Book of the Month

Shuts and Failures

by Michael Maiello

Never mind the binders of women; look for the binders of voter registrations.

by erica20 10/19/2012 - 6:28 pm

I am already tired of the binders of women story--more important than what Mitt said is the fact that he seems to have made himself the hero of the story in complete disregard of the facts at hand.

But speaking of disregarding facts (and law!) a more interesting story is developing over at (dare I mention the initials?) TPM and on local blogs in Harrisonburg VA. A young guy named Colin Small was seen throwing out completed voter registration forms and got arrested for it. Turns out he was employed by the oft-renamed firm sometimes and formerly known as Strategic Allied Consultants, sometimes and formerly run by disgraced consultant Nathan Sproul.

I'm pretty sure that when Mr. Small was interviewed, he told authorities that he was just getting rid of a few old forms that missed the deadline as it was the last day for voter registration in Virginia. But I suspect that somewhere in the neighborhood, a CCTV camera has recorded him doing the same thing on previous days. In which case this is a bigger story. And if others, in other places, have done the same while in the indirect employ of the Republican Party, well, it's a whole other sack of hammers.

I'm of the opinion that while local law enforcement might have some interest in the case, they're not going to deploy the resources to commandeer and watch local surveillance footage. But democracy-loving Daggers and TPM readers, especially locals, could do this.

Anyone live in or near Harrisonburg VA?

There are other Strategic Allied Consultants offices in other places as well--who knows if weekend video-viewing parties might yield up a story....

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About 20 years ago, Mr. flower and I dropped in at our local township hall to cast our votes. It was a presidential election, I recall.

Well, I signed in and the polling person looked me up in the binder crying ... Shift+R improves the quality of this image. Shift+A improves the quality of all images on this page.and checked me off and gave me a ballot.

Mr. flower ran into problems. They could not find him in the binder of registered voters. He had to be in there somewhere because the two of us had gone together four years ago to vote so he was definitely still eligible.

The polling people flipped through every page of that binder looking for his name. They couldn't find it. (I should probably mention there are only about 300 active voters in my township so looking for one voter isn't that big of a deal.)

Finally, one of the poll people got up and went over to the wastebasket and pulled out a bunch of binder cards that had been thrown out earlier. Exactly who had thrown them out  and why, I never did discover.

Mr. flower was among the tossed. He got untossed and we proceeded to cast our votes.

This has always bothered me, erica. It was 20 years ago and I remember it so clearly. It isn't exactly the same situation as the one in Virginia but the underhanded efforts of vote suppressors is an ongoing thing. If I hadn't insisted that the poll people look harder to find his name, Mr. flower probably would have just walked away without voting.

ID fraud isn't the threat to fair voting that this kind of vote suppression is.
 

by flowerchild 10/19/2012 - 8:46 pm

Flowerchild, this is a disturbing story. I'm not even sure why, but I think it's something about realizing that our genuinely human efforts to do the right thing can so easily be thwarted at any turn, randomly, by people who just--aren't.

by erica20 10/19/2012 - 9:24 pm (re: flowerchild)

Story made the front page of Google News. 

Legs.

I think there's more to come.

by erica20 10/19/2012 - 10:17 pm

"Man with firm under contract with Virginia GOP charged with voter registration fraud", Maggie Fazeli Fardand and Ben Pershing, page 1 of Washington Post Metro section in today's print edition

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/republican-campaign-worker-charged-with-voter-registration-fraud/2012/10/19/c07cc378-1a01-11e2-94aa-9240e72ee00b_story.html

 

Democrats launched a fresh round of attacks on Republicans over the issue of voter fraud Friday after a man working for a firm under contract to the Republican Party of Virginia was accused of discarding state voter registration forms.

Colin Small, 23, of Phoenixville, Pa., was arrested Thursday by sheriff’s deputies in Rockingham County, in the state’s Shenandoah Valley, on 13 charges of voter registration fraud. The alleged crime happened Monday, when a business owner in Harrisonburg, Va., reported that someone had discarded eight voter registration forms behind his store.

The documents had been filled out, placed in a folder and stuffed into a bag, store owner Rob Johnson told a Richmond area NBC affiliate and said in a posting on his Facebook page.  

.........

by AmericanDreamer 10/20/2012 - 10:53 am

Hey AD, thanks for the link. I am really hoping that people in the area are looking at old surveillance video to see if Small discarded other forms.

by erica20 10/20/2012 - 1:04 pm (re: AmericanDreamer)

erica and flowerchild, et al.

Here it is, so what can we do about it?

http://truth-out.org/news/item/12204-does-the-romney-family-now-own-your...

The article states in part:

Through a closely held equity fund called Solamere, Mitt Romney and his wife, son and brother are major investors in an investment firm called H.I.G. Capital. H.I.G. in turn holds a majority share and three out of five board members in Hart Intercivic, a company that owns the notoriously faulty electronic voting machines that will count the ballots in swing state Ohio November 7. Hart machines will also be used elsewhere in the United States.

In other words, a candidate for the presidency of the United States, and his brother, wife and son, have a straight-line financial interest in the voting machines that could decide this fall's election. These machines cannot be monitored by the public. But they will help decide who "owns" the White House.

Also see: Will Bain-Linked E-Voting Machines Give Romney the White House?

They are especially crucial in Ohio, without which no Republican candidate has ever won the White House. In 2004, in the dead of election night, an electronic swing of more than 300,000 votes switched Ohio from the John Kerry column to George W. Bush, giving him a second term. A virtual statistical impossibility, the 6-plus% shift occurred between 12:20 and 2am election night as votes were being tallied by a GOP-controlled information technology firm on servers in a basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In defiance of a federal injunction, 56 of Ohio's 88 counties destroyed all election records, making a recount impossible. Ohio's governor and secretary of state in 2004 were both Republicans, as are the governors and secretaries of state in nine key swing states this year.

But there is so much more, please click on link and read in entirety.  Now, I'm really upset.  How does this happen?

 

by Aunt Sam 10/21/2012 - 10:02 pm

Aunt Sam, don't follow this link, you will just feel worse.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9651

by A Guy Called LULU 10/21/2012 - 10:49 pm (re: Aunt Sam)

LuLu - I quit considering Todd as a  viable and trustworthy journalist long ago. 

I'm more concerned that I haven't seen this published on any MSM - This is at the very least newsworthy and cause for concern.  I'm a thinkin' that flower is way more right than wrong about the fear that this election will be perverted by any means possible by the Kochs and their cohorts, and yes that includes Romney.

What can be done?  I'm tempted to email Marshall and Sullivan, Politico and whoever if only to get some response.  What do you think?

by Aunt Sam 10/21/2012 - 11:03 pm (re: A Guy Called LULU)

Sent this link to someone I know who works at the Washington Post, asking if they will be looking into it.

by AmericanDreamer 10/22/2012 - 7:10 am (re: Aunt Sam)

Thanks.  I'm still considering sending it to others too......let us know please any response.

by Aunt Sam 10/22/2012 - 10:47 am (re: AmericanDreamer)

I will let you know if I get a response but encourage you to send it to others as you think best.  

by AmericanDreamer 10/22/2012 - 11:12 am (re: Aunt Sam)

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