Thirteen campaign workers for Barack Obama yesterday yanked their voter registrations and ballots in Ohio after being warned by a prosecutor that temporary residents can’t vote in the battleground state.
A dozen staffers – including Obama Ohio spokeswoman Olivia Alair and James Cadogan, who recently joined Team Obama – signed a form letter asking the Franklin County elections board to pull their names from the rolls.
The letter – a copy of which was obtained by palestra.net, a Fox News affiliate – came a day after prosecutor Ron O’Brien publicly urged out-of-state campaign workers for both Obama and John McCain to “examine your conscience” before the elections board beings begins opening absentee ballots today.
Earlier in the week, O’Brien spoke with lawyers for both camps and urged them to make sure their staffs met permanent-residency rules, or face possible felony charges.
Also pulling his ballot yesterday was Hofstra University grad Jake Smith, an Obama volunteer who had voted in Knox County, Ohio.
On Thursday, O’Brien cut a deal with 13 out-of-staters, including four from New York, who tossed out their already-cast ballots and admitted they didn’t meet residency requirements.
Yeah, right, no fraud my ass.
Filed under: Barack Obama Tagged: | fraud, illegal, Obama, ohio, register, Vote
There really needs to be some sort of Federal standard on voting methods and registration for at least the federal level elections.
2000, 2004, now 2008 the system just gets gamed by weasels who exploit every loophole and sleazy trick they can find which distorts the actual vote. It needs to stop before it gets any worse.
Frankly if this continues how far off can we be from elections are won by who every cheats the best?
No fraud intent — fraud requires scienter. In many states, if you’re a resident for 60 days, you’re eligible.
Ohio has a 30-day requirement. The prosecutor was in error.
What party was the prosecutor? The prosecutor appears to be in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Ed Darrel, you are incorrect. Ohio does have a 30-day requirement, but you must intend to reside in Ohio thereafter. Thirty days is the minimum number of days you must reside in the state before you are eligible to vote as a resident.
In other words, you can’t just be in Ohio for 30 days order to vote and then return to the state in which you actually reside.
“Moving” to Ohio for 30 days in order to vote there, with no intention of becoming a resident, most certainly indicates intent to commit voter fraud.
I think we should do away the electtoral votes and really listen to the peoples votes. I believe there was alot of voter fraud on dem. side. was our military votes counted and absentee ballots counted, an how do we know?
How would you determine scienter for voter fraud? The voter registration law in Ohio doesn’t require a statement of intent on residency, does it? No other state does. Such a requirement would be even more open to abuse, and I believe would be a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act.
The question is, was the residency requirement met. There is no further questioning allowed under the law.
Pam, so far all the indications of serious vote fraud are in Republican jurisdictions. The Obama campaign went to great lengths to defend the rights of military people to vote, despite the Bush administration’s instructions to VA hospitals to refuse to allow vets to get help to register (overturned just a couple weeks before the election). If the ballots were not counted, it’s probably an organic problem.
With the possible exception of Alaska, where the vote counts are simply wacky. Every poll, before the vote and exit polls, came up with different results than are being reported. And despite an increase in registration and heavy early voting, total votes are down — but oddly, every Republican is winning by exactly the same percentage they won last time.
I’ll wager the Justice Department will not investigate.