Posted on 04/08/2010 6:38:48 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
MATHIS, Texas --- South Texas is rife with agents from local political camps who prosper by organizing mail-in ballot fraud, elections administrators and other observers in the region say, even after a state-level push to curb the wrongdoing.
The office of state Attorney General Greg Abbott has several open investigations into the practice of shepherding mail-in ballots, mostly in the name of elderly voters. But perpetrators leave a sparse paper trail, election officials say, and the potential five-figure earnings for local operatives far outweigh any punishment levied for committing fraud, typically a misdemeanor.
Its a racket, said Nicole Perez, general manager of the Alice Echo-News Journal, a daily newspaper that has chronicled voting malfeasance in the region for years. A canvasser can earn as much as $30,000 during a political season, Perez said, by walking elderly and infirm voters through the mail-in ballot process, coaching their vote for the favored candidate and helping those voters sign, seal and deliver that ballot.
Perez led her newsroom in a 2008 investigation of checking each mail-in ballot in two counties, lining up the signature on file for each voter with the signatures on the request form and return form for the mail-in ballot.
The newspaper found numerous inconsistencies in the voting process for the March 2008 primary in Jim Wells County. Findings included unaccounted for mail-in ballots; duplicate, and in some cases, triplicate, mail-in ballot applications for one person; and some applications that cited disability as the reason for voting by mail when the voter had no disability.
The newspaper's stories coincided with a state AG's investigation, but despite the newspaper's interviews and documentation of seemingly blatant abuses of the voting process, only three minor charges have been filed so far.
(Excerpt) Read more at texaswatchdog.org ...
The MSM, with its biased news coverage, creates the illusion that liberals are the majority, exactly like a magician on a Las Vegas stage creates the illusion of some poor schmuck being sawed in half. The MSM illusion conditions the general populace psychologically to roll over in defeat when Democrats win, even though we suspect cheating. But the reality is that the liberals are the minority, and we are the majority.
The MSM didn't directly cause Obama and liberal Democrats to be elected to office. VOTE FRAUD DID. The MSM is an accessory.
If there were enough liberal voters in America to elect these clowns, then Democrats wouldn't have to cheat to win.
Don’t be naive. The money doesn’t go just to the ‘canvassers’.
They also get what is known in the political jargon of S. Texas as ‘walking around money” for expenses. Back in the day, votes were bought for as little as one dollar. In San Antonio of the 70-80s era, the price was up to five dollars.
Of course, election day parties, bar-b-qs, etc with lots of beer and tequila can also guaranteee voters will vote for the desired candidate when they are transported to the polls.
I love S. Texas politics.
No Judge Parr from Duval County stuffed the ballet boxes in Duval, Starr and Zapata Counties. More people voted for LBJ in his first Senate race than there were registered voters in those counties and LBJ only won that race by 500 votes.
Not that Parr (who ran most of those counties even though he was only a JP) would not pay off the locals with county jobs and such.
There were no Republican primaries held this year in Brooks, Crockett, Culberson, Duval, Frio, Hudspeth, LaSalle, McMullen and Zapata counties.
The infamous “Box 13” was in Jim Wells County and there were also numerous democrat votes bought for LBJ in East Texas and San Antonio.
You have inspired me. I am going to contact my local Republican Party and see about becoming an Election Judge.
Yep Janice Woods Windle’s book “Hill Country” tells of such tales.
Politics in early Texas its worth a read.
Gonzales County as well
http://www.gonzalescannon.com/city/story/2010/04/ksat-news-12-reports-gonzales-voter-fraud-cases
This was a pretty big deal here in Gonzales, city councilmen had to resign. We got a new conservative newspaper our of the deal because the origonal town paper didn’t want to report on it so the Editor started her own paper and kept pushing the story until Abbott did something with it.
Who canvasses the Colonias?
To be eligible to vote early by mail in Texas, you must:
be 65 years or older;
be disabled;
be out of the county on election day and during the period for early voting by personal appearance; or
be confined in jail, but otherwise eligible.
“In 2006, Duval County officials said that nearly half of the ballots cast in that years primary 2,800 out of 5,445 primary votes were by mail-in ballot. A woman said that her deceased fathers name was among those that showed up on a mail-in ballot.” (They had the largest percentage voter turnout of any county in Texas in 2006! There was no Republican Primary in Duval County that year either.)
Was there a Repub candidate?
If not, someone wasted all that canvassing money.
Wan’t that the Presendetal election and not his first senate race?
The [democrat primary runoff] contest between Stevenson and Johnson was the closest senatorial race in the nation’s history; after Stevenson appeared to be the winner, an amended return came in from Precinct 13 in Jim Wells County, a stronghold of George B. Parr qv, giving Johnson 201 votes and Stevenson only 2 votes; this decided the election in Johnson’s favor, with a total state vote of 494,191 for Johnson and 494,104 for Stevenson.
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/SS/fst48.html
Thanks. I grew up in Corpus Christi and my Father graduated from Free High School, but that happened in my Grandfather’s day. I remember them talking about it when I was a small kid in the sixties.
Sad.
Thanks for joining in the fight.
Study the election laws and procedures to be properly armed.
I wish I had the knowledge back in previous elections. Some dim Election Judges could have ended up in jail.
Do you know if your grandfather was a member of the Freedom Party back then?
Here’s a clue. Stop accepting absentee ballots except for people who are actually out of the state or country. I would go so far as to limit absentee ballots to our military personnel only. I would also end early voting, early voting is BS, along with “same day registration”.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.