Saturday, February 09, 2013

One Woman, Many Votes If You Were A Democrat Casting A Vote For Obama


This local TV news report from Cincinnati tells about a long-time African-American Democratic poll worker who the story's lede claims voted twice in the 2012 general election to help re-elect Obama. If you watch the full video, you will see that Melowese Richardson is not just accused of voting twice but casting multiple votes for other persons using absentee ballots. She voted in her own name twice, once by absentee ballot prior to the election day and a second time on election day in person. I'm not sure how she was able to cast the second vote on election day. In Marion County, absentee ballots cast prior to the election are sent out to the voter's precinct so that the precinct election board can verify it and make a notation in the poll book. This makes it impossible for the person to cast more than one vote if they show up in person on election day if the election board workers are honest, unlike this poll worker in Cincinnati. Either their absentee ballot will have already been counted and noted in the poll book when they arrive to vote in person, or if their in-person vote occurs before their absentee ballot arrives at the precinct on election day, then their absentee ballot will be nullified and set aside when it arrives. There's a legislative move this year in Indiana to end that practice and, instead, count all absentee ballots at the central vote-counting center, which I worry may make it easier for people to vote twice. What Richardson did in the hotly-contested Ohio presidential race happened all over America in both the 2008 and 2012 general elections. The Obama campaign systematically carried out a scheme to commit massive vote fraud in battleground states like Ohio using minority voters. Republican election officials have been barred under a federal consent decree that's been in place for more than 30 years from challenging votes cast by minority voters, which the Democrats have exploited to their full advantage.

2 comments:

Paul K. Ogden said...

Okay, the bad one was her saying she had someone's POA and she voted for him "in his absence." Yeah, you can't do that.

As far as voting absentee then showing up in person to vote, as you point out in Indiana, the in person vote cancels out the absentee vote.

Gary R. Welsh said...

People sometimes vote early and then decide to cast a new ballot on election day because they changed their mind in one or more races. The system permits that as long as you're not trying to get two votes counted. It doesn't sound like that's what happened here. It sounds like in her case she actually succeeded in casting two votes in her own name.