First person charged with voter fraud [in South Dakota]

KOTA-TV ^ | 10/18/2002 | Jack Siebold and Carl Agnelly

[jpthomas]

A KOTA Territory man is the first person to be charged with voter fraud this election.

Police say Lyle Nichols is charged with five counts of forgery of voter registration cards. Nichols is one of two brothers hired by the Native American Voter Registration Project.

They collected and submitted 226 registration cards. The Pennington County Auditor's office found that two of those newly registered voters were dead.

If convicted, Nichols could be sentenced to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine for each of the five felony counts.

Last week, accusations of voter registration fraud began to surface in several counties. Dead people had been registered, people were registered in counties other than where they live, and names were misspelled, signatures didn’t match.

Throughout the state, there are massive voter registration drives being conducted by both political parties, tribal governments and national organizations. Nichols currently is the only person charged.

There is another voter fraud investigation involving a woman paid by the South Dakota Democratic Party to register people. Becky Red-Earth Villeda says she is innocent, that the accusations against her are an attempt to stop the registration of Native Americans. Red-Earth Villeda was fired after discrepancies were found in two applications she collected.

[jpthomas]

Hopefully the first of many.

[Phantom Lord]

Grill em for information and extract it from them through a plea deal or send them away for the Max amount possible.

[smith288]

Why am I not suprised?

[FryingPan101]

Alright! I could scream.

[bert]

The penalty is not adequately severe.

[jackbill]

If the guy is convicted, he will get probation. After all, his crime doesn't hurt anyone, right?

[Grampa Dave]

Exactly, let him serve a polite 90 days of picking up trash, used liberals, on the roadside if he rolls over on the people who paid him and told him how to do this.

[jpthomas]

Regarding Becky Red Earth-Villeda mentioned in this article, the Democratic Party reportedly paid her $12,000 over the past few months based on the number of new registrations she was able to secure. See $12,000 paid to person in voter fraud probe for details.

[balrog666]

He's a Rat - he'll get 3 months detention in his home with cable TV, pizza and beer delivered everyday, and free lawyers from the DNC.

[KSCITYBOY]

I would like to see this on the network news shows as a warning to the inner city vote thieves, but I'm sure it won't run for fear of upsetting the democrats chances.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

If the guy is convicted, he will get probation. After all, his crime doesn't hurt anyone, right?

IMO public flogging is best.

[WarSlut]

Wake me up when they start going after the organized labor/crime vote fraud machines.

[rockfish59]

DUmb @$$es!

[DadOfFive]

Mark Barnett, our AG and former Gubernatorial candidate is
a good Republican and I am sure he wants to get to the
real bottom of this ASAP. If it looks like somebody
from the DNC enabled these frauds, I trust Mark will find it. Any self-respecting native American ought to see how
they are being used by this ilk (dems) and reinforce the old hesistance to participate in the "white man politics" as some have been quoted in the press.

[small voice in the wilderness]

Attempting to vote with forked ballot gets many, many moons behind big stone tee-pee.

[MoGalahad]

No, he certainly did hurt all the people who followed the rules. He stole the effectiveness of honest citizen's votes much like the guy who cuts others off in traffic effectively steals their place in traffic and thus their time. A small thing you say! Maybe, but these 'small' things (its the small foxes that spoil the vine) reflect character and will eventually lead to larger things that will eventually lead to the breakdown of freedom in this nation.

[jpthomas]

Also, the following describes an on-going investigation of this voter fraud story by KSFY-TV. This points to widespread fraud and the likelihood of further arrests:

The on-going investigation into possible voter fraud in several South Dakota counties continues. KSFY's Shelley Keohane received a packet of information from a personal friend who volunteers for John Thune's campaign. It includes one questionable application for an absentee ballot from Dewey County. Shelley verified this document, and then she and a photographer made a two day, 800 mile trek in order to research the allegations of possible voter fraud that the FBI and U.S. Attorney are examining.

KSFY talked to five individuals on camera in Dewey County who say their signatures were forged on ballot request forms. While in Dewey County, we met with County Auditor Adele Enright, a registered Democrat.

As KSFY reported last Friday, Enright contacted the Democratic Party about irregularities she noticed in several ballot applications. The party then fired independent contractor Becky Red Earth-Villeda who they say is responsible for 2 questionable ballot applications. The Democratic Party turned that information over to the authorities.

During the course of Shelley's independent investigation, she found multiple people who have testified on camera their signatures were forged on absentee ballot requests.

KSFY has confirmed with county auditors in five South Dakota counties...Fall River (who handles voter registration requests for Shannon County), Todd, Dewey, Ziebach, and Pennington, that the FBI is investigating possible attempts of voter fraud. KSFY will continue to follow this story and we will continue to bring you the very latest as it develops.

Link: Behind KSFY's Voter Fraud Investigation

[Teacher317]

It's a start, and hopefully will make many of the Dems think twice before committing their usual rampant fraud, like cigarettes for votes, money for votes, college students voting multiple times, voting machines getting "lost", busing loads of "voters" to the polls (and more than one location), same-day voting, felons voting, 100+% voting precincts (in urban areas where free smoke detectors and free immunizations get 30% turnout), illegal aliens voting (despite Gephardt's encouragement and deal-making with illegal voters), campign interference from foreign powers (Carter going to Russia, China and others supporting Clinton, Mexican citizens voting in our elections, etc), precints being open past the closing time, pundits influencing election results by calling them in early, massive absentee ballot requests by Democrats (see SD... 90+ all in one envelope, all with same reason entered on form), recounts, court battles to change election rules and laws during or even after election process (see FL, NJ, FL, MO, FL, HI, FL...), illegal campaign contributions from unions (see legislation, SCOTUS decisions, Bush's Exectutive Order), voting machines whose programming is not being made public, efforts to disenfranchise military voters...

I only wish that the ACTUAL election results for the past 100 years would be revealed by some Miracle. I'm not sure the Democrats would have even 80% of their current seats.

[BOBTHENAILER]

There is another voter fraud investigation involving a woman paid by the South Dakota Democratic Party to register people. Becky Red-Earth Villeda says she is innocent, that the accusations against her are an attempt to stop the registration of Native Americans.

Don't even try and play that race card Becky. Your RAT party sold out a whole tribe of Native Americans who would have GREATLY benefited from the drilling of ANWR, not to mention the rest of our country.

[LibWhacker]

Everyone knows this is widespread amongst ALL democrats. I wish they wouldn't restrict the investigation to pathological cases; i.e., to cases that lead people to think, "Oh, it's just Becky Red Earth and some unemployed, drunken Indian steelworker in a polkadot tutu." Voter fraud is a massive criminal enterprise involving a huge number of RATS across the country.