Free Republic

NASHVILLE -- State Sen. Ophelia Ford -- already a YouTube star for her snarling "what you're saying ain't hittin' on nothin' with me" speech last year -- was back at it last week, berating regulators about new state fees on the funeral industry. Acknowledging that she's a licensed funeral director, Ford complained in a legislative hearing Aug. 13 that fees are going to "eat us up and put us out of business." She demanded regulators disclose who imposed a new $150 biannual registration fee on preneed funeral sales agents and what it's for. Turns out that Ford and her legislative...

Tenn. won't reinstate Ophelia Ford's expired funeral permit

The Supreme Court's approval of the country's strictest election standards doesn't mean every state should adopt them - The U.S. Supreme Court stamped its approval this week on Indiana's decision to require voters to show photo identification at the polls. Should Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas get in line? Not necessarily. State lawmakers should always be concerned about the integrity of the ballot, decide what can reasonably and fairly be expected of voters and legislate accordingly. But there is no federal mandate to adopt the photo ID, a solution that still seems to be in search of a problem. In his...

Memphis City Councilman Edmund Ford agreed this morning to drop a lawsuit seeking to force his funeral home landlord to sign a sales agreement. Ford also agreed to leave the property on Elvis Presley Boulevard in 45 days. Attorney Handel Durham, who represents Ford, said his client will seek a new location for the E. H. Ford Mortuary Services he has operated the past 12 years, including the last three at the present location. The settlement with landlord Dennis Churchwell was announced in Chancery Court where a hearing was to be held before Chancellor Kenny Armstrong. "He’s not out of...

A judge said Monday he thinks the public is owed a more detailed explanation about an alleged plot by three poll workers to throw a 2005 election to Ophelia Ford, now a state senator. Shelby County Criminal Court Judge John P. Colton took guilty pleas earlier this month from the three election workers who avoided jail time in a deal with prosecutors. Advertisement The workers admitted to voting fraud charges against them, yet never said what motivated them to fake at least three votes, two of them cast in the names of dead people. "I think the public has a...

Memphis City Councilman Edmund Ford may be able to keep his mortuary in its Whitehaven home after all. His landlord, Dennis Churchwell, had threatened to auction off the 5.8-acre property on Elvis Presley because of its notoriety. It's where Ford was allowed to rack up a five-digit Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division bill, touching off a scandal that led to the resignation of the utility's president. Advertisement But after the live auction Saturday afternoon, the property's only bid came from a lender of the Supreme Lending Group in Memphis, who offered Churchwell $750,000 to purchase the property on Ford's...

The Whitehaven property where Memphis City Councilman Edmund Ford operates a mortuary -- and where he ran up his notorious utility bill -- is going on the auction block. Ford's landlord, Dennis Churchwell, is planning to sell the property on May 19, billing the 5.8 acres as "ideal" for a motel or strip mall. Advertisement Churchwell values the land and four buildings at about $1 million, but they will go to the highest bidder no matter what. He just wants out of Whitehaven and to sever his ties with Ford, owner of E.H. Ford Mortuary Services. "I'm just sick of...

A federal appeals court blocked an Arizona state law requiring voters to present identification at polling stations and proof of citizenship when registering to vote. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an emergency motion by opponents of the law for an injunction to prevent the law's voter identification requirements from taking effect for the November 7 elections. Opponents of the Arizona law said it discriminated against minorities and the poor, who might not have funds to obtain the necessary proof of identification. “The law sets a burdensome requirement,” Victor Meiser, attorney for the plaintiffs. “To get a driver’s...

DETROIT (AP) — The city clerk plans to purge the names of nearly 55,000 dead people and those who no longer live in the city from voting rolls as part of an effort to ensure integrity in elections. Clerk Janice Winfrey bought lists of deaths from the state and city health department. Then she moved to eliminate the names of people who hadn't cast a ballot since before the 2002 election and who had been mailed voter card registration renewal forms that were returned as undeliverable. Already the names of about 33,000 deceased voters have been removed, The Detroit News...

MEMPHIS — The state prosecutor at Memphis is deciding if indictments will be sought in the voting scandal surrounding Ophelia Ford's election to the Tennessee Senate. Prosecutor Bill Gibbons is reviewing a report from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation on the District 29 election in which two ballots were cast in the names of dead people. "There's a lot of material to review," Gibbons said Thursday. "If we feel indictments are appropriate we would submit that for consideration to the grand jury." Gibbons declined to say when he expects to make a decision. Ford is not accused of wrongdoing but...

Prop 200 Screening Out Illegal Voters Stricter immigration laws now on the books in Arizona that require elections officials to check for proof of citizenship have uncovered thousands of new registrants who don't qualify to vote. According to the Arizona Daily Star, state election officials credit the citizenship requirement contained in Proposition 200, the illegal-immigration initiative passed last November, for screening out the illegal voters. In Arizona's Prima County alone, elections officials have rejected 59 percent of all applicants in the last two weeks - or 423 of the 712 new registrants. "We rejected none during the same period last...

NASHVILLE — The Senate should void a special election that put a Memphis Democrat into office, a committee looking into claims of voting irregularities recommended Thursday. Sen. Ophelia Ford was certified the 13-vote winner of the September election, but it was immediately challenged by the Republican candidate. A special Senate committee looking into the case voted 4-1 Thursday that there was enough evidence to conclude her margin of victory was in doubt because of ballots cast in the names of dead voters, felons and people who didn’t live in the district. The matter now goes to the full Senate, which...

posted by Cathy Shapiro Senate Seat 29 Decision Feb 1, 2006, 02:16 PM PST MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - A judge in Memphis ruled today that Tennessee lawmakers can go ahead with efforts to void a disputed state Senate election. But U-S District Judge Bernice Donald said they cannot throw out challenged ballots without first making sure they are invalid. The ruling came on a lawsuit filed by newly elected Senator Ophelia Ford of Memphis and five other voters of Senate District 29. The Senate's Republican majority is trying to void Ford's 13-vote victory last year in a special election to...

EVERETT - A statewide computer sweep of voter registration records in Washington found 11,500 voters listed as dead by the state Health Department. The sweep this month also found 36,000 voters who appear to be registered in two counties. The manager of the new $6 million database project, Pam Floyd, says the names have been flagged for further scrutiny. Snohomish County immediately canceled the voter registrations for the more than 1,400 dead people. The state has 3.5 million registered voters. Monthly sweeps are planned for duplicate and deceased voters. In March, officials plan to create the first comprehensive list of...

Wednesday, Sen. Ophelia Ford was in a federal courtroom in Memphis fighting to keep her State Senate seat, but even though only three senators were subpoena to be there, more than half of the State Senate showed up in Memphis. The judge said she would make a final decision by Wednesday of next week, and until then senators can not void the election of Sen. Ford. Senators were supposed to be debating an ethics bill on Wednesday, but all 17 senatos who voted to void the election went to support their colleagues in Memphis. 16 Republicans and one Democrat went...

NASHVILLE – A federal court judge in Memphis late Wednesday blocked a planned Senate vote Thursday to overturn the Senate District 29 election and expel Sen. Ophelia Ford. After a 50-minute hearing, U.S. Dist. Court Judge Bernice Donald issued a temporary restraining order barring the state Senate from taking any action to overturn the Sept. 15 special election that Ford won by 13 votes. She set a full hearing for Jan. 25. The Senate was all but certain to vote Thursday morning to void the election and remove Ford from the District 29 seat. Acting as a "committee of the...

The chairman of a state Senate committee investigating voting irregularities says it might take two to three weeks to make a final recommendation on whether Ophelia Ford should be seated in the Senate. But Chairman Mike Williams says he'll ask in the interim that Ford take the seat provisionally. Ford won a special election by 13 votes to replace her brother, former Senator John Ford, who resigned after being indicted in a federal public corruption case. Williams noted the need for more information before making a final recommendation. Republican challenger Terry Roland is contesting the election outcome and his attorney...

NEW YORK - Today's horror movies are more likely to be dripping with blood than irony, with films like "Wolf Creek," the "Saw" series and this week's "Hostel" representing a return to their grisly, low-budget '70s roots. While the "Scream" trilogy grossed hundreds of millions of dollars in the late 1990s with characters who winked at the camera in playful mockery of the genre's conventions, horror flicks like "Hostel," Eli Roth's follow-up to his gory 2003 debut "Cabin Fever," will show you a character whose eye is dangling from its socket after a long afternoon of torture. Joe Dante's contribution,...

HARRISBURG-- A bill that would require Pennsylvania voters to show ... identification at the polls or be forced to cast a provisional ballot has passed the state Senate. The ... bill was approved ... 29-21, and sent to the House, which has already approved a measure with similar requirements. However, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rendell and an ACLU official criticized it as putting up obstacles for voters. "The governor is concerned that identification requirements may discourage people from voting and eventually disenfranchise people," said Rendell's press secretary. If [it] becomes law, the requirements would be in force for the 2006...

Results of a state senate election in western Tennessee showed Democrat Ophelia Ford had edged Republican Terry Roland in the race to fill the seat previously held by Ford’s brother, John, who was forced to resign after being indicted on bribery charges. The margin of victory was just 13 votes out of 8,750 cast. The margin of victory may have been provided by 60 deceased voters. Buster Chops, spokesman for the Tennessee Democratic Party, credited an aggressive outreach program to register and cast votes for recently departed Tennesseeans. “Republicans tend to overlook this segment of the population,” Chops said. “It’s...

Boy, am I relieved. I thought I was going to have to wait for a neutral party to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the state Senate race in which Democrat Ophelia Ford beat Republican Terry Roland by 13 votes. But Big Brother has come to the rescue. In just two days, former congressman Harold Ford Sr. has completed an investigation into the five suspect votes cast Sept. 15 at a North Memphis polling site. The Miami-based Columbo claims the culprit is a white Republican female poll worker who rigged the vote as part of a GOP scheme to ruin...

As a Shelby County voter fraud investigation lurches forward, former congressman Harold Ford Sr. isn't waiting for answers. Ford said Thursday he's opened his own investigation into allegations that two dead voters cast ballots in the September state Senate race that his sister, Ophelia Ford, won by 13 votes. Ford said he's not prepared to make any accusations, yet suggested evidence of any skulduggery will lead to Republicans, not his own Democratic Party. "It's gotten to (where people are saying), 'Hey, we're out here voting dead people.' It is clear that is not the case. We know that for a...

Attorneys for Republican Dino Rossi yesterday released the names of more than 1,000 people who allegedly cast illegal votes in November's disputed gubernatorial election. The list of alleged felons, people who voted twice and dead people recorded as voting is at the heart of a lawsuit Republicans filed to overturn the November election of Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire. Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane said the list — given to Democratic attorneys late yesterday in response to a subpoena and released to the media — is based on extensive research. While she said Rossi and his attorneys are confident in the "overall...

Democrat Christine Gregoire will be sworn in as Washington's Governor today, possibly thanks to voters such as Mary Coffey, James Courneya and Rosalie Simpson. Why do we mention them in particular? Because, as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently reported, they're all dead... Revelations of the formerly living casting ballots in elections isn't new to American politics, although it's something most of us thought was a relic of the late Richard Daley's Chicago. But this isn't the only jaw-dropper to have come out of Washington's gubernatorial race, which Ms. Gregoire claims to have won -- on a third recount, by 129 votes...

GHOST VOTERS: An untold number of absentee and early ballots cast before Election Day by people who later die will be counted. States differ on whether they count such votes and what they do to weed them out. GETTING WORSE: New in-person early voting used by millions in at least 30 states makes it harder to retrieve ballots after a voter's death. SO WHAT? An average of 455 voting-age people die in Florida every day -- nearly as many as the 537 who decided the presidential election in Florida in 2000. RATTLING CHAINS: Thousands of lawyers from both parties could...

The Pittsburgh Channel did a news feature on voter irregularities in Allegheny County which is controlled by (surprise!) the same Democrat Party hacks which control Pittsburgh. This investigation has been going on quite awaile.Tonight was just the first episode. The WTAE staff cross-matched registered voter lists with actual voters over 90 years old, many of whom were deceased and interned in local cemetaries,The son of one such couple was livid when he found out their names had been used and voted in Pittsburgh's Bloomfield area, one of the many nests of DemocRAT corruption in this area.The election official who appeared...

Election hijinks are getting spookier as Halloween draws near. A temporary worker at the Denver Election Commission was entering information on new voters into a computer Friday when one registration form leaped out at her.

I heard something on Rush today about a county in Wisconic that has ordered 800,000 ballots or something like that with only 350,000 registered voters. What are these extra ballots for? I can see having 5-10 percent extra for mistakes, etc, but not this. Sounds fishy to me. I am very concerned about all these reports that are coming out. These sleazy democraps are really trying to steal this election, yet this is not getting any coverage in the MSM, or even on FOX.

Gertrude M. Jones didn't want flowers or cards when she died. She wanted to get rid of President Bush. The 81-year-old woman's obituary asked that memorial donations be given "to any organization that seeks the removal of President Bush from office." And people around the country are following her wishes. In an online memorial book to Jones, dozens of people posted messages of support. Many wrote that they would contribute to the Democratic National Committee or one of the presidential contenders. "When I saw the obituary I thought, 'That's pretty cool. She's not here in this life anymore, but she's...

<p>BATON ROUGE -- Absentee ballots cast by people who died before election day are legal and should be counted, the Senate decided Monday.</p> <p>Senate Bill 11 by Sen. Reggie Dupre, D-Montegut, was approved 35-0.</p> <p>The bill is in response to a Terrebonne Parish case in which officials discounted the absentee ballot of a person who died the day before the votes were to be counted.</p>

Was just watching a local newscast here in NC (Channel 6, Charlotte)and they just said a funeral home was volunteering their limos to drive voters to the polls.Talk about getting out the dead vote!

<p>DETROIT -- Despite having died eight years ago, Kathe Beddow still retains one mortal privilege: The right to vote.</p> <p>The city Elections Department in July sent Beddow a voter registration card, even though she hasn't voted in more than a decade. She is also still listed as a registered voter with the Secretary of State's Office.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said Friday that President Bush was responsible for a "precipitous drop" in America's international stature and for an economy falling apart.</p> <p>Democrats will emphasize the country's weakened economy in the two weeks leading up to the elections for control of Congress, Daschle said.</p>

State and county officials are spending the holiday weekend conducting the final test on a new system to check lists of registered voters against those of felons and dead people. The new database matching system was required by the Legislature in the wake of the 2000 election, when several voters complained they were improperly prevented from voting because they were wrongly identified as felons. State officials say the new system, which Florida paid the consulting firm Accenture $1.6 million to design, will be better than previous efforts to check for illegal voters because it will be updated daily by computer....