Posted on 12/25/2005 7:09:09 AM PST by Maigrey
Election commissioner aided ex-congressman
Sealed records couldn't keep former congressman Harold Ford Sr. from tapping precise, sensitive details of a voter fraud investigation surrounding his sister's narrow win in a Tennessee state Senate race.
Newly obtained documents show Ford spoke with keen accuracy this month when discussing five suspicious ballots cast in the Sept. 15 election that Ophelia Ford won by 13 votes.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is reviewing the ballots cast in a heavily Democratic North Memphis precinct, including two cast in the names of elderly voters who had died weeks before the election.
Ford had told a reporter he suspected any skulduggery was the work of Republicans, so he opened his own investigation.
Ford said he learned that certain poll workers' initials appear on ballot applications filled out in the names of the two dead voters and that he discovered the names of voters on the other three suspected ballots -- contentions that proved true when the records were released late Thursday.
Those records, obtained by The Commercial Appeal under the state's open records act, had been withheld by election officials who said they didn't want to jeopardize the TBI's criminal probe.
Ford now says a source on the Shelby County Election Commission gave him some key details.
Still, the records seem to offer no clue for Ford's assertion that Republicans were behind any voting fraud.
The former Memphis Democrat now working as a Miami-based lobbyist also said again Friday that, contrary to Republican contentions, he's not trying to interfere in the probe but simply wants to get to the truth.
"I wanted to push an investigation to clear my name and the Fords' name,'' he said. "Thank God the TBI is going to investigate this now.''
Emotions have flared since Ophelia Ford squeaked by Republican Terry Roland in a special election to fill the Dist. 29 state Senate seat vacated by another Ford sibling, John Ford, who resigned after his indictment on bribery charges.
Alleging widespread voting irregularities, Roland is asking the Senate not to seat Ophelia Ford when it convenes Jan. 10.
Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons asked the TBI for a criminal probe after The Commercial Appeal found that votes were cast at a heavily Democratic North Memphis precinct in the names of two dead voters. Joe L. Light, 70, died Aug. 6, and Archie L. Kirkwood, 72, died Aug. 30, yet signatures of both were written Sept. 15 into the Precinct 27-1 poll book.
Election Commission Chairman Greg Duckett said at a Dec. 14 news conference that a poll worker or someone with specialized election knowledge may have forged as many as five ballots.
Citing the criminal probe, election officials refused to release other records until County Atty. Brian Kuhn said Thursday there was no legal authority to withhold them.
The newly released records show that the five suspected votes were cast in sequence at Precinct 27-1.
Ballot applications for the two dead voters also reveal the initials of two poll workers, G.O. and V.A.M. -- just as Harold Ford Sr. had said.
In a Dec. 16 interview, Ford identified those poll workers as Gertrude Otteridge, 63, and Vatricia A. McKinney, 52. Their names appear in the newly released records as two of five poll workers stationed at Precinct 27-1 that day.
Ballot application no. 012028, filled out in deceased voter Kirkwood's name, lists "VAM'' as the precinct registrar and "G.O.'' as the voting machine operator.
Application No. 012029, filled out in the name of the other deceased voter, Joe Light, also lists both sets of initials but reverses their roles.
Otteridge did not respond to messages left Thursday and Friday at her North Memphis home. McKinney, a public housing resident who sits on the Memphis Housing Authority board of commissioners, could not be reached despite repeated calls to her South Memphis apartment.
Ford said that although the ballot applications reveal initials of Otteridge and McKinney, both Democratic election judges, poll workers have told him they suspect Republican election judge Martha M. Hensley, 71.
Hensley has called Ford's assertion false and "slanderous.''
Ford said Friday he learned details of the initials on the ballot applications from longtime Election Commission member O.C. Pleasant, who confirmed he gave Ford the information.
"I didn't see anything wrong with it,'' said Pleasant, who has long been one of the most open and accessible election commissioners and who argued from the start of the dead voter scandal that the ballot applications were public records that should be released.
Ford said he pieced together other details through interviews, which included a conversation with voter Gregory Moore, 48, whose name and signature appear on one of the ballot applications sent to the TBI.
Reached Thursday, Moore confirmed that Ford had called him. "He was asking the same questions you were,'' Moore said.
Moore said he did vote Sept. 15 -- for Ophelia Ford -- and doesn't know why election officials are suspicious of his ballot.
Duckett has said suspicions include similar handwriting on the five ballot applications.
The other two ballot applications sent to the TBI involve votes by Otteridge and her daughter, LaToya L. Wilson, another poll worker. The newspaper's efforts to reach Wilson were unsuccessful.
Ford said he's talked with Otteridge and she denies any knowledge of any fraud.
Ford said his actions in conducting an investigation aren't unlike those of a news reporter's, and said he now believes the TBI will need a handwriting expert to solve the case.
"I don't think it's going to be that tough for them to figure it out,'' he said.
What is a surprise is that the TBI is investigating it: they have been hands-off for the Ford Family for generations...
Only people I have every known that vote dead people are democrats. As I have heard, they say in Detroit and Chicago "vote early and vote often and vote for those who are not here."
If several Fords have retired, one of them after a corruption scandal, maybe the TBI figures they have nothing to fear from the Ford family in the future.
These matters are usually influenced by prospects of future fear or favor.
Only the Pubbies are to blame. RATs are never at fault with "widespread voting irregularities", just ask any RAT you can find on the street. Its all the evil Diebold machines, which we all know are hooded directly to Rove's office where he manipulates the original source code to produce the required outcome for the Pubbies.
So am I understanding this correctly? Two democratic poll workers initials were found on illegal ballots- and they are blaming the republican poll worker for it? And neither of these democratic poll workers will make themselves available to the media for questions?
Hilliary doesn't like competition.
Memphis politics are shady at best - and completely corrupt at worst.
Voting irregularities will continue as long as there are only slaps on the wrist for violations. There needs to be serious jail time and a life time loss of voting rights if convicted. They also should be banned from working in any capacity on any campaign or campaign function.
Instapundit was right. Paper leaves a trail. How do you catch this sort of thing with electronic voting machines?
Yeah, the poll worker will take the fall here, but who is going to take the fall for the felons who voted?
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