Justice Delayed? Why the Hold-Up in Connecticut’s Investigation into Ann Coulter’s ‘Voter Fraud’?

It’s been nearly five months since the official complaint about Ann Coulter’s alleged voter fraud in 2002 and 2004 was filed in Connecticut, yet state election officials continue to refuse comment on the status of the case beyond acknowledging that it’s “still pending,” as recently confirmed by The BRAD BLOG.

Several charges of absentee voter fraud were alleged in the complaint against Coulter in Connecticut, where evidence shows she cast absentee ballots illegally while living in her then permanent New York City residence.

In addition to the head of the California GOP’s voter registration firm pleading guilty to fraud last week (his company, Young Political Majors, is under investigation in several other states as well, and is alleged to have secretly changed thousands of registrations from Democratic to Republican, denying voters the ability to cast votes in last year’s primary), and the Republican election official in Kentucky who last month pleaded guilty to participating in a massive election fraud conspiracy beginning in 2002, there still remains the outstanding official investigation into the allegations against Coulter, the GOP’s storied Queen of Voter Fraud.

If all you watched was the Fox “News” Channel, however, and their increasingly bizarre — and yet still evidence-free — “investigation” into “voter fraud” by ACORN, you’d have no idea. That, even though Coulter herself continues to parade in front of their cameras as a regular guest without ever being asked about the official inquiry in the second state to investigate voting improprieties by the GOP superstar.

“The delay in this case is inexplicable given they need to prove two things: where she registered to vote/voted and where she lived when she registered to vote/voted,” the complainant in the case, Daniel Borchers, a Christian conservative who has long opposed Coulter’s behavior, told The BRAD BLOG. “Both are easily proven.”…

She’s Beaten the Felony Fraud Rap Before

Coulter had previously skated from charges of voter fraud in 2005 in Palm Beach County, Florida, where a years-long, well-documented BRAD BLOG investigation had shown, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she had committed third-degree felony voter fraud in 2005, having given a false address on her voter registration form after moving to her new $1.8 million crib near Rush Limbaugh’s, as well as a first-degree misdemeanor in having knowingly voted at the incorrect precinct. (She also lied about her address on her FL drivers license, another third-degree felony, as a report by the Palm Beach Chief of Police confirmed.) She managed to escape penalties for those crimes in the Sunshine State after lying both to media and to officials, then having her former FBI boyfriend intercede on her behalf, only to see the last official body to review the charges, the Florida State Election Commission, dismiss the charges because the statue of limitations had run out.

In Connecticut, there is no such statute of limitations for charges of voter fraud, while officials there, without explanation, seem to be taking their sweet time investigating and taking action on her case.

Borchers has long been a critic of the GOP superstar for what he believes to be her opportunistic betrayal of true conservative and moral values. As the founder of CoulterWatch and Citizens for Principled Conservatism, Borchers has been the subject and/or source of many articles on these pages, and has even guest blogged for The BRAD BLOG at various times over the years; for example, he covered the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) for us in 2006, when keynoter Coulter referred to Muslims as “ragheads,” and, after her 2007 speech at the same venue when she described NC’s former U.S. Sen. John Edwards as a “faggot,” he wrote about CPAC sneaking her back onto the agenda, without notifying sponsors in advance as usual, for their 2008 conference in hopes of keeping it under the radar of critics.

Borchers himself was used by Coulter, and her former boyfriend, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jim Fitzgerald, as the purported reason why Coulter lied on her Florida Voter Registration Form. Inappropriately disclosing Borchers’ name publicly to a rookie detective at the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office, claiming him to be a “stalker” of Coulter’s, despite no evidence or ongoing investigation into same, Fitzgerald duped the PBSO into dismissing the FL voter fraud charges before they were later taken up by the Florida State Election Commission and subsequently dismissed due to the statute of limitations which, by then, had finally run out.

‘Still Pending’

The new voter fraud complaints against Coulter in CT were filed with the state’s Elections Enforcement Commission by Borchers on January 29, 2009. The commission’s MaryAnn Stratton confirmed having received the complaint on February 2nd, as seen in a chain of emails that occurred over the past nearly-five months between her and Borchers. Those emails are posted at the end of this article.

In late May, commission spokesperson Nancy Nicolescu told The BRAD BLOG she would have “no comment concerning this investigation since it is still pending,” and pointed us toward a web document detailing Commission Procedures [PDF] for such investigations. Our more recent follow-up queries to both Stratton and Nicolescu have so far gone unanswered.

Borchers, however, received a terse reply to a June 18th query in which he noted “Another month has gone by since your last email … Has any progress been made in your investigation into the facts regarding Ann Coulter’s voting during the period in question?”

The dogged Borchers also asked Stratton: “Did she actually vote in Connecticut while maintaining a permanent residence in another state? That appears to be a simple question with an easily determinable answer. Either she did or she didn’t,” before concluding with, “Please enlighten me, the citizens of Connecticut, and the American public.”

Stratton replied simply: “While I understand your frustration with the time frame and I apologize that it does not live up to your expectations, I cannot comment on this investigation until is has been presented to the Commission.”

Unusually Long Delay?

In a case which almost identically mirrors the allegations against Coulter, New York resident Daniel Jarvis Brown, who had been registered to vote at his parents’ home in CT, voted in the November 2008 election illegally by absentee ballot. Coulter also used her parents home address, claiming it as her own, when she is alleged to have voted while a permanent resident of NYC in 2002 and 2004.

Brown was found by the Commission to have violated Connecticut General Statutes 9-23g, 9-140, 9-172, 9-359 and 9-360. Though the violated statutes allow for thousands of dollars in fines, several years in prison, and referral to the Chief State’s Attorney, U.S. Attorney, or U.S. Department of Justice, Brown cooperated with officials and was not perceiving as having the intent of committing a crime, had no prior cases, and lacked “specific knowledge concerning registration requirements.” He agreed to remit a civil penalty to the state in the amount of $1,500 for the violations.

Whether Coulter, a constitutional attorney at the time of her several alleged instances of voting improperly in CT, will be allowed to claim a similar lack of “specific knowledge concerning registration requirements” remains to be seen. From a leading mouthpiece for the GOP, which has long turned flimsy claims of wide-spread “voter fraud” by Democrats into a core political tactic, such a claim would be dubious at best.

But the timing of Brown’s violation and subsequent settlement of the case is notable as well. While Brown’s violation [PDF] occurred in November of last year, he signed his agreement with the State Elections Enforcement Commission less than three months later, on February 23, 2009, and the Commission formally adopted the agreement on March 5th, just four months after the original violation.

In another more recent case [PDF], a CT voter was alleged to have voted improperly during a referendum in the Town of New Hartford on February 12, 2009. After an investigation by the Commission finding no impropriety, the complaint was officially adopted as “dismissed” on May 27th, less than two months after the election.

It’s now been nearly five months since the complaint against Coulter, who is said to have voted illegally in elections in 2002 and 2004, was filed. Yet there has been no public indication of the status of her case by officials beyond “still pending.” There are currently no references to the case posted at the State Elections Enforcement Commission website.

So what’s the hold-up? And will Ann Coulter find a way to escape personal responsibility for criminal action yet again? And, given the Fox “News” Channel’s seeming obsession with “voter fraud” by the community organizing coalition, ACORN, for which there is no actual evidence, why is Coulter allowed time and again to appear on their network — as recently as Sunday night on Geraldo Rivera’s show and on Friday before that on the ACORN-deranged Glenn Beck’s program — without even being asked about her own, multiple, well-documented instances of apparent criminal voter fraud in two different states?

Stay tuned…

The chain of emails between Daniel Borchers and the CT State Elections Enforcement Commission’s MaryAnn Stratton follows below, beginning with Borchers’ query in early February of this year, following the filing of his complaint in late January, up through his most recent reply from Stratton, refusing comment on June 18th, 2009…