November 30, 2006
Mail Ballot Horror Show (XXXIII): Selling votes for pork rinds

At the risk of giving Ron Sims a good idea:

The former mayor of a tiny coal town who prosecutors say masterminded a scheme to buy votes with beer, cigarettes and even pork rinds, pleaded guilty Thursday to 243 felonies, including vote-rigging and corruption.
...
During the trial of one of 13 people accused of conspiring with Cooper, prosecutors portrayed the ex-mayor as being the key figure in a plot to rig a 2004 election in Appalachia, 91 miles northeast of Knoxville, Tenn. They said the accused conspirators intercepted absentee ballots from the mail, filled them out and forged the signatures of the intended voters.
But relax. Nobody can successfully forge signatures on mail ballots in Washington state. We have signature verification!

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 30, 2006 11:35 PM | Email This
Comments
1. let's see--13 people relative to their voting population...project that to WA state...more than 129 votes for the Crown?

Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on December 1, 2006 07:50 AM
2. But stealing the vote means that person did not have a chance to vote. You can verify as much as you want but the bottom line if you dont get the ballot in time to vote your vote did not count.
Extreme case close election comes up and to help set the stage a batch of votes disappear that was to be sent to the East Side. Then you hope they forget that they are suppose to get ballot but if they request one they are sent the ballot. You could affect an election by tactics like this. For the 2004 elections I knew of 3 people that did not get thier ballots on the East Side. Not that they got lost in the mailing of the ballots but three people who did not get a chance to get thier vote counted. And these are just friends. How many more were there? If I knew 3 personally what are the odds that I know everyone who did not get a ballot for the election.

Posted by: David Anfinrud on December 1, 2006 07:57 AM
3. That link isn't working for me.

Posted by: Michael on December 1, 2006 08:31 AM
4. Sounds like the mayor figured if King County could get away with this kind of stuff, then he could too. Hey--maybe King Ron will offer him Logan's old position! The ex-mayor would fit right in with Sims' corrupt regime.

Posted by: Burdabee on December 1, 2006 08:45 AM
5. Stefan,

The link didn't work for me either. Can you please confirm?

Thanks.

Posted by: pbj on December 1, 2006 09:19 AM
6. The times must have found out the crook was Democrat and that is why they whacked the link.

Posted by: pbj on December 1, 2006 09:32 AM
7. A copy of the indictment can be found here. And here are other links that work:


http://kilosparksitup.blogspot.com/2006/06/pork-rind-update-appalachia-voter.html

http://www.wdbj7.com/global/story.asp?s=5662096

Apparently this boss hog was in tight with the unions.

Posted by: pbj on December 1, 2006 09:34 AM
8. With signature verification like that, who needs fraud? (well, you get my drift)

Posted by: Misty on December 1, 2006 01:45 PM
9. ..and it's nice to know that somewhere in the country, this stuff is taken seriously by public officials somewhere.

Posted by: Misty on December 1, 2006 01:47 PM
10. One last comment: unless I missed it, they don't seem to mention the party of the perp. It seems that when said perp is a democrat, they never mention the party affiliation. Who wants to guess what party he's likely from ?

Posted by: Misty on December 1, 2006 01:50 PM
11. Gee, if folks are willing to join into a conspriacy that has felony penalties, they can influence the results of an election. What a news flash.

There are many ways corrupt election workers could sway votes in King County. And the extent of the conspiracy doesn't have to approach the numbers indicted in Virginia. Two will do.

Human beings run elections, so elections are only as trustworthy as are the people running them.

In a democratic republic such as we all live in, that's the chance that has to be taken.

Given the choice in transparency between Norm Maleng and Dean Logan, I'll take Logan, any day.

Posted by: Harry Tuttle on December 1, 2006 01:57 PM
12. Just heard on Michael Medved's show that a guy committed self-immolation to protest President Bush.

(here it comes....) At least he can still vote in King County.

Posted by: Sorry, couldn't help making the obvservation on December 1, 2006 02:10 PM
13. I'm sure I am not the only one who wondered which party Cooper belongs to. As it happens, Appalachia has nonpartisan elections, so we can't tell from that.

And I haven't been able to find a news account that gives his party, either -- which makes me suspect that he is a Democrat.

On the other hand, Appalachia (the region, not the town) is one of the few places you consistently find vote fraud committed by Republicans.

(Virginia does not register voters by party, so you can't use that. You probably could check which party primaries he has voted in, though I didn't see a simple way to do that on line, when I glanced at the Virginia voter site.)

Posted by: Jim Miller on December 1, 2006 02:37 PM
14. Signature verification isn't going to do much good when Larry Gossett becomes King County Council Chair. Larry Gossett has been nominated by the Democrats to take Larry Phillips place as leader of the King County Council and most of us well remembers the role that he played in the election certification process.

What bugs me is how the Republicans on the council are just going to stand mute and allow this to happen. Surely the Democrats didn't have to go to the most extreme end of the council to choose their leaders and so this is obviously an attack on bi-partisan governing.

Will we be seeing council trips to Cuba? Will the King County Council invite Hugo Chavez over to Seattle to give him an award? How much time and how much money will be spent on promoting a radical Leftist agenda with activity not even part of running a county government? When local government becomes a platform to push ideology local government ceases to effectively perform the functions it was created to do for the taxpayer.

Larry Phillips became King County Council chair with some help from certain Republican members, and we need to urge our Republican members that petty political jockeying only plays in the hands of the Democrats and in the end comes back to hurt them. Surely nothing can ultimately be gained by any Republican member of the council by remaining silent when such an radical choice for the head of the chair of the council is being forced upon them. We now know what the cost of electing Larry Phillips was including the Critical Ordinance land grab and the joke of appointing a rural ombudsman who is actually a Seattle liberal lawyer. With Gossett as leader it will only get worst as he will seek national attention for his radical activism.

Posted by: Concerned KC Taxpayer on December 1, 2006 05:46 PM
15. concerned 14--out comes my beret and fist goes up in air to salute the Former Black Panther. you are right--watch the agenda expand to quasi-Cuba goals. meanwhile, milquetoast Seattle lib voters will roll over and never know what hit them. Gossett can not soft-sell his past. zebras do not lose their stripes.

Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on December 2, 2006 08:19 AM
Post a comment
Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments:


Remember info?