And it’s time for the first allegation of election fraud.
On Friday, October 30, 2010, a member of the Minnesota Freedom Council witnessed apparent voter fraud occurring at the Crow Wing County Courthouse in Brainerd, Minnesota. Upwards of 100 residents from a local group home for mentally disadvantaged individuals were brought into the County Courthouse to cast absentee ballots. The witness reported that supervisors were telling voters to cast a straight Democratic ticket. There was even a report of a voter prematurely leaving the voting both and a supervisor casting the ballot for the voter. Essentially, the people in-charge were taking advantage of the mentally disabled in order to bolster the vote for their candidates of choice. These individuals involved can be charged with a felony under Minnesota election laws.
Here’s part I of the video…:
…along with Part II…:
…and Part III.
Only legal voters should have the right to vote.
This deserves an investigation.
If a democracy can’t trust its democratic institutions, is it a democracy at all?
Watch – some nutslap leftyblogger will call that “voter intimidation”.
UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!
Voter fraud is a touchy issue in Minnesota. The powers that be constantly tell us we have the most incorruptible election system in the country – but not one in 10,000 Minnesotans could explain to you correctly how the 2008 Senate election went from a 200-vote win for Norm Coleman to a 300 vote win for Al Franken. The Minnesota Majority has found hundreds of ambiguous registrations that led to scads of investigations that have led to dozens of convictions for voter fraud so far, in two of our 87 counties. And our Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie, is a former “community activist” whose 2006 campaign to get elected was bankrolled in part by George Soros’ effort to take SecState offices nationwide.
So yeah, this is serious business.
And let me make sure we give credit where it’s due; the video came from “Election Integrity Watch“. We need to run down some facts, here – but it deserves investigation.
Let’s be very, very clear here. Being “mentally disadvantaged,” as MN Majority puts it, does NOT mean you are not an eligible voter. If you have not legally been placed under a guardianship, you have the right to vote.
What was the name of the group home that brought the people to the clerk’s office. I assume the guy took note of it. It would be simple to call over there and find out how many are under guardianship, get the name of the person bringing them there, and talk to them.
also the person making the allegations in the video should be identified.
“If you have not legally been placed under a guardianship, you have the right to vote.”
Also, anyone adjudicated incompetent, whether or not under guardianship, is ineligible to vote. MNST sec. 201.014 subd. 2(c).
When the DFL sends you a memo, Jeff, you should always check to see if they’re giving you the whole story.
So wait did Mitch just uncover something massive. Apparently we got MPR’s attention. We need to do some followup on this.
Bob,
I’m going to try to find all that. Today’s a meatgrinder; last day at current job plus GOTV. But I’ll be talking with MinnMajority tomorrow (maybe yet today) and I’ll try to find all that out.
That is, indeed, the problem with “citizen journalism”; not everyone knows the form when they get started at it.
That’s gonna be a big project for us on the right this next two years.
Jeff,
Never said they didn’t have the right to vote.
But they also have a right not to have a group home supervisor standing over their shoulder telling them to vote a straight DFL ticket.
Or is that also voter intimidation?
Of course, we find this info out courtesy of a good citizen via U-Tube. Our intrepid community of journalists were probably busy covering the latest allegations of dog and child abuse against a Republican.
The message is clear: If you want the news, don’t turn on “the news.”
So wait did Mitch just uncover something massive.
The Minnesota Voters Alliance anti-fraud effort has uncovered something. Is it massive? We don’t know yet. Could be nothing. Could be just an unethical group home supervisor who smells paydirt with a Dayton administration. Could be a concerted DFL effort to squeedge votes out of the impaired.
Perhaps if we had an institution in this country whose job was to ask those questions, we could get those answers. Perhaps an institution with printing presses and transmitters and “codes of ethics” and a mission to uncover corruption in official circles.
But until we have such an institution, it’ll probably fall to bloggers to figure it out.
No big deal, most DFL voters are “mentally disadvantaged individuals”.
yeah that was a softball just waiting to be hit Kermit.
Jeff I agree with your statement above. However, this gentleman does have a serious allegation and is a credible witness.
His accusation should be investigated and should be relatively easy to investigate. Check the dates of the absentee ballots, look for multiples from the same address, check those addresses against old folks homes and your probably on the doorstep.
Of course then we would have to rely on Mark Ritchie or Lori Swanson to do the job they were elected to do.
Suffice to say that the Minnesota Majority will pursue this.
Keith Ellison has no doubt already got a press release calling it “intimidation”, ready to go; MNPublius will carry it with the written equivalent of a standing ovation.
So, am I the only one that has taken note of the big push by the Democrat party to vote absentee?
This is just one of the dozens of ways absentee ballots may be tainted. Just verifying the validity of the voters is a big job, much less trying to discerne votes which may have been made through manipulation, enticement or intimidation.
No wonder the lefties have their panties in a bunch over poll watchers.
a little fun here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUcmBLXXLNs&feature=player_embedded
Four years ago I went to my precinct and noticed my son was double registered, one line right after the other. I pointed this out to the election judge. When I went in for the last primary, he was still double registered.
This should give you some idea of how reliable our election process really is. Heck, the Iraqis have a better system with the purple thumb.
Kermit,
Maybe both voters cast a vote last time? Your son and someone posing as your son. As long as the name is in the book, the election judges generally don’t know a voter from Adam. (Maybe they should check ID? Nah, that would just be too BIG a burden.)
20 years of voting in the same precinct, and I have never personally known, or even recognized, any election judge at my precinct.
My son moved to Minneapolis this summer. We have wondered if his name will still be in the book in St. Paul this time around, even though he registered in Minneapolis.
Mentally challenged voters? We’ve just defined the boundaries of the DFL constituency. If they told them how to vote we have, technically, voter tampering. If they outright voted FOR them, we have voter fraud. Which would you like served first, sir, the felony or the misdemeanor?
If I was a Democrat I would go in for that second vote. But I’m not, and I won’t.
Same thing happened in Eau Claire in…..I think 2004. Democrats went through at least one nursing home and told the residents to check the boxes for the Democrats. One lady gave them some push-back and told her son and daughter-in-law about it (friends of my family). But of course the meek Republicans did nothing about it.
The above was with absentee ballots that the Democrats were filling out for the residents of the nursing home.
Jeff – I have 2 Brothers in Law that have Down Syndrome. One is functional enough to vote, the other not. He has the mental capacity of an infant and yet the managers of the group home that he lives in took him to vote (straight Democrat I might add) in 2008. He could not hold the stylus so THE VOTED FOR HIM!!!!! My MIL was LIVID!
Cindy
Say Jeff?
What do you think about being able to come to a conservative website and not have your comments blocked?
Pretty sweet, huh?
Cindy W.
I certainly hope that your MIL raised the appropriate amount of “hell” with the appropriate people.
Instalanche!
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Two predictions/deductions:
1) All these mentally-challenged folk “votyed” for Al Franken in ’08.
2) their warders are members of the SEIU.
This isn’t new: last cycle SEIU workers at Florida nursing homes were caught intercepting their charges’ absentee ballots and filling them out.
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Holy crap, you did score an Instalanche! I’ve NEVER gotten an Instalanche! Mainly because that elitist Reynolds guy doesn’t adequately appreciate poop and fart humor.
Living in Illinois, I just witnessed the same abuse at the nursing home where my mother is living. I was outraged! I just happened to walk in at the same time a representive from one party and the nursing home social worker were “helping” my mother vote. My mother has had dementia for 6 years and doesn’t even know my name any longer let alone who to vote for. Needless to say, I tried to remain calm for my mothers sake. But as I took over the voting process for mom knowing what she would want, I had darts shooting out of my eyes at the social worker and representive. I see a lot of you here are knocking the Democrat party, but my situation was they wanted her to vote straight Republican, which my mother has been a democrat forever.
The election official that was interviewed, Deborah Erickson, is on the ballot herself this election:
http://votebrainerdlakes.com/crowwing/deborah-erickson.html
It’s a non-partisan election and I couldn’t find any source as to whether or not she’s DFL. As a former election judge and pollwatcher, I’d say she gave a fair enough performance. My guess is she’d hedge things in favor of the DFL as long as it was in a grey area, but would do what was required if the DFL is caught red-handed.
Of course-how else would Al Franken get elected?
Mitch, has anyone sent this story to KSTP, WCCO or KARE?
This is FRAUD.
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As a resident of Crow Wing County, I have visited the courthouse many times. 30-40 people, as was first mentioned, would be a mob scene in the absentee voting space. Then the ridiculous number 200 came up towards the end of the video. To my knowledge, there are no group homes here with a population of 30, or anywhere close to 200. Even though the County Auditor position is non political, it’s known Ms Erickson does not lean towards the Democrats. As a former election judge, I guarantee she is one of the most knowledgeable people in the state regarding election law.
“But as I took over the voting process for mom knowing what she would want, I had darts shooting out of my eyes at the social worker and representive. ”
The funniest thing, he doesn’t even see anything wrong with. Business as usual.
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IF this story is true Hugh Hewitt is once again a political prophet (for the umpteenth time) “If It Ain’t Close, They Can’t Cheat.”
Thanks for making us aware of this, Mitch. I thought the Associated Press’ spin on MN voter fraud in 2008 was pretty deceptive. MN Majority’s investigation found 183 cases of convicted felons voting & double voters in Hennepin County, but since only 47 of the 183 KNEW that they were violating the law by voting, the headline was “47 voter fraud cases identified” in the 10/27/10 AP article that appeared in the Pioneer Press.
Keep up the great work! 🙂
Having been an election judge, I can flatly say that there is little in the system to prevent fraud. That’s how the powers-that-be want it.
Wouldn’t it have been a firing offense for the courthouse employees to encounter this happening and neither stop it or at least report it?
No negative consequences means it will continue to happen.
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