Voter-registration forms shredded in Vegas

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Wednesday, October 13, 2004

[JohnHuang2]

LAS VEGAS – The FBI has been notified that hundreds of voter-registration forms have been intentionally discarded or destroyed by a private company hired by the Republican Party to sign people up to vote.

According to KLAS-TV, the local CBS affiliate, employees who worked for Voters Outreach of America allege scores of registration forms were thrown in the trash.

The company, also known as America Votes, reportedly employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day.

But according to some former employees, Voters Outreach of America sought only Republican registrations. The station reports the company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee.

Two ex-workers for Voters Outreach say they personally witnessed company supervisors tear up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.

"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us," said Eric Russell, a former employee interviewed by KLAS. "I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assistant to get those from me."

Russell was able to retrieve some shredded paperwork including signed voter-registration forms, all of which were from Democrats.

The television station pieced the forms back together, and presented them to the Clark County Election Department confirming they had not been filed with the county as required.

No one from the company was available for comment, as the local office was rented out to another tenant, with the landlord telling the station non-payment of rent was the reason. Another source said the company was now registering voters in Oregon.

Similar complaints have been received in Reno, Nev., where officials have asked the FBI to investigate.

The discovery could pose a problem for those going to the polls on Nov. 2, thinking they're already registered to vote, when officials have no record of that. In fact, the deadline to register to vote in Nevada was last night.

Clark County residents can check online to see if they are indeed registered to vote.

[Gondring]

That's the problem...it wasn't actually that lefty group. The accusation is that they were claiming to be that group by using the name "Project America Votes" to confuse people.

[Osage Orange]

Nobody should be surprised to find out it was "Democrat Activists" dressed up as/calling themselves "Republicans" that did this.

The end justifies the means crowd will do anything, say anything.

[Mr. Jeeves]

MSM had no problem running this story - heard it on CBS radio news this morning.

[js1138]

Voting is for people who are committed to voting. Drive by voters are gonna get shafted. People who don't vote in primaries are gonna get shafted, because they won't know if their registration is valid until the big day.

I had to laugh when my son, the twenty-something democrat, claimed he was cheated out of voting -- in Manhattan. Like voting in Manhattan is controlled by evil Republicans.

Did he register well in advance? I don't think so. Did he vote in a primary, sop he could at least be sure he was on the list? I don't think so.

[RedWhiteBlue]

That listing makes no sense. Only a phone number for contact information, and it goes to a Temp Agency in Nevada. Why is a temp agency in Nevada looking to fill a postition in Springfield, MO?

And you just signed up today to post this very reply twice, but haven't commented on anything else.

This is going to bite "us?" Only if we're a troll like you.

[Trinity_Tx]

"America Votes is a non-partisan political organization"

What a crock.

No kidding, lol. That lie too needs to be exposed.

[Trinity_Tx]

Yup. I'm still not convinced that he wasn't a plant (wishful thinking, probably) since he was so careless, but either way, he needs to be made an example of.

The RNC did announce that they found it unacceptable and that we have a zero tolerance policy for this sort of thing, but ... they need to do more to repudiate and disassociate from him.

Being at the forefront of pressing criminal charges would send a good message. IMHO

[A CA Guy]

Exactly what I posted in brief in my mysteriously reappearing #35. LOL

[Bonaparte]

"...because libraries are publicly funded and cannot appear to take sides with issues or parties."

LOL! The ALA must have missed class the day that lecture was given.

[Trinity_Tx]

So did Fox News. : /

[A CA Guy]

The librarian in the story must do drugs, we all went to the site of the supposedly unbiased site to find communists and extreme left associations there.

I guess it depends on what the meaning of "is" is?

[Tarpon]

WOW, bad news,

if true

The chances of it being true, zero.

[Baseballguy]

The Revolution is close at hand.

I need to convince my company not to withhold any taxes from my income check. That will be the next Boston Tea party.

[GOP_Raider]

Much as I'd like to think it is, too many people in this state seem to like all the pork Reid sends their way. Sad, really.

[af_vet_1981]

Republicans need to win through fair and just means.

Hear, hear. Like in 1960 ...

If we don't, then we have sunk to the very level of corruption we accuse the Democrats of having.

We ? We ? What corruption did you commit ?

[Trinity_Tx]

"People who don't vote in primaries are gonna get shafted, because they won't know if their registration is valid until the big day."

Fortunately, or unfortunately, an invalid or non-existent registration does not mean one will not be able to vote.

I'm an election judge, and in all the major elections, I've had to allow everyone to vote unless it is obvious that they are in the wrong precinct. All they must do is sign the affidavit list, which, due to the form and the fact that there are so many on a list, has a very unofficial - read "taken lightly" - feel to it.

Some of those ballots (not all, since we don't "question" certain excuses ...that I wont name here) are filed as challenged, always by me, because I see no evidence of their registration, but they could also be challenged by an observer. Those ballots are held separate for later confirmation. But I still must tally and include them in the overall results. I have always been uncomfortable with this. Because they are only researched (at least in a timely manner) if there is a dispute or very close results.

It may not seem to be a lot in each precinct, but they could easily add up enough to affect the outcome. Especially if a concerted effort was made by those who know how we work.

It all boils down to a trade-off:

People justifiably scream loudest when they registered in good faith but are not allowed to cast their vote - whether their registration got lost due to the ineptitude of the DMV or more sinister plots of those with an agenda.

On the other hand, it is a lot more difficult to identify fraud - especially in the current (and I think fouled-up) system of voter reg.

It's sad that we sacrifice the integrity of our elections just to relieve lazy adults of the effort it would take to sign up through their local registrar.

</rant>

[Trinity_Tx]

OK, looks like this thread is kinda dying here. (Wish it were dying elsewhere.) But I have a niggling thought I can't get rid of...

The Oregon Tribune story I posted earlier was published on September 21, 2004. It was then that the Liberal America Votes group was notified about the Republican one using the same name.

And now, 3-4 weeks later, we have this accusation of registration cards being torn up.

So, I'm seriously wondering when the "former employees" who reported the trashing of Democrat regs were hired.

Or, for that matter, the fool who tore them up... Right there in front of the others... in the face of another who obviously disapproved...

Could either of them have been from the liberal America Votes group? Is it unlikely, upon hearing about the conservative group on Sept 21, that the the liberal group planted workers there to sabotage them, smear the GOP in the media, and cast doubt upon the ultimate poll results?

Of course I'm grasping at straws here because it pains me so to think this sort of thing could on on in our party, but...

PS. As others have noted... aside from the accusation of trashing the reg cards, this America Votes group founded by the Arizona GOP guy is just as clean/"unbiased" as the America Votes group founded and supported by radical liberals.

[Heyworth]

When I looked for "voters outreach for america" in google.com, I found only one entry, and it referred to a registration drive by Ralph Nader's campaign in Arizona!

Yeah, and the gist of the article is that Republicans were working with that organization to get Nader on the Arizona ballot in order to undercut Kerry. This doesn't help the case.

[Heyworth]

Does it say anywhere in that website that they also work under the "Voters' Outreach for America" name?

[ScottM1968]

When we participate, as Republicans, we simply must behave in both moral and ethical ways.

Should we, you and I, condone otherwise, then we are as bad an example as those we constantly criticize in the Democratic party.

Republicans cannot seek to do the sort of thing this article describes. It is that simple. What part of what I've said do you not understand?