No, really. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen.
The unusual case of an Oak Harbor woman accused of feloniously filling out her daughter's absentee ballot and signing it was settled with a plea bargain in Island County Superior Court Tuesday.
Notably, the case was one of the rare times in the state that a person has been charged for unlawfully voting, according to elections officials at the Washington Secretary of State's office.
Elizabeth Reddy, 45, pleaded guilty to the charge of "attempted voting absentee ballot unlawfully," a gross misdemeanor offense.
She won't suffer greatly; she is paying a fine which may cover court costs, and she will be on probation for a year.
Her daughter had given her permission to sign the ballot. Would either even have been tempted to commit this fraud if they had to vote in person? I doubt it. Absentee ballots make vote fraud easy and almost risk free, and so we get more vote fraud as we move away from voting in person.
Reddy was voting on a school bond issue, which some may find ironic. Her ballot was set aside, along with 22 others, because the signatures didn't look right.
This is also an example, though a small one, of what I call distributed vote fraud.
Cross posted at Jim Miller on Politics.
Thanks to an emailer for tipping me off to this story, which has gotten little coverage, even in this region. Stefan had an earlier post on this story, here.
Posted by Jim Miller at January 30, 2007 01:45 PM | Email ThisAnd you hear the Dems are bringing in the big guns to make sure the kid stays in the legislature.
Sickening!!
And this one was one of the most mild cases of fraud. What about the thousands in the '04 election?
Posted by: swatter on January 30, 2007 02:11 PMor so they keep saying.
Posted by: Michele on January 30, 2007 02:40 PMWell said Michele!
I still can't get over the fact that we had DEAD people voting... and the Dems don't seem to have a problem with that!
Posted by: David on January 30, 2007 03:37 PMSomebody conviced for voter fraud. Yeah, right. Never happen. Not here.
Posted by: G Jiggy on January 30, 2007 04:36 PM5. I HAVE EXPERIENCE WORKING IN THE POST OFFICE OVER THE YEARS, AND HAVE TALKED TO POSTAL WORKERS, ESPECIALLY., ON NIGHT SHIFTS AND HAVE SEEN HOW EASY IT IS TO MISS DIRECT OR DISPOSE OF MAIL. THE VOTE MAIL IS EASY TO TELL FROM THE ENVELOPS . A GLANCE AT THE ZIP TELLS YOU A LOT ABOUT THE CHANCES OF HOW THE VOTE WILL GO ON ONE OR TWO CONTESTS ON THE BALLOT. YOU DON'T HAVE TO OPEN OR STEEL THE MAIL WHICH IS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT THAN MISS DIRECTING IT OR TRASHING IT. . I MY SELF, HAVE SEEN A GUYS TRASH MAIL WITHOUT KNOWING IT. ONCE YOUR IN THE GROVE YOU CAN DESTROY A LOT BEFORE YOU WAKE UP TO IT. LIKE WORKING LATE AT NIGHT AND HALF ASLEEP. LIKE COLLEGE GUYS AND MOON LIGHTERS WORKING AS TEMPS.
THANKS FOR YOUR CLEARLY WRITTEN ARTICLE. I HAVE SOME IDEAS ABOUT HOW VOTING SHOULD BE DONE. IF YOU GET A CHANCE, I WOULD APPRECIATE IT IF YOU WOULD LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.
I AM STILL TRYING TO FIGURE THINGS OUT AND HAVING TROUBLE.
1. THERE SHOULD BE A CLEAR LARGE TYPE PAPER BALLOT MARKED BY THE VOTER.
IT SHOULD BE AVAILABLE IN NEWS PAPERS AND THE INTERNET BEFORE HAND SO THE VOTERS CAN STUDY IT.
IT COULD ALSO BE AVAILABLE IN LIBRARIES AND SCHOOLS AND OTHER PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND OFFICES.
THE ORIGINAL CAST BALLOTS SHOULD BE KEPT ON FILE IN A SAFE PLACE FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS, MAYBE TEN
2. ALL VOTES SHOULD BE HAND COUNTED IN PUBLIC, IN THE PERCENTS BEFORE SHIPMENT ANY WERE ELSE BY THREE SEPARATE GROUPS: A. PARTISANS, B. NONPARTISANS AND C. OFFICIAL COUNTERS
3. THE VOTER SHOULD PUT THE BALLOT THROUGH AN OPTICAL SCANNER FOR COUNTING (A FORTH CHECK ON THE HAND COUNTS, ONLY A CHECK}. A COPY COULD BE MADE THAT THE VOTER CAN KEEP OR SHRED. THE COST OF AN ACCURATE VOTE IS ONE OF THE JUST PRICES OF DEMOCRACY.
4. THE VOTERS SHOULD HAVE A CHOICE WHEN VOTING TO BE ABLE TO MARK THEIR BALLOT WITH A RANDOM NUMBER KNOWN ONLY TO THEM BEFORE IT IS SCAND AND STORED.
IN A DISPUTE THE VOTERS WHO KEEP SUCH A BALLOT COULD BE ASKED, ON A VOLUNTEER BASES, TO LET THEIR BALLOT BE CHECKED AGAINST THE ORIGINAL RETAINED BALLOT. MAYBE THE VOLUNTEERS NAMES SHOULD BE MADE PUBLIC SO FORGERIES COULD BE DETECTED. IT WOULD BE VOLUNTARY. I AM NOT SURE ABOUT THIS.
Posted by: JIMMY on January 30, 2007 06:45 PM"It's not how many votes you count, it's who counts the votes!"
JVS
Posted by: JVS on January 30, 2007 06:50 PMI'm glad she was prosecuted and plead guilty, but I imagine you'd want to get the details right.
Posted by: Bruce on January 30, 2007 08:56 PMIf you plead guilty, you are convicted.
Ok, let me make this simple.... The court CHARGES you with a crime..... You either plead guilty or innocent.
You plead guilty, you are convicted. You plead innocent, you get a trial or court hearing. At that time either the Jury(trial) or court (judge) finds you guilty or innocent.
BUT WHEN YOU PLEAD GUILTY, YOU ARE GUILTY....PERIOD.
The difference is, the Judge may go lighter sentence if you plead guilty (without the whole trial). But your record will show a conviction.
Posted by: Chris on January 30, 2007 09:16 PMYou use capital letters to shout, "BUT WHEN YOU PLEAD GUILTY, YOU ARE GUILTY....PERIOD." I agree. The illegal voter is as guilty as if she had been convicted. My only issue was with the headline saying she was convicted. She was guilty, not convicted. I think.
Posted by: Bruce on January 30, 2007 09:37 PMYou needed the Supreme Court to help you out. In Ohio we didn't need no stinkin court. We just denied access in the Democratic districts and made those suckers stand out in the rain. Oh yes - a couple of my people were just convicted of tampering with the vote, but that was way after the fact and we've had our Glorious Leader in office for two years before they were convicted. The country won't go back,at this point, and have a doover. NOW THATS HOW YOU STEAL AN ELECTION!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Ken Black on January 31, 2007 08:16 AMYou needed the Supreme Court to help you out. In Ohio we didn't need no stinkin court. We just denied access in the Democratic districts and made those suckers stand out in the rain. Oh yes - a couple of my people were just convicted of tampering with the vote, but that was way after the fact and we've had our Glorious Leader in office for two years before they were convicted. The country won't go back,at this point, and have a doover. NOW THATS HOW YOU STEAL AN ELECTION!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Ken Black on January 31, 2007 08:17 AMToday's editorial from Whidbey Island's Newspaper, the News-Times, is fairly interesting, and recaps the case of a mother who illegally voted for her daughter, a daughter who consented to the act, and a mother who now faces more than 2k in fines, and a criminal record. The editorial in closing poses this hypothesis:
It was an unfortunate lesson that proved costly for one woman, but if it helps restore public confidence in our electoral system then something good came out of the process.
No, this woman's vote just exemplifies one of the many problems inherent in vote by mail systems--the fact that other people can vote for you! Restoring the secret ballot booth is the way to solve this problem, because the voting booth is a key element in making secret ballots secret. Prosecuting someone who was only following the actual instructions of the voter herself, does not restore my confidence in a system that is broken in so many other notable ways. In fact, if the woman's daughter were simply to have said it WAS her signature, the vote would have counted. The only reason this woman is paying the price for illegally voting for her daughter is that both her and her daughter were.... HONEST, and a system that prosecutes the HONEST is one that I don't trust.
If you want to restore public confidence in our Voting System here in Washington you have to start elsewhere. You could start by supporting a ban on private corporate controlled voting machines, like Diebold, or privately corporately controlled ballot sorting companies, like PSI Group. You could also support the removal from office of the politicians who have sold us down this river in the first place. From Sam Reed to Ron Sims, this has been a bipartisan era of dismanteling many of the protections we used to enjoy in Washington State. So getting back to a system we can trust will require their bipartisan replacement with people who understand why we used to vote at our precincts, on secret paper ballots, in secret voting booths, and the vote was counted by hand at the precinct by members of the public.
Anything less is unacceptable.
Of course you can keep up on all your Vote By Mail Fraud News here:
http://www.novbm.com
