2 Election Workers Get 18 Months for Rigging Presidential Recount

2 Election Workers Get 18 Months for Rigging Presidential Recount

toledoblade.com

A judge suspicious of more corruption pressed two former election board workers to tell what they know and then sentenced them today to the maximum 18 months in prison for rigging the 2004 presidential election recount to make their job easier.

“I can’t help but feel there’s more to this story,” said Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Peter Corrigan, who allowed the women to remain free on bond pending appeal. Some of their friends and relatives sobbed as the judge imposed the sentence.

(visit the link for the full news article)

They claim that all they were doing was trying to make the re-count easier, what they say they did was lock themselves in a room, and then went through all the ballots, picking out only the ballots that would not cause discrepancies when checked by hand during the re-count, thereby making the re-count faster, more efficient, and more cost effective.

It sure seems like what they did was wrong, those ballots were counted the first time, they should have been counted the second time in the re-count! Any questionable ballots SHOULD have been culled out before the ballots were counted the FIRST time.

The article goes on to say:

Ohio gave Bush the electoral votes he needed to defeat Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the election and hold on to the White House in 2004.

The judge seems to feel like this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that the corruption runs deeper than just these two women.


toledoblade.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 3/1/08 by Keyhole]

They get: 18 months...

We got: 48 months, and then another 48 months for 'bad' behavior. We also get over 9 trillion in 'fines', and the 'interest' on it is going up 1.5 billion a day. We also get illegal spying into our lives, illegal acts of torture, and an illegal 'war' that we can't get out of.

DocMoreau

According to the article, one of the two poll workers involved is a democrat and one is a republican. So, where can the conspiracy to rig the election be in this?

Simple logic says that neither would "sell out" to the other party. And if both were rigging the voting, wouldn't their efforts cancel each other out?

The judge is the one that comes off sounding politically motivated with his sarcastic haranging of these two women.

No fire here. Really, not even any smoke ...



[edit on 1/3/2008 by centurion1211]

Originally posted by centurion1211

Simple logic says that neither would "sell out" to the other party. And if both were rigging the voting, wouldn't their efforts cancel each other out?

T

Heck, maybe one was better at the "rigging" than the other? Don't really know.

But, shouldn't ALL the questionable ballots, or ballots with discrepancies been culled out before the first count?

[edit on 3/1/08 by Keyhole]

There may very well be corruption in the voting system. I don't really think this is where the corruption is though. I won't try to guess the motives of the judge for the sentencing.
It is my opinion that the real corruption is in the companies that provide the electronic voting machines. It is unforchanet that is not at the center of this situation.

Doesn't seem like it had any effect. Kerry got the small benefit of the screwed up recount and he won that county by over 200,000 votes before the recount.

Kerry beat Bush in Democratic Cuyahoga County 448,486 to 221,606.

The prosecutor did not claim the rigged recount affected the outcome of the election — Kerry gained 17 votes and Bush lost six in the county recount.

So, I believe the these woman were trying to make the recount easier and not change the results, but regardless a judge concluded the two woman still broke the law.

So, the point of this witch hunt is exactly what? Somehow these 2 women were going to switch Cuyahoga County to Bush by "finding" another 220,000 votes in their little room?

Starting with this judge and then on to ATS, some people really need to get a life and stop wasting everyone's time on this dead issue.

Well, well, well - Looks like some NWO lackeys got caught in the act. They can do all of the investigating they want but we all know who is ultimately behind it. Its not like its going to stop them. "They" will just have to replace two more goons. Oh well, what can we do.

Political affiliation means nothing. They could both have been members of te Green Party, but if they're told to do something by someone higher up, and they do it, they're guilty. Although there is nothing in the article about this being a command passed down.

In any case, rigging political elections, even if done for 'good reasons' isn't right. If we're so proud of our democratic republic we should all be appalled by this action, even if it didn't have far reaching effects.

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
In any case, rigging political elections, even if done for 'good reasons' isn't right. If we're so proud of our democratic republic we should all be appalled by this action, even if it didn't have far reaching effects.

I don't really see any evidence that they rigged an election or tried to change he results for that matter. The word rigging implies that they have somehow fixed the system to pick one candidate or that they removed votes to give the benefit to another candidate. Neither of which happened. The judge in this case seemed mad that the two woman would not answer his questions the way that he wanted them to.


The funny thing to me is that I think the first reaction of this article on ATS is to believe that this was out Bush won Ohio, but then when it is read, there is a big letdown because the county was won by Kerry and this "rigged" recount gave Kerry more votes.

If votes are to have any meaning to the average person, then every vote has to be important. It's not a matter of "rigging" anything, it's a matter of doing a job honestly and honorably. A concept becoming lost in the 21st century.

Once you start discounting votes on whatever whim there is at the moment, the easier it becomes to do it in the future. And the judge never said it was rigging, he just wanted to know who else that these women knew that were doing the same thing. He was looking for how they came up with the idea in the first place, and seemed to feel they were not being honest.

Shouldn't we root out people that don't take the voting process seriously, especially when they're placed in a position to effect the nation, one way or another?

[edit on 4-1-2008 by NGC2736]

Originally posted by NGC2736
If votes are to have any meaning to the average person, then every vote has to be important. It's not a matter of "rigging" anything, it's a matter of doing a job honestly and honorably. A concept becoming lost in the 21st century.

Once you start discounting votes on whatever whim there is at the moment, the easier it becomes to do it in the future. And the judge never said it was rigging, he just wanted to know who else that these women knew that were doing the same thing. He was looking for how they came up with the idea in the first place, and seemed to feel they were not being honest.

Shouldn't we root out people that don't take the voting process seriously, especially when they're placed in a position to effect the nation, one way or another?

I do not disagree with you. I just don't think these ladies knew they were breaking the law. Not that ignorance is an excuse either. I just think these ladies removed the ballots they thought were going to cause a discrepancy to make the recount go faster and save money. All votes are never counted. A small percentage is always tossed out because of problems like the hole not completely punched out, etc.

My opinion is that 18 months in jail for a 40 and 60 year old woman who screwed up without the intent to cause malice is extreme. The judge gave them the maximum sentence because he believed that someone else higher up told them to throw out votes. The woman would not admit to this so he threw the book at them.

The simple numbers of this case prove for me that there was no conspiracy. Kerry won the county by 220,000 votes. The women did their deed. Kerry gets 17 more votes, Bush lost six. Where is the conspiracy?




[edit on 4-1-2008 by zerotime]

Originally posted by NGC2736

Once you start discounting votes on whatever whim there is at the moment, the easier it becomes to do it in the future. And the judge never said it was rigging, he just wanted to know who else that these women knew that were doing the same thing. He was looking for how they came up with the idea in the first place, and seemed to feel they were not being honest.

[edit on 4-1-2008 by NGC2736]

Thank YOU NCG, that's exactly what I was wroiting about at the begining of this thread!

It wasn't really about "rigging" an election, but the fact that these women, behind closed doors, went through ballots that were already counted, and discarded some of them for the re-count!

This should have been done before the first tallying!

If these women wanted to throw some controversy into the re-counting of the ballots, they sure found a way to do it!

Wasn't it just SUPPOSE to be a re-count of the ballots, not a discarding/culling of the ballots!


[edit on 4/1/08 by Keyhole]

I think the more telling issue is why fellow Bonesman Kerry did not contest the election.

Originally posted by centurion1211

Simple logic says that neither would "sell out" to the other party.

Simple observance would tell anyone that logic has no place in politics.

The problem with this as I see it and I suspect the judge's concern also, is that each county was supposed to recount a portion of their ballots to see if there was enough of a discrepancy from the original count to justify a full recount. These women locked themselves in a room and secretly 'selected' the votes they were going to recount, so that the outcome would be close to the original.

What if, as the judge suspects, this was going on in voting offices all over the state?

Originally posted by tyranny22

Originally posted by centurion1211

Simple logic says that neither would "sell out" to the other party.

Simple observance would tell anyone that logic has no place in politics.

You mean like the logic that also says there was no way the two of them were going to change 220,000 votes - enough to swing that county from Kerry to Bush's favor?

Give it up, people.

Nothing to see here. Move along ...

[edit on 1/4/2008 by centurion1211]

Originally posted by Keyhole

2 Election Workers Get 18 Months for Rigging Presidential Recount

18 months? Look at what politicians have done in the past in both parties and what they got away with.

And you have these to poor idiots that get 18 months? come on.

[edit on 4-1-2008 by Realtruth]

No. Not that logic.

???



Not sure what you were trying to accomplish with that "zinger", but since I didn't state my position either way in my previous post we'll take it for the political rhetoric that it is.

Which, of course, was the point of my previous post.

[edit on 4-1-2008 by tyranny22]