Monday, February 27, 2012

Johnson County Law Enforcement Officers Accused Of Vote Fraud In Wake Of Charlie White Conviction

I warned people that you could expect more felony charges being trumped up against people for exercising their right to vote in the wake of the specious charging and conviction of former Secretary of State Charlie White on felony vote charges for doing something no differently than voters in this state do at every election. A Johnson Co. Prosecutor facing his own investigation of his strange personal conduct involving accusations that he stalked a female employee of the Johnson Co. Sheriff's department is now asking a special prosecutor to investigate whether four employees of that same Sheriff's department and a Franklin police detective committed vote fraud by casting votes in the wrong precinct. The Star reports:

A special prosecutor will investigate allegations of voting irregularities involving five Johnson County law enforcement officers.
Saying he wants to avoid the appearance of a conflict, Johnson County Prosecutor Brad Cooper filed a request Feb. 15 asking a judge to name a special prosecutor to investigate whether four Sheriff's Department employees and a Franklin police officer voted in the wrong precincts in the May 2010 primary . . .
According to documents filed in the Johnson County clerk's office, which oversees elections, the allegations involve four Sheriff's Department employees: Chief Deputy Randy Werden, Deputy David Emery, crime lab investigator Melissa Carter and Communications Director Bryan Wolfe. None of the four responded to messages from The Indianapolis Star . . .
Franklin Police Detective Scott Carter also is alleged to have voted in the wrong precinct.
In a telephone interview, Carter said he and then-wife Melissa Carter had moved to another home in Franklin, which was in the same voting district, and explained the situation to poll workers on Election Day 2010.
"I went to the precinct to vote and I was told to vote at the old precinct," Carter said. "I'm a law enforcement officer and I wasn't aware there were stipulations involving this.
"If I was an average person," he said, "I'd be afraid to vote just because they're going to be afraid they're going to do something wrong."
The circumstance described by Carter allows him to vote one last time at his old precinct after he moves as long as he lives in the same congressional district. If he had not updated his voter registration to his new address yet, he would be told by election officials to return to his old precinct to vote where election officials should also have him to fill out a change of address form so that he is registered in the proper precinct at the next election. This happens in virtually every precinct in this state every election day. Carter is absolutely correct. Average joes should be scared to death to vote in this state based on the legal standards adopted in the Charlie White case. Over zealous prosecutors could literally prosecute thousands of Hoosier voters every election using the standards applied to White.

According to the Star report, a person who doesn't even live in Johnson County, Ethan Allen Bailey, delivered the complaint and supporting documents to the Johnson County Clerk's office. It would be interesting to find out if Bailey has any connection to the Johnson Co. Prosecutor. Melissa Carter, one of those accused of committing vote fraud, is the same woman that Prosecutor Brad Cooper was accused of stalking.

6 comments:

Cato said...

Indiana, being well on the road to a police state, will use the election bureaucracy and the multitude of erstwhile administrative Election Code laws as another means of making everyone a criminal.

Dedicated Election Fraud units are likely already being considered in the various punitive chambers of Indiana government. These will be easy prosecutions. They'll reduce scienter to strict liability, and prosecutors will enjoy open-goal success in the courts, all the while, the judiciary will continue to serve the hand that pays it, rather than protecting the people who constituted the bench.

We're likely well past the point where 5th Amendment protections should have applied to and appeared on voter attestations. People need to know that the government is playing "gotcha" with voting and that every attempt to vote is being viewed as a chance to land the voter in jail.

artfuggins said...

The GOP claimed that there was voter fraud but little did they realize that it was Republican voter fraud. I hope they keep unveiling the unethical tactics that the GOP uses to suppress voter turnout of Dems and increase GOP turnout.

Paul K. Ogden said...

Really, Art, how thgen o you explain Bayh and his wife living in the D.C. area and voting in Indianapolis?

varangianguard said...

I call this the "Kevin Burke Effect".

Aren't there rules against prosecutors (allegedly) abusing their authority to further personal vendettas?

artfuggins said...

As far as I am concerned spineless Evan Bayh and his wife are republicans. Review his voting record during his last few years in the Senate.

jocounty said...

If only the public néw the whole story. Melissa Carter is no victim in all this. What wasn't reported was that this woman was married and having affairs with two married men at the same time. The "report" against prosecutor Coopet that was turned into the law commission was written by the police detective whom she was having the other affair. Prosecutor Cooper has not spoken about this because he has
been instructed not to by his attorneys. Atleast until the commission comes back. Since that time,prosecutor Cooper is trying to mend his family. Melissa Carter is divorced. The detective, Ryan Bartlett, is getting divorced and those two are still
together. The damage that has been done by the
games Carter played will impact these families lives
forever. So do not judge if you don't know the whole
story. Also, regarding the voter fraud. Prosecutor
Cooper was handed this and put in a position that if
he ignored the complaint he was, according to the press, in cahoots with the republican party. If he
investigated it he was abusing his authority to get
revenge. He couldn't win if he tried. The only action
he could take was to turn it over to a special
prosecutor for investigation so he was removed from
the whole situation. Again, by not realizing the whole
story people are making judgements and comments
that are inaccurate. While Cooper made many mistakes in his personal life and is trying to rectify that, he is also paying dearly in his professional life. He is a good fair prosecutor who is just trying move on and do his job now.