[EL] in-person voter fraud Washington 2004 follow up

[Vince Leibowitz]

I really do not believe that lawmakers and voter ID advocates who cry "fraud" in many instances like the 81-year-old woman realize how rampant clerical and voter error--like signing on the wrong line is.

In 2010, when we worked with Farouk Shami, who was running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Texas, the media had a field day calling him a liar for saying he voted in the 2008 general. After we spent several thousand dollars to pay county employees overtime and rent a forklift so the county elections office could unearth the original sign-in sheets from a ballot box high up in a warehouse, he was found to have simply signed on the wrong line. So, his daughter, who was in Palestine (not the city in Texas) and didn't vote by mail in that election is recorded as having voted. Even though we unearthed the original record, when last I checked late last year, the voter record was still in error in the state electronic database. 

If it can happen to the guy who was smart enough to invent the CHI Iron (if you don't know what that is, your wife/girlfriend will), it can happen to anyone. 

Vince Leibowitz
Principal Consultant
The Dawn Group
vince.leibowitz at gmail.com
vince at dgtexas.com
DGTexas.com
512.705.7001 (m)
512.861.2370 (f)
512.318.2432 (o)

Sent from my iPhone

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. It may also be privileged or otherwise protected by work-product immunity or other legal rules. If you are not the named addressee, you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this email. Please notify the sender immediately by email if you have received this email by mistake and delete this email from your system. 



On Jul 31, 2011, at 12:37 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:

> In Crawford v. Marion County, Justice Stevens plurality opinion contains this in a portion of a footnote:
> 
> While the brief indicates that the record evidence of in-person fraud was overstated because much of the fraud was actually absentee ballot fraud or voter registration fraud, there remain scattered instances of in-person voter fraud. For example, after a hotly contested gubernatorial election in 2004, Washington conducted an investigation of voter fraud and uncovered 19 “ghost voters.” Borders v. King Cty., No. 05–2–00027–3 (Super. Ct. Chelan Cty., Wash., June 6, 2005) (verbatim report of unpublished oral decision), 4 Election L. J. 418, 423 (2005). After a partial investigation of the ghost voting, one voter was confirmed to have committed in-person voting fraud. Le & Nicolosi, Dead Voted in Governor’s Race, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Jan. 7, 2005, p. A1.
> 
> Putting aside that the brief cites only a single instance of possible in-person voter fraud (hardly massive), the evidence for this appears to be a single sentence in the Le & Nicolosi article:
> 
> The P-I review found eight people who died weeks before absentee ballots were mailed out, between Oct. 13 and 15, but were credited with voting in King County. Among them was an 81-year-old Seattle woman who died in August but is recorded as having voted at the polls.
> 
> Did anyone ever follow up to see what happened with this 81-year old woman?  Many of these cases turn out to be someone signing on the wrong line.  Did anyone ever track down the poll book to see if someone signed the woman's name?
> 
> Thanks for any leads.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Rick Hasen
> Professor of Law and Political Science
> UC Irvine School of Law
> 401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
> Irvine, CA 92697-8000
> 949.824.3072 - office
> 949.824.0495 - fax
> rhasen at law.uci.edu
> http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
> http://electionlawblog.org
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20110731/731bb1f7/attachment.html>