Bogus voter registration forms turned in (La.)

NOLA.COM ^ | Saturday, December 08, 2007 | Richard Rainey

[james500]

The Jefferson Parish registrar of voters recently received about 1,000 erroneous voter registration applications, sparking a state-level investigation for fraud, the Jefferson registrar of voters said Friday.

The registrar's office discovered that the names and addresses on applications often matched voters already in the parish system, while birth dates, Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers and signatures rarely matched the names on the applications, Registrar Dennis DiMarco said.

The secretary of state's office and the attorney general's office have begun asking questions about the matter, parish and state officials said Friday.

"Falsifying any voter record is a felony," DiMarco said. "It's a pretty serious matter."

The cards appeared to originate with a group that has been hiring hourly workers to canvass shopping centers and grocery store parking lots, trying to sign up new voters, DiMarco said. The group allegedly published an anonymous ad in Gambit Weekly last month to hire "activists." DiMarco declined to identify the group because of legal concerns, but a spokesman with the secretary of state's office said Grassroots Solutions, a political advocacy group with offices in Maine, Minnesota and Washington, D.C., was behind the ad. A message left with a project manager's cell phone seeking comment went unanswered Friday.

DiMarco said that the hired workers were telling potential voters that they worked for his office and that Hurricane Katrina had destroyed the registrar's computers and all voter rolls in southeastern Louisiana. Both statements are untrue, he said.

A message left at the phone number on the ad was also not returned Friday. A greeting on the voice-mail box called the project "Our Voice Registration Program."

[james500]

Voting officials said they had fielded reports that the group was paying bonuses to hired workers for each complete voter card submitted to the registrar's office. Under state law, no one can offer money to encourage a person to register to vote or to get someone else to register anyone else to vote. The penalty can be as high as $1,000 and a year in jail if convicted.

"I'm not saying that any group that's behind this is doing this on purpose," DiMarco said. "It's more the people they're hiring."

[purpleraine]

Louisana? Shocking!

[Not now, Not ever!]

Do i need to guess what party they registered as? Nah, didn’t think so.

[RichInOC]

I’m surprised that even counts as news in greater New Orleans.

[nyyankeefan]

Bogus voter registration forms turned in (La.)...

lib/dem politics as usual....

[lowbridge]

bump

[maine-iac7]

multiply 1,000 by thousands of parishes and whadda ya got?

The same thing that’s been going on for decades - if we EVER get a clean vote, I suspicion the country will be surprised to learn that the country isn’t quite as 50-50 as is thought....I wish the republicans would make the routing out of voter fraud a top priority and prosecute a whole bunch with high publicity...that would curtail a lot of it....

Cutting out voter fraud, I suspicion, would all but guarantee republicans victories for decades

[james500]

Slow news day. I posted it because of “Grassroots Solutions” not New Orleans.

If you check their website, you’ll find biographies on the team that includes one whose favorite ‘organizer’ is Malcom X.

http://www.grassrootssolutions.com

[uncitizen]

I’m surprised that even counts as news in greater New Orleans.

Right, in Louisiana or Chicago this should be on page 37E in the Lifestyles section of the paper.

[Just A Nobody]

I suspicion the country will be surprised to learn that the country isn’t quite as 50-50 as is thought....

I agree.

Cal - I already posted it. ;*)

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

It goes without saying that, since the word "Democrat" is absent from the article, that the offending group was engaged in DEMOCRAT VOTE FRAUD:

Grassroots Solutions

[Verginius Rufus]

I figured this might be in Boguslusa, but that’s in a different parish.

[parthian shot]

“Falsifying any voter record is a felony,” DiMarco said. “It’s a pretty serious matter.”

That is....... unless your a Democrat. Then you are a hero!

[Red_Devil 232]

Grassroots Solutions works with candidates through the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

[maine-iac7]

"Falsifying any voter record is a felony," DiMarco said. "It's a pretty serious matter."

Yeah yeah yeah

Heard that year after year,,,and read many cases of it - still waiting to hear of the prosecutions -

[Balding_Eagle]

I wish the republicans would make the routing out of voter fraud a top priority and prosecute a whole bunch with high publicity...that would curtail a lot of it.... Cutting out voter fraud, I suspicion, would all but guarantee republicans victories for decades

There are so many of these types of things going on........to explain them one can only do so with the idea of a grand conspiracy against the common folk.

[james500]

I don’t suppose anybody will bother Rahm Emanuel for a comment.

[penowa]

"Falsifying any voter record is a felony," DiMarco said. "It's a pretty serious matter."

Most I've seen for anybody found guilty was 30 days, probation, a slap on the wrist, virtually nothing. Doesn't look like a "serious matter" to me.

Democrat politicians promote it (motor voter;) Republican politicians don't seem to care or they would have done something about it long ago when they could have.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

“Bogus voter registration forms turned in (La.)...”
I have NOT registered to vote in La.!

[denydenydeny]

The thing is, I imagine that the people who are doing this think they are totally justified because of the deliberate attempt by the Republicans to drive black people out of New Orleans.

The more lurid the fantasy, the easier it is to break the law.