Vote Fraud on the Reservations - NOT just South Dakota (vanity)

County-level election returns (CNN) | 11/10/2002 | me

[DownWithGreenspan]

The state of Arizona cleaned up their voter rolls between 2000 and 2002, resulting in fewer registered voters in most counties. So this potential fraud doesn't involve registration. The following vote counts are from the election results on the CNN web site.

Arizona:

                                    1998      2002
County    % Indian    D margin    turnout   turnout
======    ========    ==========  =======   ======= 
Apache      76.8%     6866 votes    31.3%     44.5%
Coconino    28.5%     6939 votes    34.0%     41.0%
Navajo      47.5%     2246 votes    29.1%     39.1%

D margin = Napolitano's lead
% turnout is my estimate based on the number of eligible voters, not registered voters.

Salmon is currently behind by about 20,000 votes according to CNN. Most of that deficit (16,000 votes) are from these three counties alone. The key numbers are the last two columns in the table: percent turnout. In ALL other Arizona counties, the percent turnout from 2002 is nearly equivalent to what is was in the most recent off-year elections (which took place in 1998).

It is HIGHLY unusual for the turnout in an off-year election to increase as dramatically as it did in these three Indian counties. If the turnout in Apache, Coconino & Navajo had remained at 1998 levels, Salmon's overall deficit would be about 4,000 votes less than it is now. Remember that if Salmon winds up losing by fewer than 4,000 votes.

I have county-level data for gubernatorial and senatorial elections for Arizona back to the early 1960's: the turnout rate in Apache and Navajo Counties that was seen in 2002 is unprecedented for an off-year election.

Is this merely unusually good turnout for the Indian counties, or is it evidence of more Democrat fraud? Common sense would indicate that the answer is fraud.

Another state with a massive Indian population is Oklahoma. I haven't studied the county-level returns in the Governor's race yet, but that one was even closer than the one in Arizona, and I would not be the least bit surprised to discover "unusually large" turnout in eastern and southeastern Oklahoma.

Looks like 2002 is the year for Massive Indian Vote Fraud.

DWG

[GoldenBear2000]

hard to agree that increased reservation turnout means fraud. here in SD it looks like the dems outhustled the repubs and got the indians registered and then turned them out. as much as i'd love to scream fraud, our republican attorney general and republican secretary of state says everything was clean, including voter registration. all they found was one woman employed by the democratic party who forged about 15 absentee ballot applications and it was the dems who turned her in. she'll be prosecuted but the cries of fraud were not supported. though the margin of victory by johnson is within that allowing for a thune recount, thune appears to be heading towards conceding, rather than a recount.

[Newkid]

There is a simple reason for higher Indian turnout in Arizona. It has to do with Tribal elections. This year, for the first time, the Navajo's combined the General election with their tribal leadership elections. Tribal members have always turned out for the Tribal elections as it has to do alot with their own clan positions in the tribe.

Another factor was the tribes interest in the 3 Gambling propositions. That drew Indians out from all over the State.

Also, the Democratic Congressional candidate, Cordova, spent many days on the reservation, working with tribal leaders to increase in chances of offsetting the strong showing the Republican candidate would have in the rest of the County. Cordova lost big overall, but really had an impact on all other Statewide races.

Indians have traditionally voted Democrat, with the exception of votes for Goldwater (Senator and US President) and some pretty good crossover for JD Hayworth, when he was their US congressman.

[SoCar]

Somebody posted a rumour that the Rats had relocated Indians from reservations on nearby states like Nebraska just in time for them become residents of South Dakota so they could vote. Sometime after the election they will be moved back. Maybe this was done in Arizona too. I'm not sure if that could have gone unnoticed or not. Would this be considered fraud or could it be legal?

[Francohio]

Stand by. The Democraps are rapidly running out of gullible ethnic groups. The way I see it, the Albanians may finally get their shot at the major leagues of world vote fraud.

[SoDakson]

The turnout of the Indian vote for Tim Johnson was classic Chicago politics. They waited until the vote was all in so they knew how many to stuff the box with then released the reservation vote the following day. The interesting thing is that the legal status of the reservations, that being sovereign governmental bodies, only allows inspection of the vote by invitation. Thune's folks knew they could never get to the bottom of the vote on the Pine Ridge reservation. Besides, you would be politically incorrect and open to attack by the Daschle and Johnson machine. With this sort of corruption and the sovereignty of the reservations held up to stop inspection, South Dakota Republicans should look at requiring voting to take place just off the reservation. You can't have it both ways, sovereign nation status and vote in the election on the sovereign soil.