Posted on 08/19/2004 7:39:29 AM PDT by Phantom Lord
Voter list reads like fiction
Langston Harris, if you're out there, can you give me a call?
See, I've been trying to reach you since Tuesday morning, when I read about how your voter registration and more than a dozen others collected by the Public Interest Research Group, a lefty fund-raiser/do-gooder outfit, are being investigated by the local and state boards of election.
But geez, man, you are hard to find. You're not listed in the phone book. The Raleigh address you gave the Board of Elections? Well, it doesn't appear to exist.
What really amazes, though, are the coincidences. Your signature is almost identical to those of three other people who registered July 13 or 14. I mean, you'd almost think the same hand signed all four.
Your name is a remarkable echo of one of the other folks registering, too.
Just a fluke? Maybe not.
Eagle-eyed Cherie Poucher and her staff at the Wake County Board of Elections caught the discrepancies while going through a massive box of forms presented by the North Carolina chapter of PIRG at the end of July.
At first, the computer started kicking back dozens of the registrations for unknown addresses. So in batches of 20, Poucher and her staff started going through the registrations by hand. That's when they noticed, for example, that Clinton James' registration was signed Clinton Jones. I found Jones at his home, and he remembers filling out the form. Honest mistake. Easy to fix.
But what about the second registration presented for one Antonio Toon? He registered once last spring and then again with PIRG this summer -- only this time with a slightly different house number and a strikingly different signature. Hmm.
Because of all of the shenanigans in Florida, Poucher has been especially alert to even the slightest whiff of fraud.
On Wednesday, as her office gathered ballots from Tuesday's runoffs under the watchful eyes of Wake sheriff's deputies and hidden cameras, she stressed the need to maintain the confidence of voters.
That's why she has her pile of "reject" registrations to be investigated.
Still, Poucher doesn't really think that the registrations being reviewed are part of a concerted effort to rig an election. PIRG's Community Voter Initiative may have registered 16,000 people statewide, and the problem registrations seem more sloppy than systematic, Poucher said.
To me, the whole thing smacks of poor workers seeking cash incentives. PIRG paid its recruiters $40 for a five-hour shift working the streets and shopping malls, with a $10 bonus if they registered 15 new voters and another $10 if they bagged more than 20. An extra five or six voters could mean the difference between $40 and $60.
So I imagine a PIRG worker nearing the end of a shift in 90-degree weather with 17 names on his list. Three more, and he gets a $20 bonus for the day. Hmm, Kevin Langley on Harris Place registered yesterday. How bout Langston Harris today?
It's plausible. So Mr. Harris, if you're out there, give me a holler.
Better yet, call the Wake County Board of Elections. They're wondering why three other people in town sign their names just like you.
NC nonsense
Democrat, perhaps?
So Nader pays to have his own campaign torpedoed.
Us Pubs are responsible for getting Nader on the ballot in Michiganistan and it didn't cost him one thin dime.
I've noticed the national media are already promoting stories hinting at Republican voter fraud and voter intimidation. On consecutive days, New York Times columnists Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman ran columns claiming, respectively, that Florida was harrassing black voters (because the state is investigating allegations of DEMOCRATIC voter fraud), and that electronic voting machines can be used to manipulate elections for Republicans. Meanwhile, the left-wing weekly "The Nation" has a cover story suggesting that the Republicans are planning to steal the election. I also saw a political cartoon on the Republican-voter-fraud theme in the local paper. It sems that the Dems are once again planning election-day and post-election chaos if things don't turn out their way.
Elections inspector ping
They're lefty, so their 'mistakes' must be innocent.
Can you picture Kerry giving this concession speech?
"I'd like to congratulate my opponent on winning this election fair and square. I guess most Americans actually don't want higher taxes and terrorist appeasement. And I gotta admit, they saw right through those whoppers about Viet Nam. I will support President Bush as he continues to lead this country forward."
HA ha. Fat chance!
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