Many people assume that voter fraud is only a problem in the third world. They couldn’t be more wrong.
Voter suppression and fraud occur disturbingly often in America (even though they’re illegal), and many times they’re either unreported or quickly swept under the rug. Indeed, for an inestimable number of Americans, the right to vote is a fight still in progress.
While there have literally been thousands of claims of voter suppression and voter fraud efforts, we decided to highlight 8 of them that we find to be particularly shocking.
1. King Street Patriots use doctored photos and attack nonprofit voter registration effort—As you’re reading this, a huge battle is brewing in Houston over charges of voter suppression, voter fraud, and even arson. It all started when the Harris County Voter Registrar Leo Vasquez and King Street Patriots, a right-wing group, began raising allegations of voter fraud against nonprofit voter registration group Houston Votes. They claimed the organization turned in more than 5,000 fraudulent voter applications.
Whether these claims are true or not remains to be seen, but it didn’t take long for Houston Votes to fire back with allegations of voter suppression by King Street Patriots. The right-wing group was caught using a doctored photo in one of their videos. The edited photo showed an African-American woman at a rally with a sign that had been changed from “Don’t Mess With Our Vote,” to read, “I Only Got to Vote Once.”
As for the arson, while this dispute was heating up (no pun intended) a mysterious fire suddenly destroyed a huge collection of voting machines in Harris County. Arson investigators have yet to comment on the issue.
2. Flyer scares young voters away with claims of undercover police making arrests at polls—During the 2008 elections, flyers were spread around Drexel University in Philadelphia warning students that undercover police would be at the polls on Election Day making arrests for anyone who has warrants or outstanding traffic offenses. The effort was designed to scare people away from the polls.
3. Ballot Security Task Force patrols voting stations with guns and intimidating warning signs—Back in the 80s, one of the most famous cases of voter suppression took place in New Jersey during the gubernatorial election. The National Ballot Security Task Force, a group setup by the Republican National Committee, patrolled polling sites in black and Hispanic neighborhoods of Newark and Trenton. The group consisted of armed, off-duty police officers who would challenge and question voters and in some cases block their paths to the polls.
4. Fake voicemail messages tell voters they aren’t registered—In 2006, many Virginia voters received fake voicemail messages from the state elections commission stating that the voters were registered in other states and would be arrested if they tried to vote in Virginia.
5. New Black Panther Party brandishes billy clubs at Philadelphia polling station—An amateur video shot in November 2008 at a Philadelphia polling station displayed a shocking scene in which a group from the New Black Panther Party was brandishing clubs and intimidating voters who weren’t there to support Obama. The leader of the Black Panthers defended his group and said those people on the video were acting “outside of organizational policy.” After the Obama administration dropped the cases, one prominent Justice Department official quit, stating superiors instructed attorneys to ignore cases that involved black defendants and white victims.
6. Democrat activist uncovers more than 2000 claims of voter fraud against Obama campaign—Democratic activist Gigi Gaston made the documentary film We Will Not Be Silenced in 2008 after she noticed numerous complaints of voter suppression against the Obama administration during the Democratic primaries. According to the film, there were over 2,000 claims of voter fraud against the Obama campaign, including allowing unregistered people to vote, intimidating Hillary Clinton voters, locking people out of voting places, and much more.
7. Colorado illegally purges voters within 90 days of election—Colorado was called out for illegally purging voters off the rolls within 90 days of an election, during which time only voters who’ve moved out of state, die, or are declared mentally ill may be purged. 7,000 total voters were purged, and only 20% of those had died or moved out of state.
8. Judge rules Montana Republican Party had “the express intent to disenfranchise voters”—In October 2008, the Montana Republican Party challenged the registration of 6,000 voters—mostly young voters and Native Americans. A judge ruled that the party had challenged the voters with “the express intent to disenfranchise voters.”
Can you recall any other noteworthy examples of voter suppression and voter fraud? Share your stories by leaving a comment.
9 comments
Concerned Citizen
She also conveniently left out the New Black Panther Party voter suppression in Philadelphia in the 2008 election. This is all left-wing propaganda.
KC
Did I miss something or did this leave out ACORN? They are definitely shady as hell.
USCitizensSickOfItAll
PS During the Presidental election we had military family who NEVER received their ballots to VOTE.
And upon return someone found their applications for benefits in the trash
What was the federal government busy doing: why they re-hired their INS retired to make certain immigrants could vote...so the process was sped up for illegals, too as we watch UNIVISION where the multiple Mexican Consulates had 24/7 hours for applications from all Central American nations.
Meanwhile so what for US Troops: they are to date committing S U I C I D E because of the deceit iin having to return as many as nine times to Iraq--yes the place where we are not suppose to have US Troops!
SUICIDES also include the US Border Patrol: those men and women who are out there being watched across the Mexican-US Fences for shift changes, locations, photos and then who by themselves are against 20-30 outgunned outnumbered.
What did Congress just VOTE on: and what is still being pushed? AMNESTY Dream Act; and know this nation is being filled with foreigners in receipt of Special Visas or overstayed not enforced.
Why are we making those who risk their lives LAST or nothing in all aspects: they votes and voices are ignored
USCitizensSickOfItAll
We also know from the US COmmission on Voter Rights/Civil Rights that there are States that this administration knows have dead, non compliant, etc voters registered on the rolls which by law were to be removed: but this administration is not enforcing the law. Of course, what laws are being enforced? Please answer that one.
USCitizensSickOfItAll
Houston had an employee who attened THE RACE aka LA RAZA meeting with all their UNIVISION press TV etc. The female declared that anyone could be a registrar to get people to complete Voter Cards. That is what La Raza has been doing. Lakewood Church--the big cahoona of evalgelism: has a Spanish hour as do many churches where they register the same. Since I speak other languages but my native language is English: I have been at numerous locations when someone in Spanish tells someone to register & they say in Spanish--no citizenship..but the No Citizen gets registered anyway when the person tell them you do not have to be!
John Mack, Esq
The majority of these are silly and just goofy rightwing rumors, while the author is ignored major voter suppression efforts during the 2000 and 2004 national elections. These efforts allowed Bush to come into office twice.
I worked on voter cleanup efforts in NH, and the head of the Republican party of NH and the Bush reelection head for New England were all indicted along with others. This one state swung the election. One of those convicted wrote the following book:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Rig-Election-Confessions-Republican/dp/1416552235/ref=pd_sim_b_2
In Florida during the 2000 campaign, 50,000 Democratic voters were culled from the voter rolls just before the campaign, absentee ballots were sent to only Republican in some districts, police intimidated minorities in others.
Donald
Cobb County GA SPLOST Tax election recently was hacked - the election stopped for computer problems. The vote count was 114 votes against SPLOST. An hour later, the election resumed, and the vote count was 114 the other way. Coincidence, or not?
Joe Plum
Sealed cases allow decision fraud in the family courts in Nevada. The attorneys and judges get to hide behind the seal. THis is far worse than voter fraud where a person/organization/etc. can go public, request public scrutiny, and even publish articles such as the one above.
Twice in my case attorney misconduct and now the presiding judge gets to hide behind the seal.
Where is the sheriff? I need him NOW
Mike
How about the 2004 Governors race in Washington State. Dino Rossi won the race by not one, but TWO counts. Christine Gregoire demanded a third count, and magically there were another few thousand votes for her found. Dino Rossi demanded a recount, and was told no, there were no more counts. So Gregoire can demand 2 recounts, Rossi is not allowed to get 1?
Think of what better position this state would be in with Rossi leading us, instead of the lady that can't stop spending.