3113
Hello Summer!
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2005
- Posts
- 13,823
Since ACORN has been arguably used to argue that there's voter fraud, will this be pointed out as well?
Not that this stops them from voting in the election--unless they were listed absentee! In which case...Voter Fraud?--but it would sure piss me off if someone named me part of a party I didn't want to be party to.
Full story here. Let this be a lesson to you people...don't sign anything in front of a grocery store! And don't ever fall for that "it's just a formality" line.Dozens of newly minted Republican voters say they were duped into joining the party by a GOP contractor with a trail of fraud complaints stretching across the country. Voters contacted by The Times said they were tricked into switching parties while signing what they believed were petitions for tougher penalties against child molesters. Some said they were told that they had to become Republicans to sign the petition, contrary to California initiative law. Others had no idea their registration was being changed.
"I am not a Republican," insisted Karen Ashcraft, 47, a pet-clinic manager and former Democrat from Ventura who said she was duped by a signature gatherer into joining the GOP. "I certainly . . . won't sign anything in front of a grocery store ever again." It is a bait-and-switch scheme familiar to election experts. The firm hired by the California Republican Party -- a small company called Young Political Majors, or YPM, which operates in several states -- has been accused of using the tactic across the country.
Election officials and lawmakers have launched investigations into the activities of YPM workers in Florida and Massachusetts. In Arizona, the firm was recently a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit. Prosecutors in Los Angeles and Ventura counties say they are investigating complaints about the company. The firm, which a Republican Party spokesman said is paid $7 to $12 for each registration it secures, has denied any wrongdoing and says it has never been charged with a crime....
Some also report having their registration status changed to absentee without their permission; if they show up at the polls without a ballot they may be unable to vote. The Times randomly interviewed 46 of the hundreds of voters whose election records show they were recently re-registered as Republicans by YPM, and 37 of them -- more than 80% -- said that they were misled into making the change or that it was done without their knowledge. Lydia Laws, a Palm Springs retiree, said she was angry to find recently that her registration had been switched from Democrat to Republican. Laws said the YPM staffer who instructed her to identify herself on a petition as a Republican assured her that it was a formality, and that her registration would not be changed. Later, a card showed up in the mail saying she had joined the GOP.
"I said, 'No, no, no. That's not right,' " Laws said. It all sounds familiar to Beverly Hill, a Democrat and the former election supervisor in Florida's Alachua County. About 200 voters -- mostly college students -- were unwittingly registered as Republicans there in 2004 by YPM staffers using the same tactic, Hill said. "It is just incredible that this can keep happening election after election," she said.
...Jose Aguilera, a 48-year-old math teacher from Ventura whose registration was recently changed from Democrat to Republican, said he signed the child-molester petition outside an Albertsons supermarket. He said he was asked to sign a second document but not told that it would change his registration. "Somehow the guy pulled out something else and I signed it," he said.
Not that this stops them from voting in the election--unless they were listed absentee! In which case...Voter Fraud?--but it would sure piss me off if someone named me part of a party I didn't want to be party to.