Absentee ballot trouble in Motor City enclave of Hamtramck



In this small Michigan city surrounded by Detroit,


 


Hamtramck police and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office are investigating stacks of absentee ballots that were improperly delivered before the Aug. 6 primary election… The controversy started when bundles of absentee ballots turned in at Hamtramck City Hall raised enough suspicion that the deputy city clerk called the police.


 


Residents voting absentee are required by state law to turn in the ballot themselves or have a household or family member do so. But the week before the Aug. 6 election, three men showed up separately at the Clerk’s Office with stacks of absentee ballots with return address handwriting in the same print, which didn’t match the voter signatures, said Hamtramck Deputy Clerk August Gitschlag.


 


“Protecting the integrity of the election is why they brought me here,” said Gitschlag, who joined the City Clerk’s Office in July, about filing the police complaint…


 


While the piles of absentee ballots were challenged, they still were counted in the primary election. The 46 questionable ballots wouldn’t change the outcome of the mayor’s race, in which the two highest vote getters were hundreds of ballots ahead of the next finisher.  However, in one City Council race, third-place finisher Daria Swint finished 26 votes behind the second-place candidate… Swint said Councilman Mohammed Hassan approached her in June and offered her 26 absentee ballots for the primary election.

A Rabid Ex-DOJ Lawyer

Jim Letten is a rabid ex-DOJ lawyer, not the warm and smiley type you see on TV – and James O’Keefe is his nemesis, not his friend.  The video must be seen to be believed, or you can read about it here.  Another example of how nobody is safe from O’Keefe’s cameras anymore, anywhere.




Jonathon Turley has more:

“The film of the home visit does not appear to have any threats. It is the visit itself that appears to be the basis for the intimidating conduct. However, people are allowed to go to homes absent threats or a court order. There is no mention of a specific threat or threatening act other than the appearance at the home or the campus.”


Somali Immigrants Charged With Illegal Double Voting in Minn.


Link:

About 50 men and women packed a Rice County courtroom Tuesday afternoon as two Somali women pleaded not guilty to charges of voter fraud stemming from the general election last November.


Farhiya Abdi Dool, 38, and Amina A Hassan, 31, each face one felony charge of unlawful voting for voting once by absentee ballot and once at a polling place during the 2012 general election. Each woman faces five years in prison and a $10,000 fine for the offense.


The women, both naturalized U.S. citizens, were charged June 21.


With Minneapolis-based defense attorney Julie Nelson at their side, Dool and Hassan each entered a plea of not guilty on Tuesday afternoon. As was the case with their first court appearances, the women were backed by family members, friends, neighbors and advocates all listening closely to the proceedings.  Supporters of the women say that their actions were an honest mistake that should not be punished with a felony charge. Nelson took the defense a step further during an interview after the hearing.


“I find it offensive that these women have been criminally charged,” Nelson said. “These women came to this country, they are naturalized citizens, and they wanted to vote.”

“About 50 men and women packed a Rice County courtroom Tuesday afternoon as two Somali women pleaded not guilty to charges of voter fraud stemming from the general election last November.  Farhiya Abdi Dool, 38, and Amina A Hassan, 31, each face one felony charge of unlawful voting for voting once by absentee ballot and once at a polling place during the 2012 general election. Each woman faces five years in prison and a $10,000 fine for the offense.

But will U.S. Attorney Todd Jones act?  Double voting in a federal election is a federal crime.  So far, the U.S. Justice Department has been slack in enforcing this federal law which protects federal (as opposed to state) interests.  Meloweese Richardson in Ohio still has not been charged with double voting.  Neither has Wendy Rosen in Maryland.  There are more.  Why isn’t Eric Holder’s Justice Department enforcing federal laws against double voting?  Is it because they voted for the right candidates? Might it have something else to do with the perpetrators? These days, it could be anything.




Miami-Dade boletero “El Tio” pleads guilty to absentee ballot charges


Judge says absentee ballot fraud a “cottage industry” in Miami-Dade


 


The Miami-Herald reports: Sergio “El Tío” Robaina, uncle of former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina, will “plead guilty Wednesday to misdemeanor charges he illegally possessed absentee ballots, setting up a legal showdown challenging a Miami-Dade County law governing ballot collection…


 


“Allegations of absentee-ballot fraud shook the August 2012 primary as police investigators arrested two ballot brokers, or boleteros, on voter-fraud charges.  That included Robaina, who was accused of illegally collecting absentee ballots, a misdemeanor, and of felony voter fraud charges for allegedly filling out a ballot against the wishes of two voters, one of them a woman with dementia.”


 


Food For Thought: “Millions of Migrants Without Passport to Decide Next Election”

“THE votes of a million immigrants from the Commonwealth could decide the outcome of the next general election – even though they do not hold British passports.   They could even sway the result of the promised referendum on Britain’s EU membership, campaign group MigrationWatch UK warned last night, as it called for a change in the rules to remove voting rights from non-­citizens.

Commonwealth migrants from 54 states including ­Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan and Nigeria can join the electoral roll on arrival in the UK as long as they have an address here. MigrationWatch said the 2011 Census for England and Wales indicated there were an estimated 960,000 Commonwealth citizens without British passports living here who would be old enough to vote in the 2015 election and even more by the EU referendum planned for 2017. Yet in most cases their own countries do not give UK citizens voting rights. Only a few Caribbean Commonwealth nations, including Jamaica and Barbados, let non-­citizen British residents take part in their polls.”

Daily Express.

“No picture ID, No Entrance into Baltimore County schools”

Yes, just as Americans of all races vote, Americans of all races also have children in school and occasionally have to enter those schools.  Students and employees enter those schools every day.  Often Americans vote in schools.  An interesting fact from this story is that “officials already are searching for a vendor to produce uniform IDs for
all students and district employees over the next year and a half.”  Baltimore County has made the reasonable decision that photo IDs are absolutely necessary for employees and even the students to enter the school because of the identity of the person is important.

Lake County, Indiana Election Board lets double voter off the hook because “she forgot she voted” three days earlier

In Lake County, Indiana, a double voter gets off with a “reprimand” for voting twice on the Saturday during early voting and then again on Election Day.  She claims to have forget she had already voted because she was distracted and “so many things were on my mind.”  The failure to refer to law enforcement for prosecution should not stop the chief prosecutor from moving forward with charges.  The Lake County Election Board should not be the final decision-maker on whether charges are filed.
People of the area have heard the phrase said about elections in Lake County. Vote early and vote often. But the system doesn’t allow that. It kicked out a numbered ballot that was cast in-person during early voting during the May 2013 special election in Munster.

Denise M. Witczak voted twice. She voted once on the Saturday before Election Day and once again on Election Day. The Lake County Election Board gave an official reprimand to the Munster woman for voting twice. They did not find any evidence she acted fraudulently. If they had they would have had to send this case to the Lake County Prosecutor to bring charges against the woman for attempted voter fraud.

Witczak told the she had forgotten that she had gone in and voted on the Saturday before Election Day.