Posted on 09/19/2006 6:18:58 AM PDT by Dubya
AUSTIN — Willie Ray, 69, said she thought she was teaching her granddaughter civic lessons in democracy, but instead the two black women in Texarkana ended up with criminal records for voter fraud.
Gloria Meeks of Fort Worth, also 69, said she stepped out of her morning bath last month and screamed.
Two voter fraud investigators from Attorney General Greg Abbott's office were peeking in her bathroom window, Meeks said in a sworn statement. Abbott's office declined to discuss specifics but said its investigation of Meeks has been "conducted professionally and properly, to the full extent allowed by law."
At issue for the women and others investigated by Abbott is a 2003 Texas law that makes it a crime to put other voters' absentee ballots in the mail or deliver them to election officials.
Backers of the law say it's needed to prevent election fraud by paid political operatives who take advantage of the elderly or even steal their votes. Detractors say the law is overly broad, goes too far in criminalizing legitimate political activity and infringes on voters' rights to assistance.
Suit alleges intimidation This week a Washington-based voting rights attorney aligned with Texas Democrats plans to challenge the state law in federal court, arguing it violates the Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of free speech, free association and equal protection.
Democrats complain, and the suit will argue, that Abbott is selectively enforcing the law against Hispanics and blacks to intimidate minority voters and dilute their strength at the polls.
Abbott, a Republican, said he's enforcing state law to root out an "epidemic" of fraud and to prevent "cheaters" from abusing or intimidating the elderly or disabled. For too long, he argues, Texas officials have failed to hold accountable those who undermine the electoral process.
"This has to do with breaking state law, falsifying state documents, registering illegal people to vote, casting votes for people who are dead, casting votes for other people," he said.
Abbott announced in August the indictment of a Hispanic Port Lavaca city councilwoman on allegations she falsely registered and encouraged noncitizens to vote and told one voter how to mark a ballot. Last month a Corpus Christi woman pleaded guilty to marking ballots for other voters without their consent, a third-degree felony. And, in July 2005, another woman pleaded guilty to mailing in a ballot for her dead mother.
Legal until 2003 law Yet, of the 13 individuals indicted on charges of voter fraud by Abbott, 10 are accused of simply possessing another's absentee ballot for delivery to election officials or to a mailbox, Democrats say. Such activities had been legal until the 2003 law turned them into crimes.
Both Democratic and Republican political activists have traditionally assisted elderly or home-bound voters who need help in voting, said attorney J. Gerald Hebert, executive director of the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center, who plans to file the lawsuit on behalf of Democrats.
"Now, merely possessing the mail-in ballot of another person is a misdemeanor. If you do it for several voters, it becomes a felony. It is my view that this is unconstitutional," said Hebert, who headed the U.S. Justice Department's voting section of the civil rights division until 1994.
Democrats also complain that of the 13 individuals indicted by Abbott for voter fraud, 12 are minority women while one is a white male. Moreover, Abbott's voter fraud indictments include no Republicans.
"I think it's evident that Abbott's practice of singling out minorities and seniors is a shallow political effort to suppress the votes," said Texas Democratic Party spokeswoman Amber Moon. "It's being done disingenuously. The majority of these cases are well-meaning folks who are simply trying to help their neighbors to vote."
Stop underhanded tactics Former state Rep. Steve Wolens, a Democrat from Dallas, authored the 2003 law creating criminal penalties for individuals who knowingly possess or transport another voter's ballot.
It is an affirmative defense to prosecution, however, if the person assisting the voter is a relative, a registered voter living at the same address or if the individual provides his or her printed name, signature and address on the outside of the envelope carrying the ballot.
Wolens said he wrote the law to stop underhanded tactics used against him and against his wife in her first Dallas mayoral race.
"The problem I had seen was where these vote harvesters would go to old folks homes and bring empty ballots — and vote for the actual voter — and then deliver them in these sacks just like piles of stolen money," he said.
Lawyers from the Texas NAACP and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund testified against the law.
Nina Perales, an attorney for MALDEF, said many elderly Latinos vote absentee because they fear intimidation at the polls. It is common, she said, for trusted women in the community known as politiqueras (political women) or comadres (co-mothers) to help the elderly apply for absentee ballots and return to pick them up. The women sometimes are paid by campaigns, but Perales said she sees nothing wrong with helping homebound people vote.
State Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, said blacks and Hispanics could fear voting in the future, especially if investigators visit their homes and ask questions about how they cast their ballots.
"You're sending a bad message to people who have already had to go through quite a bit as far as their voting rights are concerned," he said.
Agreed to plead Abbott's PowerPoint primer on voter fraud, "Investigating Election Code Violations," illustrates the discriminatory nature of his enforcement, Hebert argues, because it cues law enforcement to link voter fraud with black voters.
One slide alerts authorities to look for evidence of fraud on documents, especially specialty stamps. It depicts a sickle cell anemia stamp of a black woman holding a black baby, a stamp often used by blacks.
Another slide shows five black people in line for early voting, noting "all laws apply," while no white or Caucasian people are shown voting in the 71-slide presentation.
Abbot spokesman Tom Kelley said the stamp depicted was among evidence gathered in one investigation, but there was "absolutely no reason whatsoever" that the presentation only portrays blacks voting.
Willie Ray, a Texarkana city councilwoman, said she had hoped during the general election of 2004 to teach her granddaughter, Jamillah Johnson, 30, how to help the homebound.
The two agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges of handling absentee ballots, but Ray wonders what effect Abbott's prosecutions will have on absentee voting this fall.
"A lot of blood has been shed for the rights of people to vote," she said. "I just hope those rights are not taken away or people are frightened so bad they won't vote."
polly.hughes@chron.com
Covering up, as usual, democrat voter fraud.
If it's a crime to put other people's absentee ballots in the mail, I can think of a few dozen scenarios where this law will prohibit people from voting.
You are encouraged to list them, in detail, with appropriate speculation as to the consequences, then.
I'm not much for doing homework for people without life experience or imaginations. Here's a hint. Think seniors. Think assisted living for a start. Think about stupid impractical laws.
I've put my husband's ballots in the mail. I'm just the one who goes to the post office regularly.
All that notwithstanding, you appear to be much for picking the least probable and most easily allowed-for excecptional cases to dive-bomb an attempt to rein in actual crime.
Then again, if a disabled person cannot get to their personal mailbox, I suspect that having their caregiver walk the item, along with the rest of the mail to the box won't be something high on the deputies' work list.
Or would such be also something you're not much for?
How noble.
One wonders where these people are that mail doesn't get picked up.
I remember the election of 1960, where between Cook county IL. and west Texas, enough votes were manufactured to steal two states. Some counties in West Texas had 180 percent turnout! Without those two states Kennedy would have lost. Later, when Nixon won, the Democrats complained about "dirty tricks". Surely the voter fraud as described in this article is the ultimate dirty trick.
You say the law is needed to cut down on voting crime and then you point out how the police probably won't waste time enforcing it. Make up your mind.
I'm responding to the part of the law that seems to address who puts it in the mail. I think that's ridiculous and unenforcable. What's important is who printed the ballot, filled it out etc.
Watch out! Some folks here would have you arrested. LOL!
Silly retort. I mean that the police, who have some little training in this kind of thing, can probably tell the difference between the case I cited and one where some black wardheeler is trucking a dozen or more 'absentee ballots' (all of which she filled out herself) down to the precinct.
Even you can make that gross a distinction, yes?
It's those nasty racists democrats who did this and passed all those Jim Crow laws as well.
Actually, if it clearly states that it's illegal to do this on the mail-in ballots, then these folks have no excuse.
Gloria Meeks of Fort Worth, also 69, said she stepped out of her morning bath last month and screamed.
Two voter fraud investigators from Attorney General Greg Abbott's office were peeking in her bathroom window, Meeks said in a sworn statement. Abbott's office declined to discuss specifics but said its investigation of Meeks has been "conducted professionally and properly, to the full extent allowed by law."
You can tell it's going to be a biased article when...
In your example, the person filling out the illegal ballots is putting them in the mail. Not addressing the part of the law I was talking about. But hey! Silly me.
It is an affirmative defense to prosecution, however, if the person assisting the voter is a relative, a registered voter living at the same address or if the individual provides his or her printed name, signature and address on the outside of the envelope carrying the ballot.
There is no crime if you mark on the envelope that you handled the absentee ballot.
The law requires only that the person who puts it in the mail to put their name on the outside. That would identify the corrupt vote manufacturers, because they don't do it by 1s and 2s. It would be interesting to see what an honest election looks like in some democratic strongholds.
A friend of mine ran for "county Judge" rather like a county mayor in one county in Texas. The local democratic party held a barbecue at the "traditionally Black college" in the county, and got nearly all the students, most of which were from out of state, or had previously voted in another county, to fill out ballots.
Surprise! the Democratic state attorney general didn't care to investigate, inspite of the 100 signed affidavits that the locals produced. The Democrat candidate won, still pale from being released after serving time for his felony.
Thanx. Now that makes sense.
I always laugh at how the threads point out how machines can be hacked by several contortionists. We have such a rich tradition of corruption, I don't think we can have a failproof system. In my lifetime the dems have been very creative.
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