True the Vote volunteers caught forging signatures

www.plunderbund.com... (Plunderbund)

thinkprogress.org... (ThinkProgress)

www.salon.com... (Salon)

www.businessinsider.com... (Business Insider)

True the Vote is a Tea Party group with the stated purpose of stopping election fraud perpetrated by Democrats and other 'undesirables' (read: racial and sexual minorities). Unfortunately, their tactics include voter intimidation and suppression, spreading lies about the true extent and perpetrators behind voter fraud in US political elections, and now...forgery and fraud.

It seems that a group of True the Vote volunteers were attempting to sign up to be poll watchers in a heavily African American district in Ohio. When 5 of the 6 Franklin County candidates withdrew their signatures from the observer application forms after initial filing, the True the Vote volunteers did what any citizen concerned over possible voter fraud would do...they forged signatures and filed now-fraudulent documents.

They were found out, thankfully, and are now looking at possible felony charges. Also, they were obviously and unanimously denied from being able to position themselves at polling places.

And, in no small wonder, True the Vote head Catherine Engelbrecht is now denying, denying, denying that anybody's committed any wrongdoing. We'll see what the courts decide, if charges are pressed.

Between this and all the other examples of voter suppression and disenfranchisement perpetrated by Republican state governments, I simply can't fathom the cognitive dissonance it must take for these people to think that what they're doing (or, trying to do) is a just cause.

Apparently the Dems are running with false allegations...

Still being investigated....No charges!!

Election law requires that candidates sign for and sponsor poll watchers. In this case, the candidates listed by the TTV volunteer did sign the needed documentation. Under political pressure, the candidates later rescinded their sponsorship.

Catherine Engelbrecht, the founder and head of TTV stated:

“These allegations by the Ohio Democratic Party are dangerous and offensive, the facts are simple: no citizen volunteer-- including Jan Loar, or anyone else trained by True the Vote--took any action that was either illegal or unethical, particularly as it pertains to the placement of poll watchers. Ms. Loar has conducted herself with the utmost integrity. To state otherwise is blatant slander.”

Engelbrecht went on to say:

“The sequence of events is as follows: Franklin County resident Jan Loar collected signatures from five candidates on a blank form provided by the County to process election observer placements. Ms. Loar followed instructions by Franklin County to make copies of candidate signatures for subsequent forms.

Prior to scheduled placement of observers, Loar was informed by the Franklin County Board of Elections that no observers would be placed due to candidates rescinding their appointments. True the Vote learned that Daphne Hawk (Republican) and Terri Jamison (Democrat) were threatened with lawsuits and pressure from their respective parties to revoke observer permissions"

It is imperative that William Anthony Jr., Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, release a full timeline of events surrounding this episode. Given Mr. Anthony’s former position as Chairman of the Franklin Democratic Party, he must also clarify any coordination with the Ohio Democratic Party with respect to these allegations.

This is a final, desperate attempt to deny citizens their right to observe elections. The Ohio Democratic Party has projected paranoia on an international scale by promoting the idea that concerned citizens would dare observe elections to ensure a fair process. If the Ohio Democratic Party thinks True the Vote-trained poll watchers are legion, wait until it meets our lawyers.”

www.breitbart.com...

Innocent until proven guilty... Sounds like the guilty verdict is nothing but a stretch of the imagination....

reply to post by Sink the Bismarck!


Forgeries, voter intimidation, faulty voting machines...and people say the US is a democracy. All that will even out the votes even more. They will go to arbitration. Then the puppet supreme court will put who THEY need up there. Way to go two party system.

reply to post by jibeho


If the volunteers in question are absolved, I'll post an apology for letting my political biases make me jump the gun.

We'll see.

Update:

An Oregon election worker has been fired after she was discovered altering ballots - by filling in blank spaces where voters had opted to not vote for a candidate - in favor of Republican candidates. The worker in question is a registered Republican, and could be facing felony charges for ballot tampering.

videocafe.crooksandliars.com...

I may just use this thread as a catch-all repository for stories about Republicans and the far right in general abusing the system and committing election fraud in general.

The narrative the Tea Party has used to support their thinly-veiled voter disenfranchisement shenanigans is that only Democrats commit voter fraud, but this election is making it clear (it should already be clear after 2000 and 2004 but people, it seems, have selective memory when it comes to those years) that that isn't the case.

Any particular reason you are choosing the far right?

Why not have a thread dedicated to just Voting Fraud?

Plenty going happening on both sides if you ask me.

Originally posted by Azdraik
Any particular reason you are choosing the far right?

Why not have a thread dedicated to just Voting Fraud?

Plenty going happening on both sides if you ask me.

I'm choosing the far right because they've used wildly exaggerated claims of voter fraud to justify their own fraudulent and downright scary tactics.

In Florida we've seen people contacting registered Democrats with phony 'vote by telephone' schemes meant to trick them into not heading to the polls. We've seen billboards threatening legal action against anyone suspected of 'fraud' being bought and put up in minority/Democratic districts. In (the Midwest, I think? Or Virginia?) we've had voters being told that they have a 'time limit' to fill in their ballots once they enter the voting stall, to pressure them into voting a straight ticket. Not to mention the huge movement before the election by Republican state governments to slash early voting times, reschedule voting hours on election day in Democratic districts, and so on.

We've seen people like Arizona Republican Jeff Flake's campaign sending out robocalls to minorities giving them the wrong day and place to vote, or the Spanish language flyers in one southwestern state that listed election day as November 8th.

The narrative spun by the right is that only Democrats commit voter fraud, but at the same time they turn around and lie, bully, harass and attempt to silence everyone who won't vote like them. They don't give a crap about keeping the election legal and free from tampering. They want to intimidate everyone who doesn't think like them into not letting their voice be heard.

Guess you fail to see what I was getting at.

I do not care if your right, left, center, upside down, lopsided; voter fraud is voter fraud and none should be condoned.

Do republicans do that? Sure look at the primaries.
But to infer that the Democrat Party is pure as the driven snow is absurd.

I too can pull up articles of known fraud and post them here, but I like to let others research the issues and come to thier own conclusions not vent retoric that both sides use against each other.

I'm basically going to keep posting different stories of suspected (and, sadly, confirmed) anti-Democratic voter fraud until there's any more developments in the titular 'True the Vote forgery debacle.'

www.local12.com...

Here we have Forest Park, a heavily black suburb of Cincinnati, OH, where a large segment of local black voters have been running into trouble when they go out to vote. Apparently, and mysteriously enough, just about all of them are coming up as having already voted by absentee ballot, despite the fact they all claim to have never requested or voted by absentee ballots this election.

So, is it just a computer error (the news story reports that 'officials' have determined it to be caused by 'human error'), or is somebody attempting to block this Democratic suburb from voting? I'm sure you all know what I suspect, but this story isn't coming across as quite as cut and dried as some of the others I've seen.