You'd think the wingers would figure out that James O'Keefe makes them look like fools every time he posts another one of his "videos." You'd think they might consider not pimping those videos like they're real when they're so easy to debunk. You'd think.

This time, it's North Carolina under fire, but O'Keefe ridiculously claims voter fraud when the only fraud is O'Keefe and his bogus claims. This time around, O'Keefe features a "dead voter" and a voter who he claims is illegally registered to vote because he was not a citizen at the time he was called for jury duty. Unfortunately for O'Keefe, he became a citizen in the 80s, a fact that was easily verifiable before publishing the video.

As for O'Keefe's dead guy, it turns out James forgot that "Jr." at the end of a guy's name means he's the son of the dead guy and also happens to be a very much alive registered voter.

Via Media Matters:

Yes, as multiple obituaries for Bolton note, he was survived by, among others, his son Michael Gordon Bolton, Jr. Public records searches using the Nexis database confirm that Bolton Jr. was registered to vote at the same address given to the poll worker by the O'Keefe operative.

This isn't the only error of this sort O'Keefe made. As ThinkProgress noted, the "non-citizen" voter supposedly exposed by the video is actually a naturalized citizen.

The best screw-up of all is the one where O'Keefe punks the Daily Caller, Breitbart.com and Michelle Malkin. I love it when one of their own hangs them out to dry so thoroughly. In the opener of his ten-minute long video, O'Keefe's minions are walking up a driveway to "prove" that a non-citizen has voted in the North Carolina primary.

Via ThinkProgress Justice:

Now, it turns out that the second “non-citizen,” William Romero, is actually a citizen as well, according to his family.

The video opens with O’Keefe’s cameraman walking up Romero’s driveway and confronting a member of his family about whether he is a citizen. O’Keefe points to court records from 2010 where Romero was excused from jury duty because he was not a citizen at the time. Therefore, as O’Keefe argues, Romero’s voter registration dated December 5, 2011 is fraudulent because Romero “is not a United States citizen.”

Oops! That calendar can be a pesky thing. It turns out Romero became a citizen in early 2011, and registered to vote because that's what good citizens in this country do: they vote.

In fact, Romero’s family told ThinkProgress he became a naturalized citizen in early 2011.

What’s more, Romero’s family told ThinkProgress that they had began receiving harassing telephone calls two weeks before the incident in the video asking if Romero was a citizen. They confirmed to the caller — it’s unclear whether they were speaking with O’Keefe himself or another individual — that Romero is indeed a citizen. Nevertheless, O’Keefe proceeded to ambush the family at their home and publish this video claiming he’s not a citizen.

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You'll be pleased to know that the "fair and balanced" news channel is hot on the trail of voter fraud trials. Well, at least, a voter fraud trial that involves Democrats. Megyn Kelly is anxious for everyone to be informed about a trial taking place in Troy, NY involving absentee ballots and Democratic officials. It's an ugly case, and several officials have pled guilty already.

But here's what Fox News fails to mention: It was caught. Caught, without voter ID laws in place. That's an inconvenient fact that is worth pointing out.

This report from Megyn Kelly also failed to emphasize another fact: There are some serious cases of Republican election/voter fraud taking place now. Therefore, I've decided to balance Ms. Kelly's seriously tilted report. Here is a small list:

• Indiana's Secretary of State and chief voting officer, Bill White, was removed from office after it was determined he was not eligible to be on the ballot. Further, he is charged with three counts of voter fraud.
• Voter suppression in Maryland in 2010, where Republicans paid for 100,000 robocalls to Democratic households telling them to sit back and relax and not vote, because the election was sewn up. A Republican operative was convicted in that case.
• Clay County, KY, where GOP officials were convicted of massive voter fraud and sentenced to 156 years in prison as a result.
• James O'Keefe's little sting operation in New Hampshire, where he sent operatives into New Hampshire precincts for the express purpose of committing voter fraud in order to prove fraud could be committed, after a mystery benefactor ponied up $50,000 for him to do it.

Yet, crickets from Ms. Megyn on these incidents. Fair and balanced? Only if balance means tilting reporting to try and demonstrate Roger Ailes' theory that Democrats do things Republicans have done for years and years and years.

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James O'Keefe could use a few lessons in logic. He was so determined to get his "big scoop" on voter fraud that he may have had his goons commit voter fraud in order to prove it.

TPM Muckraker:

It was one of the few — if not the only — coordinated efforts to attempt in-person voter fraud, and it was pulled off by affiliates of conservative activist James O’Keefe at polling places in New Hampshire Tuesday night. All of it part of an attempt to prove the need for voter ID laws that voting rights experts say have a unfair impact on minority voters.

Now election law experts tell TPM that O’Keefe’s allies could face criminal charges on both the federal and state level for procuring ballots under false names, and that his undercover sting doesn’t demonstrate a need for voter ID laws at all.

Federal law bans not only the casting of, but the “procurement” of ballots “that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held.”

It still amazes me that O'Keefe is allowed to do this as a tax-exempt entity. Here is how he describes his "sting" operation on the YouTube page with the published video:

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Activist group Color of Change launched a campaign on Thursday to combat right-wing voter suppression legislation pushed across the country by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Conservatives say that voter identification laws and other legislation are needed to stop voter fraud. But with little to no evidence of any significant voter fraud anywhere in the country, the real intent of the legislation is to suppress voter turnout for groups that typically vote for Democrats, including minority groups.

Interested citizens can visit the Color of Change website to send the following letter to corporations that are funding ALEC's programs:

I want to alert you to the fact that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) – which your company funds – is pushing discriminatory voter ID legislation that suppresses the votes of blacks, the elderly, youth and other minorities. Bills based on ALEC’s model legislation have been introduced in 34 states, and have already passed in seven states.

Although proponents of voter ID laws claim the goal is to reduce voter fraud, there is no evidence that such fraud occurs with any regularity in this country. What is clear is that these voter ID laws unreasonably increase barriers to voting access for large numbers of people and could disenfranchise up to 5 million people across the nation. These laws are part of a long history of racist and discriminatory restrictions on voting designed to disenfranchise African Americans and other underrepresented groups.

I presume your company does not want to support voter suppression, nor have your products or services associated with discrimination and large-scale voter disenfranchisement. I urge you to immediately stop funding ALEC and issue a public statement making it clear that your company does not support discriminatory voter ID laws and voter suppression.

In an e-mail to supporters, Color of Change went into more detail about voter identification laws and ALEC:

ALEC’s right wing agenda
The American Legislative Exchange Council is a behind-the-scenes group whose membership consists of legislators and corporations who work together to push legislation that benefits their interests. ALEC crafts model legislation, which its member legislators then introduce in statehouses across the country, without mentioning its corporate ties. The group has written legislation to impose harsher criminal penalties on juveniles, to privatize education, and to break unions.
ALEC is funded in part by the Koch Brothers, the same family that funds the radically conservative tea party. It also receives funding from large corporations, many of which are household names.
"Voter fraud" and discriminatory voter ID laws
Supporters of discriminatory voter ID laws say they're needed to stop "voter fraud." The fact is that voter fraud rarely occurs, and when it does occur it does not happen at a scale that would change the outcome of an election. The kind of voter fraud addressed by the ALEC voter id bill happens as infrequently as death by lightning.

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This is truly sickening. Maricopa County's infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio just sent this shocking message to his followers:

"STOP ILLEGALS FROM STEALING THE ELECTION! Our grassroots army of VOTER FRAUD PREVENTION VOLUNTEERS will stand vigilant across the nation. We will be the first and strongest line of defense to ensure that only legal citizens vote on November 2nd."

Bogus accusations of "illegal voters" crop up every election, and every election they are proven false.  What's truly frightening is that, this year, Arpaio is recruiting an "army" to block people from voting in the name of "fraud prevention."

However, you can send a message to the Justice Department demanding that they send election monitors to Arizona immediately.  These are the people who are supposed to protecting our right to vote, not suppressing it.

When you take action, you'll also get to download a new voter protection card (in English or Spanish) with a nationwide hotline to report problems on election day.

We're encouraging voters to bring it with them to the polls and do their part to protect one of our most cherished rights - unfortunately, we're hearing reports of Arpaio-like tactics in other parts of the country too.

How will Arpaio's "army" and others like them single out who to intimidate? Hair? Accent? Shoes? This is un-American.

Fox News is all out on their allegations of voter fraud this morning, claiming that, among other things, Harry Reid is bribing college students with free pizza. Yes, seriously.

Via kolotv.com:

Republican goons staring down minority voters at polling sites. Teachers buying Democrats with Starbucks gift cards. Election workers doctoring records. The Senate majority leader bribing college students with free pizza.

Allegations of dirty politics are being flung from both sides in the final days of Nevada's U.S. Senate race between incumbent Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Sharron Angle.

So far, the complaints of voter fraud or voter intimidation add up to little more than unsubstantiated rumors that Nevada's secretary of state called "wildly irresponsible," but they could help motivate voters worried that their ballot will be miscast in a tight race.

Secretary of State Ross Miller is investigating possible early voting irregularities in Clark and Washoe counties after the Nevada GOP filed a 44-page complaint this week. "Obviously, I am suspicious of any allegations just a week before the election where rumors are perpetuated by political parties or candidates without any substantiated evidence," he said.

Undeterred by the truth however, expect O'Reilly and Beck to jump on the voter fraud train hard today in advance of Sharron Angle's defeat. As long as they can claim the election was stolen, they don't have to address the truth: Nevada voters will reject Sharron Angle because she's batsh*t crazy.

The other ugly truth

Angle's electoral demise isn't the only thing motivating Fox. This is the same tactic they took in 2008 with ACORN, and of course, we saw post-election what happened with that. Expect similar efforts in 2011 when Harry Reid steps back onto the Senate floor. As usual, the target will be unions and minorities, ACORN or no ACORN. But the other motivation is to cover for what the Republican party always does, which is to commit voter fraud while accusing everyone else of committing it.

Koch-funded American Majority has rolled out a Voter Fraud app for the iPhone allowing users to anonymously report instances of voter fraud via geotagged reports and camera images.

(cue sarcasm) There's nothing too intimidating about having someone standing there with their iPhone at the ready, prepared to take pictures of you and send them in to the Republican party if you're a minority voter who also votes Democrat is there? Why would that be a problem?

Meanwhile, the Republicans continue their practice of vote caging, a practice where they send a mailing out in advance of the voting, then challenge any voters who match addresses where a mailer has been returned.

Mother Jones:

In Wisconsin, the state Republican Party had been accused of plotting with local tea party groups to disenfranchise voters whose ballots were returned because of a wrong address—an illegal technique known as "vote-caging." Given the polarized political climate, overzealous activists working the polls could end up overstepping the bounds, intentionally or not. Referring to the GOP and tea party efforts to recruit poll watchers and workers, Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice says, "We haven't sent this degree of heightened activity for years. It's just a higher risk situation for voters."

In Wisconsin this is particularly troubling since many students will probably not have the same address as they did six months ago, but are still eligible to vote and may be disenfranchised as a result of Tea Party efforts.

Whatever the outcome of these elections, you can all rest assured that Fox will do their level best to continue the Republican time-honored tradition of screaming voter fraud. The only exception will be states where teabaggers win.

Bonus: DOJ says, we've got this. Chill out, everyone.

Chris Matthews report from last week on Voter Fraud.

We had to repost it because someone hacked the file!

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Mark Jacoby aka Star Petition Services is still going strong here in California, and he's operating in a fashion true to the form that got him a smack on the wrist and 30 days of CalTrans service last year, but he's not the only one. Why isn't anyone outraged about this?

Since I first wrote about Jacoby and his bogus voter slamming, the Orange County Register has gone digging. Guess what they found? Yep, more evidence of a focused effort to use the petition to add a marijuana legalization initiative as a pathway to add more voters to Republican Party rolls.

Since mid-March, at least 99 written complaints have been submitted to state elections officials by Orange County residents who say they were registered to vote Republican without their consent. The Register found an additional 74 voters who said they were duped or coerced into registering to vote as a Republican by signature gatherers who initially asked them to sign petitions for causes like legalizing marijuana, fighting cancer or cleaning up beaches.

California Democrats are calling on the US Attorney to investigate, as they should. The very same people who demonized ACORN and accused them of voter fraud are the ones actually committing voter fraud for $8 bucks per registration.

Their scheme is pretty simple. They approach people about to enter a WalMart or Target store and ask them to sign a petition to put the marijuana legalization measure on the ballot. When someone agrees to sign the petition, they also ask them to fill out a voter registration card just to make sure their current address is correct in Sacramento. What they fail to disclose, and what most people don't notice, is that they've just signed a card changing their party affiliation to the Republican party.

From December 2009 through March 2010, the California Republican Party paid Grassroots Outreach, LLC nearly $675,000 for "voter registration services".

Who is Grassroots Outreach, LLC?

The California Corporations database indicates that Grassroots Outreach, LLC: established in California on June 11, 2008 via a third-party registration agent, C T Corporation System. C T Corporation System is also the agent for legal process. The registered address is 1232 Q St., Sacramento, CA 95811. The third-party registrant leaves the true ownership in question, but follow along with me anyway.

Nathan Sproul, a Republican political operative with a long and storied history of voter suppression and voter fraud accusations, has an Arizona company called Sproul Grassroots Mobilization, LLC. The mailing address is 80 E Rio Salado Pkwy #814, Tempe, AZ.

On June 18, 2009 the Golden State Voter Registration Project paid $50,000 to Grassroots Outreach, LLC. The address on the check was 80 E. Rio Salado Parkway, Suite 814, Tempe, AZ 85281, and the stated purpose for the payment was "voter registration services." The reported mailing address is Nathan Sproul's office, and the registered address for Sproul Grassroots Mobilization, LLC. (More on the Golden State Voter Registration Project donors and expenses here.)

The mailing address for the California payment to Grassroots Mobilization LLC is 1317 N. San Fernando Blvd, #175, Burbank, CA 91504. That address is a Pak-N-Ship store with a post office box rental service. The main offices of the California Republican Party are located about six blocks down at 1903 W. Magnolia Blvd, Burbank, CA 91506.

If we had access to corporate records, I'd be willing to bet we could draw a straight, clear, unquestionable line between Star Petition Services and Grassroots Outreach, LLC. After all, Jacoby and Sproul have a long history of doing business together.

California's politics are being run off the rail by this kind of activity. The initiative process is completely broken because Republicans are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to put signatures they bought on ballot initiative petitions and voter registration cards. We seriously cannot afford to let this go unnoticed if we ever hope to have elections that truly are fair and free.

California is not Iraq. The United States is not Afghanistan. We either stand for clean, fair elections where one vote counts as one vote, or we let this kind of activity suppress the vote and the will of the people. I guarantee you this much: If it's going on here, it's ramping up nationwide.

It's really past time for us to take our country back. Why isn't the media breaking this news like it matters? It's the core of our democracy.

Remember October, 2008? Remember how McCain and Palin went all shrilly over ACORN allegedly fraudulently registering voters before they didn't? The only thing that stopped them (not that it stopped the shrilly teabaggers and Republicans later) was the arrest of Mark Jacoby on October 20, 2008. He was arrested for fraud and perjury, pled guilty on June 16, 2009 to voter-registration fraud and is now serving 3 years probation. Sort of. Actually, not so much.

Keith Olbermann's report in the video above and Nicole Belle's post on Mr. Jacoby and his connections to the John McCain campaign, Steve Poizner, and Nathan Sproul are worth reviewing for some background on how the Republicans turned up the noise on ACORN while actually engaging in voter fraud here in California. For all the heat Republicans put on ACORN, the only actual voter fraud conviction was Mark Jacoby's. He was sentenced to 30 days of Cal-Trans work and 3 years probation.

While detangling the finances of the California Republican Party I ran into Jacoby again, apparently doing business as Star Petition Services.

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From Americablog

Possible evidence of voter fraud in Ohio

I just received a photo a Cincinnati poll manager took this evening, and it seems to be proof of some fishy actions with ballots in Ohio. Bottom line: Note the already-voted-with ballots in the back of the truck with the Bush-Cheney sticker in the back window. Does this prove fraud? Well, it certainly doesn't look good in a state that's already had lots of problems .

In a nutshell, Stefan Skirtz is a poll manager for the Kerry campaign in Cincinnati. His precinct is heavily made up of minorities and students (i.e., leans Kerry). One of the duties of the poll managers, Stefan told me in a phone call minutes ago, is to follow the poll workers to election headquarters as they drop off the ballots and ballot boxes. Stefan followed the poll workers who didn't go directly to the election headquarters. Instead, they went to a local public school where workers put the ballot machines into a semi trailer, and then the poll workers handed off the sealed bags containing the ballots to someone Stefan assumed was with the county board of elections.
In a nutshell, Stefan Skirtz is a poll manager for the Kerry campaign in Cincinnati. His precinct is heavily made up of minorities and students (i.e., leans Kerry). One of the duties of the poll managers, Stefan told me in a phone call minutes ago, is to follow the poll workers to election headquarters as they drop off the ballots and ballot boxes. Stefan followed the poll workers who didn't go directly to the election headquarters. Instead, they went to a local public school where workers put the ballot machines into a semi trailer, and then the poll workers handed off the sealed bags containing the ballots to someone Stefan assumed was with the county board of elections.
In a nutshell, Stefan Skirtz is a poll manager for the Kerry campaign in Cincinnati. His precinct is heavily made up of minorities and students (i.e., leans Kerry). One of the duties of the poll managers, Stefan told me in a phone call minutes ago, is to follow the poll workers to election headquarters as they drop off the ballots and ballot boxes. Stefan followed the poll workers who didn't go directly to the election headquarters. Instead, they went to a local public school where workers put the ballot machines into a semi trailer, and then the poll workers handed off the sealed bags containing the ballots to someone Stefan assumed was with the county board of elections.I don't know whether the Bush partisans did or didn't play any games with the ballots they received, but it sure doesn't look good, and I wonder whether it's even legal. And let's not forget, this is a state that was already well on its way to becoming the new Florida of GOP election fraud.