[EL] Fwd: MAINE GOP UNCOVERS 19 ELECTION DAY REGISTRATIONS FROM ONE MAINE...

[Larry Levine]

My firm was running the campaign of a candidate in a hotly contested state
assembly race several years back. About two weeks before the election, one
of our staffers was at the registrar of voters office for some reason I
can't recall. While waiting to receive the information he requested, he took
a look at the file of late registrations - the physical list of voters who
had registered too late to be added to the computer generated roles that
would be used on election day. He noted that some 3,000 of those
registrations were in the district in which our campaign was being waged and
they represented about 90% of the late registrations in the entirety of Los
Angeles County. We also sent staffers to a random selection of the address
of some 100 of those registrations. We found not one of them was legitimate,
so we call the matter to the attention of elections officials and the
district attorney. I suspected from the start that it was not part of some
scheme to steal the election, but rather was the work of someone who was
being paid piece meal to register voters. After the election we checked the
names of those 3,000 people and found that not one of them turned up to
vote. By the way, we lost the election by a large margin. So, do I think we
need to outlaw paid registration drives. NO. Those of us involved in the
process just need to be alert. In the case cited above and individual
eventually was identified as the culprit and was convicted of several counts
of I-can't-remember-what. 

I cited the above as an anomaly. From my 41 years of experience in the
electoral process I believe that is true of almost all of the cases of
registration, or "voter fraud" that are commonly cited as the reasons for
enactment of policies to restrict the registration and/or voting process.
Others on this list have made compelling arguments for that position. I
agree with them. 

I do believe, however, based on evidence of actual experience, that the
process is open to substantial mischief on the part of elections officials
and partisans involved in campaigns. I was involved in one such campaign in
Brooklyn, NY in 1972, when a judge threw out the results of a Democratic
Congressional primary election and ordered the election re-held because of
"substantial mischief" by elections officers. 

Larry

 

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of
JBoppjr at aol.com
Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2011 4:35 AM
To: douglasrhess at gmail.com; Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Fwd: MAINE GOP UNCOVERS 19 ELECTION DAY REGISTRATIONS FROM
ONE MAINE...

 

Of course I don't know if this situation is true here or not, and maybe not,
but one of my experiences, that all seem to acknowledge and that I draw on,
is false registrations.  If they were false, it seems that requiring a voter
ID would likely prevent voting based on the false registration.  There are
many documented cases of false registrations, so why isnt this a remedy to
prevent voting based on the false registration?  And if the intent behind
false registration isn't voting based on them, what would it be?  Jim Bopp

 

In a message dated 9/10/2011 9:01:46 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
douglasrhess at gmail.com writes:

Thanks for Megan, et al. for following up on the ME case (or non-case). 

 

My first thought was that this was another example of ID proponents only
going with their own experience: most of us only stay at hotels for short
stays, so these people must be the same. My first thought was that these
were likely employees of some firm or business who were in the state for an
extended off and on again stay...maybe they knew they were going to be in
the state for the days/weeks around election in thought this was the best
way to vote. Or even campaign workers who decided that after several months
in the state they might as well vote there (nothing illegal about that...is
there?). My final thought was that homeless can use as their address a
location where they get mail, even if they don't sleep there. If the hotel
was in an area with lots of poverty, this address might serve that purpose. 

 

Lots of possibilities...did the GOP in Maine make a statement regarding the
explanation given my the Dems there? 

 

[Note: I cut the text from the thread because it was doing something odd in
gmail with the length of lines.]

 

-Doug

 

 



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