"Republicans say 16,000 registered Hidalgo County voters are ineligible or dead"

dfw and wire service sources ^ | Nov. 03, 2002 | dfw and wire service sources

[Dubya]

EDINBURG, Texas - The Hidalgo County Republican Party wants to create a bipartisan voter roll task force following a study indicating that 16,000 of the county's registered voters are ineligible or dead.

Hollis Rutledge, chairman for the party, released the study's findings during a news conference Oct. 22. He had withheld release of the full report to the county election commission because he said its release needed to be approved by executive Republican party members, who paid for the study.

Republican committee members unanimously voted to create the task force. Rutledge said in a story in Sunday's editions of The (McAllen) Monitor that he would send a proposal on the task force to the election commission Monday.

Elections Administrator Teresa Navarro said she was disappointed the party decided not to share the information.

"I would think that they would want to work with us at least on the deceased (voter names) part and I'm disappointed that they wouldn't at least agree to that part, especially when they made allegations with it," she said.

"We were waiting to see what was going to happen today and now we know what we need to do to proceed. On Monday, I will request to the secretary of state, attorney general and the district attorney's office that they issue a grand jury subpoena for the deceased (names)."

"I don't think the party has denied anybody anything," Rutledge said. "The party's position today (Saturday) was we would offer the information, but the party's position was that they would like to offer it by way of a task force that was completely bipartisan in nature."

The study indicates that 4,223 people on the county's voter rolls - including 227 who are shown to have voted in the March primary - are probably dead. Navarro said she cannot begin to remove these names until she has seen the list and the sources used to confirm each death.

Rutledge said the study began in May and was done through Voter Views Information Systems, an Austin-based company that the county Republican Party contracts to run its primary elections. Party members were shocked when they received the study's findings and did not time the information's release in an attempt to affect voter turnout, Rutledge added.

"We found that there were dead people in the report dating back to 1982," he said. "It's absolutely ludicrous. This is absolute blatant incompetence on the part of the elections department. It's absolutely incredible."

Navarro said determining whether a voter is dead is much more complicated than the study indicates and said Rutledge intended to cast doubt on the elections department.

"It's to smear the integrity of the elections department, but they're not only doing that," she said. "They're smearing the integrity of the secretary of state's office and if they're trying to intimidate the voters. That is wrong."

[hattend]

"It's to smear the integrity of the elections department, but they're not only doing that," she said. "They're smearing the integrity of the secretary of state's office and if they're trying to intimidate the voters. That is wrong."

How do you intimidate dead or ineligible voters?

[FITZ]

What a bunch of malarky. Of course there are thousands of dead voters on the lists.

Also in many of the border counties, the identification documents of a dead person are often being used by a live illegal who will show up to vote if they feel like it. One very easy way they obtain birth certificates is by going through old obituaries and then taking out that person's birth certificate.

[lelio]

While I like your idea on bringing in tax returns, it doesn't stop those that are already forging documents proving they are dead people. What's difficult about forging an IRS document? Its probably easier as you can download forms from the internet.
Maybe a day long ink mark on their hand? Then watch for massive sales of Oxi Clean in the weeks before the election.

[CurlyDave]

Joking aside,voting in this country is way too easy. If I had my way,nobody would be able to vote without showing a tax return. Why a tax return? To ensure that the people voting are the ones that are paying for what's being voted on.

I agree in principle, but we need to make it more stringent. The tax return should have to show that they actually paid taxes. Because of the "earned income credit" the IRS has become an arm of the welfare department giving out refunds that are larger than taxes withheld. Last I looked, they would even parcel it out in convenient monthly installments, just like the welfare check it is.

Criteria to vote should be either "paid taxes" or "active duty military".

[D. Miles]

Gee, dead is dead, and they need to check the vets list of patients...they might find some of those registered to vote also!

[lonestar]

Navarro said determining whether a voter is dead is much more complicated than the study indicates

Only a true Democrat could come up with something like that.

Actually it's a complicated issue with Democrats because too many of their breathing voters are brain dead.

[D. Miles]

Does that election office not recieve monthly a list of deaths for their area from the state office of stats? I'm sure no one ever thought of reading the obits and creating a list from that! Gives new meaning to the term "Dead and stinking!"

[cake_crumb]

"Navarro said determining whether a voter is dead is much more complicated than the study indicates and said Rutledge intended to cast doubt on the elections department."

Ummm...if they've got a death certificate and have been buried for ten years, that's usually a pretty good indication they're dead.

For some reason, that commercial parody on Rush, "Night of the Voting Dead" comes to mind...

[Dubya]

That I don't know.

[Dubya]

LOL

[Dubya]

CLICK ABOVE

[stylin19a]

The study indicates that 4,223 people on the county's voter rolls - including 227 who are shown to have voted in the March primary - are probably dead

Huh ? The only thing I can think of is:
"Dead" is like Paul Wellstone, "Probably Dead" is like Frank Luatenberg & Fritz Mondale

[537 Votes]

"Republicans say 16,000 registered Hidalgo County voters are ineligible or dead"

I guess this headline isn't redundant, because there are voters who vote by absentee ballot but die before election day. So they are dead yet eligible to vote. A little known fact with which to dazzle your friends and win bar bets.

[Dubya]

LOL

[Dubya]

LOL. I didn't think of that.

[Robert A Cook PE]

"It's to smear the integrity of the elections department, but they're not only doing that," she said. "They're smearing the integrity of the secretary of state's office and if they're trying to intimidate the voters. That is wrong."

Oh - Yeah.

Repeat after me:

Democratic key words: "Republicans are trying to intimidate the voters" Let us repeat this [hrase endlessly every time so the media repeats it every time.

Republican key word: "Let's all just get along. We want a (Another) "bipartisan" investigation into (democratic) voter fraud."

We will not publicize this (latest) case of democratic voter fraud.

Or we might be accused of intimidting illegal/imooral/cheating/dead/un-registered/felons/multiple-democratic voters...

[Dubya]

LOL

[GOPJ]

bump

[Mr. K]

You know, we have to be smarter about what the 'RATS will do. We know they are going to object to anything resembling sanity, so this list should have been broken up into two parts- the DEAD PEOPLE list (let them try to defend their objection to that) and then the 'ineligable' list. They will focus on that, and obscure the fact that DEAD PEOPLE VOTE in their local elections...