Posted on 02/26/2006 12:35:36 PM PST by LdSentinal
DETROIT A newspaper's review of ballots cast in the November election shows many were cast under the names of people who have died, were serving time in prison or did not live in the city.
Detroit election records say Fred Douglas Henley voted at a polling precinct Nov. 8. Henley, however, died the day before the election, and his voting address long has been vacant and boarded up, The Detroit News reported Sunday.
Blanche Credit died in 2003. But she's recorded as voting in November, too.
It is unknown whether Henley and Credit were names someone used to cast fraudulent votes or whether they simply represent clerical errors. Mistakes commonly occur when election workers record a vote under a similar name or confuse voters with their relatives. But the problems have prompted Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land to call for faulty voter rolls to be purged in virtually every jurisdiction.
Detroit's newly elected clerk, Janice Winfrey, said she has ordered her staff to purge at least 50,000 names from the voter rolls by March.
"We've got a lot of cleaning up to do," Winfrey said.
Detroit's voter rolls include as many as 20,000 dead people and roughly 100,000 wrong addresses, The newspaper said. Wrong birthdates and garbled spellings on the city's active voter list make it difficult to determine in many instances who actually voted, and thousands of properties that are abandoned or vacant have remained on the voter rolls.
Across Michigan, 132 people were listed as having voted in November's local elections although they had recently died, said Mark Grebner, whose company, Practical Political Consulting in East Lansing, analyzes voter rolls. About 26 of those were in Detroit, Grebner said.
The News' review of ballots in Detroit's Nov. 8 election found a ballot recorded as being cast by a prisoner serving a life sentence for murder. Felons can vote in Michigan, but not while serving a sentence. In another case, city records indicate a ballot was cast by someone at least 146 years old.
Keeping names of the deceased and nonresidents on the rolls allows votes to accidentally be marked in those names, Grebner said.
"It allows for mismanaged elections and for the possibility of vote fraud because the records cannot be depended on," he said.
But Land's spokeswoman, Kelly Chesney, said purging voter rolls is complicated by restrictive federal rules designed to protect voters from disenfranchisement.
Winfrey's new director of elections, Daniel Baxter, says cleaning the voter rolls is his first priority.
"We think if we can resolve the low-hanging-fruit issues, then one step at a time we can bring back the integrity of the process," Baxter said.
Although there has been no proof of fraud, Detroit's election was surrounded by suspicions, particularly regarding absentee ballots.
A Wayne County judge ordered absentee ballots to be preserved, along with records of former City Clerk Jackie Currie's "ambassador" program, in which workers were sent to help elderly people vote. And a federal investigation is under way into allegations that some votes were cast in the names of dead people.
But Detroit isn't the only city with problems. Holland, population 30,000, recorded 11 votes cast in the names of deceased people in November's local election, Grebner said.
Holland City Clerk Jennifer French said she had no idea there was such a problem.
LMAO, don't expect to see any other Democrat city newspapers doing similar "reviews".
Can you imagine what, say, the Philadelphia Inquirer would uncover? But, of course, that paper won't be doing any "reviews" anytime soon, that's for sure, and they would only spin, apologize for, "explain", and ultimately lie about the results even if they did. (No doubt they find a way to proclaim, "See? Both parties do it!".) Papers like the Philadelphia Inquirer will never do anything to hurt their party.
132 out of 10 million? That actually ain't too bad.
When was the last time you picked a dirty penny up off the ground? In Michigan, returnable cans are 10 cents apiece. Would you stop your car on the road if you saw a returnable can lying on the shoulder?
Why would you bother voting 132 dead people? You wouldn't, unless the 132 was part of a larger number of phony votes. Like, a fifty dollar bill lying on the ground, or 5 or 6 plastic garbage bags filled with returnable empties lying on the shoulder.
The person who voted for him must have been someone who knew he was dead, or at least, someone who knew he would not vote.
Again, who would give a crap about the dead guy's missing vote? This example, especially, is a dog that's not barking.
Who is sitting around with a clipboard, checking the obits? Why waste the time, unless it's NOT a waste of time?
Theres only concern when democraps run against democraps. Where was the concern back in '04 and '00?
George W. Bush * (R) 2,310,803 48
Detroit's voter rolls include as many as 20,000 dead people and roughly 100,000 wrong addresses,
Still doesn't quite do it but factor in Flint and Benton Harbor and who knows.
It also lets them DELIBERATELY vote in the name of dead people, fake people, and people who just don't vote themselves.
I don't know where you're from. You may not be aware that Detroit voters threw out the incumbent city clerk last November because of her shenanigans with voting irregularities. Baxter is working for the new city clerk. I'm a big fan of slamming the people who run Detroit, but there is no evidence to blame the new clerk and her administration for these problems. I hope they do clean these things up. It might cost our clueless governor a few votes this November, but she'll probably still win anyway. When I read the article this morning, I noted that it cited 132 instances of problems, not all of them in Detroit.
Don't hold your breath until November. The kool aid drinkers are still blaming Engler for all the state's problems. Clueless said she could do a better job and the UAW and their limp wrist allies in the more "enlightened" communities believe her. Clueless blamed Bush in her state of the state a few weeks back. She's just innocently standing there trying to look attractive and the wascally wepubwicans are picking on her.
As I pointed out in my post #44, why would you bother voting 132 dead people? It's like stopping your car to get a returnable can (10c MI) from the side of the road. Unless the "poll workers" are actually voting from a clipboard...
The question remains... who did they vote FOR mostly?
Or as I call her: "Jenny Grabtax". ;-)
I have to wonder what planet she's been living on!
Actually, the question should be: why bother voting "a handful" of dead people?
Unless there's more to this iceberg than meets the eye...
Either you're right and there's more, or the person who did it was hoping it'd be so close five would help (each vote counts you know!) or that more people would be doing the same thing.
We "vote" for Donks for the major Federal offices overwhelmingly, BUT Republican candidates for the MI Supreme Court breeze in. Why? Because the voter has to manually select the "non-partisan" judiciary slots on the ballots. A stroke of genius on the part of the MI lawmakers who wrote that one into law, and an unexamined clue as to what really goes on at the ballot box in SE Michigan.
I believe that time constraints prevent the Donk "poll workers" from voting that part of the ticket for their "votees".
Yes indeed, just like the dead on the Titanic. It's indicative of the tip of the iceberg.
Yes, but you can see that red laser bull's eye on her forehead a mile away, politically speaking.
She's going down.
Ya don't say. LOL
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