11:21am | October 26, 2010 LAS VEGAS -- Some voters in Boulder City said they are concerned about fraud at the electronic ballot box.
Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid's name was already checked.
Ferrara said she wasn't alone in her voting experience. She said her husband and several others voting at the same time all had the same thing happen.
"Something's not right," Ferrara said. "One person that's a fluke. Two, that's strange. But several within a five minute period of time -- that's wrong."
Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there is no voter fraud, although the issues do come up because the screens are sensitive. For that reason, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screen after they make a selection at any time.
"Especially in a community with elderly citizens (they have) difficulty in (casting their) ballot," Lomax said. "Team leaders said there were complaints (and the) race filled in."
Lomax said voters need to have faith in the system.
"This election, I think, more than ever," he said. "The two sides are very fractured and each side is suspicious and we're caught in the middle."
Byron Holland/Sun Journal Martha Alligood helps a voter with curbside voting outside of the Board of Elections on Friday. M. Ray Wood, the Board of Elections chairman, has acknowledged isolated incidents where voters chose to vote straight-party ticket and got opposite results.
Voter reports problem with ballot machine Man said he voted straight-party ticket and got opposite results October 23, 2010 4:00 PM P. Christine Smith
A Craven County voter says he had a near miss at the polls on Thursday when an electronic voting machine completed his straight-party ticket for the opposite of what he intended.
Sam Laughinghouse of New Bern said he pushed the button to vote Republican in all races, but the voting machine screen displayed a ballot with all Democrats checked. He cleared the screen and tried again with the same result, he said. Then he asked for and received help from election staff.
“They pushed it twice and the same thing happened,” Laughinghouse said. “That was four times in a row. The fifth time they pushed it and the Republicans came up and I voted.”
M. Ray Wood, Craven County Board of elections chairman, issued a written statement saying that the elections board is aware of isolated issues and that in each case the voter was able to cast his or her ballot as desired.
Chuck Tyson, chairman of Craven County GOP, remains skeptical. He has been communicating with Wood about the issue and was invited to a meeting Wednesday with state elections officials. There were no further details about that meeting.
“Something is not right here,” Tyson told the Sun Journal. He said he “got two or three calls” from people describing the same problem while they were voting.
“I’ll be matter of fact, I didn’t find that press release satisfactory,” Tyson said, referring to Wood’s written statement.
Tyson reported other problems as well, including long lines waiting for just two voting machines in Havelock, and machines reporting 250 ballots cast where 400 voters had signed in to vote.
Laughinghouse cast his ballot at the county administration building at about 2:30 p.m., he said. After voting, he located a Republican worker on site and asked to speak with her about his voting machine issue. A man interrupted, he said, directing Laughinghouse to talk with him instead. That man said the machine likely needed to be calibrated, Laughinghouse said, and set about the method to do so.
“Each morning every voting unit is calibrated as per manufacturer instructions by trained election rovers,” Wood’s statement said. “These individuals are also working throughout the county each day to assist one-stop officials with any issues that arise during the course of voting.”
Laughinghouse advises voters to carefully check their ballots before confirming to ensure that the machine is logging each vote as intended.
“If you’re in a hurry, you may just push the button and not notice it,” he said.
He has become suspicious of voter fraud because of news reports he has heard. He would prefer voting machines to display an error message when they need to be calibrated, as opposed to completing ballots for the opposite party, he said.
“I’m all for our country and we know there has been voter fraud before and it continues even today,” Laughinghouse said. “So you get suspicious when something like this happens.”
The elections board also encourages voters to check their ballots carefully and to report any problems to poll staff before confirming the electronic ballot.
“It is our desire to provide the citizens of Craven County with the most honest and fair election possible,” Wood’s statement said. “With that in mind and because we seek to maintain the privacy of all voters whenever possible, we ask any voter, while in the act of voting, notify an election official immediately should they experience any difficulties in casting their ballot.”
Wood was unavailable to expand on his written comments on Friday afternoon, as he was in a conference, an elections office employee said. He did not return a phone message seeking additional comment as of press time.
Tyson said he’d like it if Craven County would scrap its voting machines.
“They never work, they’re late reporting, they screw up, they ain’t worth a damn and we ought to go back to paper ballots,” he said.
This sounds fishy to me. I took my seniors for a class on the new voting machines. After the primary everyone reported in and had no problems. But it does take some time getting used to it.
This is why I prefer the machines that we have in New York -- it is much easier to go back and check the "hard copy" if there are any questions about the voting results.
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson
Nevada voting machines automatically checking Harry Reid's name; voting machine technicians are SEIU members By: Mark Hemingway Commentary Staff Writer 10/26/10 6:12 PM EDT
Clark County is where three quarters of Nevada's residents and live and where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's son Rory is a county commissioner. Rory is also a Democratic candidate for governor.
Since early voting started, there have been credible reports that voting machines in Clark County, Nevada are automatically checking Harry Reid's name on the ballot:
Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid's name was already checked.
Ferrara said she wasn't alone in her voting experience. She said her husband and several others voting at the same time all had the same thing happen.
"Something's not right," Ferrara said. "One person that's a fluke. Two, that's strange. But several within a five minute period of time -- that's wrong."
Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there is no voter fraud, although the issues do come up because the touch-screens are sensitive. For that reason, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screen after they make a selection at any time.
Now there's absolutely no independently verified evidence of chicanery with the voting machines (yet), but it is worth noting that the voting machine technicians in Clark County are members of the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU spent $63 million in elections in 2008 and is planning on spending $44 million more this election cycle -- nearly all of that on Democrats. White House political director Patrick Gaspard is formerly the SEIU's top lobbyist, and former SEIU president Andy Stern was the most frequent vistor to the White House last year.
Just in Nevada, the SEIU has given a lot to groups that are heavily vested in the state -- in just one prominent example, the SEIU gave $500,000 to the Patriot Majority PAC, which has spent $1.3 million against Reid's opponent Sharron Angle. They've and have dropped large sums directly on candidates:
NV-3
Joe Heck (R)
Oppose
$140,000.00
NV-3
Dina Titus (D)
Support
$344,984.00
NV-Senate
Sharron E. Angle (R)
Oppose
$225,000.00
Now the county voting technicians aren't unique here -- many of Clark County's employees are also represented by the SEIU. But it is worth mentioning here, the SEIU is hyperpoliticized and has seen it's fair share of corruption. (it certainly seems more questionable than Diebold, the voting machine manufacturer with Republican ties that was at the center of many conspiracy theories on the left during the Bush administration.)
Unions increasingly have a major financial stake in election outcomes, both as a matter of their own election expenditures, and as a function of what they stand to gain if their legislative agenda is enacted. Should they really be responsible for tabulating the votes? That's certainly something voters ought to think long and hard about.
It is positively outrageous that in Clark County, Nevada, the SEIU Local 1107, which supports Harry Reid, controls the ballot boxes by contract through their representation of the voting machine technicians. It is not surprising that Senator Harry Reid’s name was automatically checked off on the ballot when individuals went to vote. The U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Nevada State Attorney General, and the U.S Marshalls need to act now to ensure that the SEIU does not continue to compromise the integrity of ballots in Nevada, and anywhere else in the country. The democratic process is too precious to be tampered with and abused.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Angle campaign attorney: Reid “intends to steal this election if he can’t win it outright”
By Jon Ralston · October 26, 2010 · 9:29 AM
UPDATE: Secretary of state's response, calling Mitchell's letter "conjecture and rumor," posted at right.
So says Cleta Mitchell, the same woman who tried to get Scott Ashjian, the Tea Party of Nevada candidate out of the race, in an astonishing letter:
As Sharron Angle's campaign attorney, I am sorry to report that the Democrats and their cronies are up to their same old tricks, of trying to manipulate the election in hopes of skewing the results in their favor.
Two days ago, the Democratic Secretary of State announced that voters can be provided "free food" at "voter turnout events." Harry Reid has been offering free food and, according to other reports, some Democratic allies such as teachers' unions are offering gift cards in return for a vote for Reid.
Before we were even able to document the reported infractions to report to the authorities, the Democrat Secretary of State slammed the door shut on preventing this behavior and issued a public statement permitting these ACORN-style tactics. THESE are the kinds of shenanigans that can turn this race.
Harry Reid intends to steal this election if he can't win it outright. As a result, we need to deploy literally dozens of election law attorneys and poll watchers to combat these tactics at a cost of nearly $80,000. That's over and above our current budget. We need to raise $80,000 and we need to do it RIGHT NOW, because even as I am writing this, Harry Reid and his Machine are trying to steal this election. I'm sorry that we have to come to you yet again and ask for you to reach deep and contribute, but we must.
Understand, EVERYTHING we have worked for in the last year could be destroyed by dirty tricks and criminal acts in the next 8 days. As Sharron's first line of defense on these matters I am absolutely committed to making sure this won't happen.
What Harry Reid is doing is clearly illegal. Nevada law (NRS 293.700) provides that, “A person who bribes, offers to bribe, or use and other corrupt means, directly or indirectly, to influence any elector in giving his or her vote or to deter the elector from giving it is guilty of a category D felony and shall be punished as provided in NRS 193.130.”
We've seen evidence of this sort of voter 'enticement' by groups such as ACORN - where, in 2008, two ACORN workers in Milwaukee were accused of offering pre-paid gasoline cards or restaurant gift cards to people in exchange for registration.
Nevada voting machines automatically checking Harry Reid's name; voting machine technicians are SEIU members By: Mark Hemingway Commentary Staff Writer 10/26/10 6:12 PM EDT
Clark County is where three quarters of Nevada's residents and live and where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's son Rory is a county commissioner. Rory is also a Democratic candidate for governor.
Since early voting started, there have been credible reports that voting machines in Clark County, Nevada are automatically checking Harry Reid's name on the ballot:
Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid's name was already checked.
Ferrara said she wasn't alone in her voting experience. She said her husband and several others voting at the same time all had the same thing happen.
"Something's not right," Ferrara said. "One person that's a fluke. Two, that's strange. But several within a five minute period of time -- that's wrong."
Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there is no voter fraud, although the issues do come up because the touch-screens are sensitive. For that reason, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screen after they make a selection at any time.
Now there's absolutely no independently verified evidence of chicanery with the voting machines (yet), but it is worth noting that the voting machine technicians in Clark County are members of the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU spent $63 million in elections in 2008 and is planning on spending $44 million more this election cycle -- nearly all of that on Democrats. White House political director Patrick Gaspard is formerly the SEIU's top lobbyist, and former SEIU president Andy Stern was the most frequent vistor to the White House last year.
Daytona Beach Commissioner Arrested On Fraud Charges
Posted: 11:46 am EDT October 27, 2010Updated: 1:15 pm EDT October 27, 2010 DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Daytona Beach City Commissioner Derrick Henry and his campaign manager, Genesis Robinson, were arrested Wednesday, charged with committing absentee ballot fraud during Henry’s 2010 re-election campaign, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office said.
RAW VIDEO: Commissioner Henry Arrested
The arrest of Henry and Robinson comes a little more than two months after Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall requested an investigation into irregularities in absentee ballot requests coming into her office. McFall brought her concerns to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office in August, prompting the Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office to immediately launch a joint investigation that ultimately led to the filing of a dozen felony charges against Henry and Robinson.
The investigation revealed that Henry and Robinson devised a strategy to boost Henry’s re-election bid by obtaining absentee ballots for numerous people, most of whom never requested the ballots. By law, residents are only allowed to request absentee ballots for themselves, immediate family members or for someone for whom they’re acting as legal guardian.
McFall filed the complaint in August after her office received a large number of requests for absentee ballots that were all sent from the same e-mail address. Based on the e-mail address, it appeared that the requests came from someone with an interest in the Daytona Beach City Commission Zone 5 race. Henry, the Zone 5 incumbent who was locked in a three-way primary race, was re-elected on Aug. 24.
The investigation revealed that between Henry and Robinson, they had requested a total of 92 absentee ballots through the elections office’s web site. Four of the absentee ballots were found at Henry’s house when investigators searched it in September. Investigators also recovered absentee ballot applications and receipts for some of the absentee ballots along with handbooks outlining Florida election laws.
Investigators interviewed some of the 92 people for whom absentee ballots were requested and said they were told a variety of stories. One resident said she received an absentee ballot in the mail even though she hadn’t requested one. A few days later, she said one of Henry’s campaign workers showed up at her house and asked if she had received her ballot and had filled it out. The resident said she got the ballot while the campaign worker waited. Then she filled it out, sealed and signed the ballot and turned it over to the campaign worker.
In another case, a man said he didn’t request the ballots and hasn’t lived or voted in Florida in more than two decades.
Henry also had requested an absentee ballot for his niece, listing her address as a home registered to Henry that was located within Zone 5. But investigators discovered that even though the niece used the absentee ballot to vote in the Zone 5 race, she actually lives at a different location in the city, outside of Zone 5.
Investigators also spoke to several others who confirmed that they hadn’t asked for an absentee ballot and had no idea that the Henry campaign had requested a ballot for them.
During an interview with investigators, Robinson acknowledged coming up with the strategy of applying on-line for absentee ballots, saying that Henry had approved the idea back in April when Robinson presented it to him. Robinson said it was done in an effort to increase voter turnout and improve Henry’s chances of re-election. Henry was re-elected in the municipal election with 65 percent of the vote, beating his nearest competitor by nearly 600 votes.
Based on the findings, Circuit Court Judge R. Michael Hutcheson issued arrest warrants Wednesday morning for both Henry and Robinson.
Henry, 41, is charged with two counts of absentee ballots and voting violations, nine counts of being a principal to absentee ballots and voting violations and one count of conspiracy to commit absentee ballots and voting violations.
Robinson, 21, is facing 11 counts of being a principal to absentee ballots and voting violations and one count of conspiracy to commit absentee ballots and voting violations.
All of the charges are third-degree felonies.
Late Wednesday morning, both defendants surrendered to investigators with the Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office. They will be transported to the Volusia County branch jail in Daytona Beach on $6,000 bond each.
Henry has been put on administrative leave, with pay, from his position at Mainland High School in Daytona Beach. He's an assistant principle and has worked there for 18 years.
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