Joe Lewis Light died six weeks before the Sept. 15 election to fill the seat vacated by former state senator John Ford. Now a second deceased person has been found to have voted.
Posted on 12/14/2005 4:58:17 AM PST by Sybeck1
A second dead voter cast a ballot in the September special election held to fill the seat vacated by former state senator John Ford.
Like a similar case documented earlier this week, this one involves an elderly voter who died weeks before the Sept. 15 election, an investigation by The Commercial Appeal found.
Both of the suspect votes occurred in Precinct 27-1, in the heart of heavily Democratic North Memphis.
The two votes could loom large as Republican Terry Roland presses his challenge of the 13-vote victory by Ford's sister, Ophelia Ford.
The two ballots also are the subject of a new criminal probe.
Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons confirmed Tuesday that he will ask the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to check for possible voter fraud.
"Clearly, this is not an accident," said Roland's attorney, Richard Fields, who said he hopes to see a thorough investigation. "How rampant it is, we just won't know until you do a complete investigation."
"Every instance of that needs to be investigated," agreed Matt Kuhn, Shelby County Democratic Party chairman. "That goes to our bedrock principle of one man, one vote."
Gibbons opened the probe at the request of Shelby County Election Commission Chairman Greg Duckett, who sent a letter Tuesday morning after The Commercial Appeal told the story of deceased voter Joe L. Light in its Sunday editions.
Light, 70, died Aug 6 of colon cancer, yet someone signed his name in the Precinct 27-1 poll book on Sept. 15. The poll book is the official record voters sign when they arrive at a polling site to vote.
Now, records reveal a nearly identical incident at the same Precinct 27-1 polling place at Fire Station No. 6, 924 Thomas.
This one involves Archie L. Kirkwood, 72, a longtime public housing resident and mother of six who died Aug. 30 of hypertensive cardiovascular disease.
Yet, on Sept. 15 -- Election Day -- someone signed as Kirkwood to vote at the fire station.
"That is not her signature," said Kirkwood's daughter, Margaret Williams, 43, who reviewed the poll book signature at the newspaper's request.
Williams said her mother hadn't voted in 10 years and had arthritis that rendered her signature illegible.
Williams said it also appears that whoever signed her mother's name must have known her or had some familiarity with her identity.
Kirkwood appeared in voter records and in a Sept. 2 obituary as Archie L. Kirkwood, yet her full name was signed in the poll book -- Archie Lee Kirkwood.
"Who could have done that? I don't know," Williams said.
By law, health officials report deaths once a month to the state Election Commission, which then purges the dead from voter registration rolls.
In that window of time -- a month or so before the election -- there's a good chance dead voters will remain on the rolls on Election Day.
"Why the Election Commission doesn't look at the death records up to the day of the election is inexcusable," said Fields, who is litigating Roland's plea to a Senate committee to overturn the election, alleging widespread voting irregularities.
The committee meets again Dec. 21 in Nashville and will make a recommendation to the full Senate, which must vote to seat Ford or Roland in the District 29 seat.
Fields contends that commission chairman Duckett hasn't done enough to see that deceased voters are purged from registration rolls.
"If he can't get it done, he needs to resign."
"I'm not going to make this a personal issue," Duckett responded.
A larger concern involves antiquated election laws that must be updated, and the commission needs more authority to police irregularities, Duckett said.
"The Election Commission has no investigative authority. We're an administrative agency."
In contesting the election, Roland's campaign has said that as many as 69 votes should be tossed out, most of them involving people who allegedly either live outside Dist. 29 or don't live in the precinct where they're registered to vote.
Election officials have conceded that three convicted felons and a voter living outside Dist. 29 improperly voted in the September election.
Duckett referred the felons last month to Gibbons for a criminal investigation, then made a second request for a probe this week after learning of the first dead voter.
Gibbons said he's preparing a letter to the TBI seeking a criminal probe of all the concerns.
"I consider this to be a very serious, serious matter," said Gibbons, who said he expects the investigation to begin promptly.
Citing the probe, Duckett declined to release names of pollworkers at Precinct 27-1, which generally runs between Wells on the north, Manassas on the east, Interstate 40 on the south and Danny Thomas on the west.
It is the pollworkers' duty to check voter identification, and that's an area where the law may need to be beefed up to ensure a better job, he said.
-- Marc Perrusquia: 529-2545
Copyright 2005, commercialappeal.com - Memphis, TN. All Rights Reserved.
Joe Lewis Light died six weeks before the Sept. 15 election to fill the seat vacated by former state senator John Ford. Now a second deceased person has been found to have voted.
I hope when I'm dead I can still vote. If not, I'd like to just haunt some RINOs.
A conviction for voter fraud ought to carry a penalty of fifty years imprisonment. If thye penalty was increased and the crime was prosecuted assiduously, we'd have a lot less of it.
Some places require ID in fact it makes sense to have to produce a picture ID, but of course Hillary is against that.
But can you imagine the hate in parents who would name their kid Ophelia?
I agree. Why can't they enforce the laws already on the books or charge them under the Rico Act.
breathing or otherwise!
Opportunity + The Ford Family = corruption
Good name for a hurricane.
POSSIBLE voter fraud? Was the voter dead, or not?
One corpse, one vote?
"But can you imagine the hate in parents who would name their kid Ophelia?"
My grandmother's name was Ophelia; watch it, ha. I think, in the Ford family case, the parents simply had so many chirren they ran out of nanes.
Perhaps there should be a breatholizer test before voting in Dem precincts. If you aren't breathing, you can't vote.
Barring that, perhaps TN should look into Ohio's move to have picture ID for voting. If you can't cash a check at Walmart without picture ID, you shouldn't be allowed to vote without it. This needs to be the law in all 50 states before '08.
My grandfather voted Republican his whole life; since then, he has voted Democrat.
The end of minority party voter fraud victories is coming. Not as fast as you and I want, but way faster than the evil donkey wants.
He just misuderstands the concept. It is one man under the bedrock, one vote.
Good one!
generally conservative
If the United States were a cow, Tennessee would be its rear.
The dems. during the civil war hanged my great,great grand father. He would not let his two sons fight at the war of Jonsboro Tenessee. Carter Co., Johnson Co.,and Unicoy Co. are ajoining cos. and they were Union then and still are today. This is recorded in Tn. history. my great, great, grand fathers name was Andrew Buck, he maid
Republican Cons. out of all his decendents to this day.
Curious how all of these "voting malfunctions" and "irregularities" regularly support the Democratic candidate...
They are just practicing for the main event.... the election of the Ford scion to the US Senate.
The nephew claims he's squeaky clean but you can smell the family stench from a mile away.
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