between the volume of allegations and the belief that voter fraud was a problem, as well as the utter lack of any evidence substantiating these allegations. I ultimately concluded that what explains the gap is politics. My book argues that allegations of voter fraud are used as political weapons by partisans to justify rules that shape the electorate to their advantage.

What can be done to curb or eliminate the perpetuation of these myths?

I think that more transparency on the part of state election agencies, the routine production of statistics on election crimes, and more public access to information about elections could go a long way toward reassuring the public that fraud committed by voters is exceedingly rare.

Much more...