Will Ann Coulter finally be held accountable for having committed voter fraud? We may find out on October 14th when the matter will come up at a public hearing by Connecticut’s State Elections Commission after an extraordinarily long two-year delay since the complaints about her allegedly illegal absentee votes in 2002 and 2004 were filed.
As The BRAD BLOG spent years documenting beyond a shadow of a doubt concerning her voter registration fraud and voter fraud in a different state, Florida, Ann Coulter committed third degree felony voter registration fraud, along with a first degree voter fraud misdemeanor, when she lied about her residency and then knowingly voted at the wrong polling place in Palm Beach County, FL, in 2005.
Years of lying to the media, as well as election and law enforcement officials, and a last-minute, inappropriate intervention by a former boyfriend in the FBI, helped run out the clock on those charges. Her offenses in the Sunshine State were eventually found to be beyond the statute of limitations by the Florida State Election Commission (FSEC). The stalling by other friendly Florida agencies took so long that the FSEC didn’t receive the case until years after it had been originally reported to law enforcement by the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections. So she got off the hook and was never held accountable for easily documented crimes in Florida. [After years of reporting that part of the story in pieces as it developed, we told the entire sordid tale in one fell swoop in Hustler magazine. That April 2008 exposé can be read in full here.]
However, in Connecticut, where official complaints were filed in 2009 — by a conservative activist — that she also committed absentee voter fraud in the years prior to moving to Florida, when she allegedly voted illegally from her residence in New York, there is no such statute of limitations for voter fraud. [See UPDATE at bottom of story for someone who disagrees with that point.]
After a 20-month delay, Coulter’s case is finally coming up for a vote at a public hearing before CT’s State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) on October 14th at 9:00am, 20 Trinity St. in Hartford CT, according to an email from the commission’s MaryAnn Stratton and confirmation from the commission’s director of communication…
Coulter’s (Case) Number Finally Comes Up
Stratton points to the commission’s website where she says “Our agenda can be viewed.” As of this writing, the commission’s Oct. 14th agenda is not yet posted, however.
In June of 2009, some five months after the original February 2009 complaints had been filed by conservative activist Daniel Borchers, we filed a report on the case asking what the extraordinary delay was about, given that other voters charged with almost identical crimes, as we detailed at the time, had seen their cases resolved with the SEEC in just two or three months.
In Coulter’s Connecticut case, the fraud in question occurred in 2002 and again in 2004 when she lived in New York City but apparently voted as still registered at her parents address in the Nutmeg State. Our June 2009 story reported on a number of similar cases, including that of NY resident Daniel Jarvis Brown, who had been registered to vote at his parents’ home in CT and illegally cast a ballot in the November 2008 election. His violations of Connecticut General Statutes 9-23g, 9-140, 9-172, 9-359 and 9-360 were resolved in just three months after he cooperated with officials and was allowed to remit a civil penalty of just $1,500 when investigators had determined that he had no prior cases and lacked “specific knowledge concerning registration requirements.”
Coulter, a constitutional attorney at the time of her several alleged instances of voting improprieties in the state of CT, would have a difficult time making the same claim that Brown did. The statutes she is alleged to have violated, just as Brown did, 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.
But the SEEC has been extraordinarily tight-lipped about the Coulter affair for some reason. Despite the best efforts of Borchers, sending email inquiries on the status of the case every month or two since February of 2009, generally receiving little more than a terse “This matter is still pending” or “No information is available at this time” in reply, and our own efforts to keep an eye on new material posted at the commission’s website and sending our own inquiries from time to time, information on the issue has been completely blacked out from the SEEC.
And then finally, on Monday, Borchers received the following, somewhat cryptic email from Stratton in reply to his latest missive asking about the disposition of the case:
Subject: RE: RE: RE: 2009-010 RE: Coulter Complaint
To: “‘Daniel Borchers'”
Date: Monday, October 4, 2010, 3:36 PM
Dear Mr. Borchers:
This case is scheduled to appear on the October 14, 2010 public session. We expect the Commission will vote on this matter at that time. Our agenda can be viewed on www.ct.gov/seec
Exactly what the Commission will be voting on at this time — to convict Coulter, ask law enforcement to take up the matter, agree to a settlement with her (as in the Brown case mentioned above), remand it for additional investigation, or dismiss the case altogether — remains a mystery for the moment.
In attempting to get more specific information on the upcoming agenda, we followed up with Stratton and received a response from Nancy S. Nicolescu, the SEEC’s Director of Communications, Legislative Affairs, and Candidate Services, to whom Stratton had forwarded our inquiry.
Nicolescu responded to say, almost as cryptically, that “At this time, the case you reference 2009-010 is expected to be presented in public session on October 14, 2010 at 9 a.m. for a Commission vote. The October 14th agenda will be posted early next week.”
She adds that the case has been discussed by the Commission, up until now, only behind closed doors.
“As you may know, this case was previously discussed in Executive Session at the September 22, 2010 meeting,” she wrote. “I am providing you with a link to our Commission Procedures which provides a brief description of the process relative to the Executive Session, I mention and will outline Commission resolutions and or actions that may be taken on October 14th.”
Unfortunately, the linked document from Nicolescu is similarly vague in offering hints as to what the public may expect at the October 14th hearing.
In a follow-up call phone interview, Nicolescu told us that the document was purposedly vague, in that it only explains the many possibilities of what could be coming up for a vote, repeating again that because it is a “pending case” and “currently under investigation” she couldn’t offer any more information at this time, though she did reveal that the case has been “docketed” by the Commission’s Enforcement Unit, it’s “legal subdivision.”
She explained that “this case was, in fact, docketed and has been assigned to a staff member for investigation.” She says that docketed cases are “investigated, evidence is collected and documented and appropriate interviews are taken,” but added again that she could not offer “info on this particular case, because it’s pending.”
“They have been tenacious in withholding everything from public and media inquiries,” Borchers told The BRAD BLOG this week, “including such simple points of fact such as whether Coulter has voted in recent elections and whether she is currently registered to vote in Connecticut.”
He too seems flummoxed by what he describes as a “long 20-month investigation into what seems to be a simple, and simply-proved, case of voter fraud.”
Nicolescu offered some insight into what had seemed an extraordinarily long investigation process. She says the Commission’s size and duties have been expanded in recent years and that their “median” time for handling cases has ballooned. She claims that, “on average, this case falls within the median for length of time for open cases.”
Will Justice Finally Be Served?
“Whether justice will be served remains to be seen,” Borchers wrote via email. “Will the integrity of the voting system be reinforced, or will a conservative celebrity be given another free pass based upon her popularity, power, and the cadre of elite relationships she has courted throughout her career?”
Though he is a conservative, Borchers has been extremely critical of Coulter over the years, charging that she’s a dangerous opportunist who is anything but conservative, and who has given true conservative philosophy a bad name. [DISCLOSURE: Borchers has guest blogged for The BRAD BLOG from time to time over the years on related issues.]
Republicans have, for years, built much of their electoral strategy on false charges of “massive Democratic voter fraud,” despite the lack of evidence for any such thing, even from George W. Bush’s own Dept. of Justice. That contrasts with the great deal of evidence documenting that insider election fraud is far more prevalent, particularly as a “conspiracy” as small as one is able to flip the results of entire elections on electronic voting systems with little possibility of detection.
Given the Right’s frequent, if evidence-shy campaign against “voter fraud” — remember, their desire to bring false voter fraud charges against Democrats before the 2004 election was at the heart of the Bush/Rove U.S. Attorney Purge — the fact that one of the GOP’s former superstars may be charged with it is no small matter.
While Fox “News” has spent uncountable hours stoking unfounded fears of “voter fraud” by groups like ACORN — part and parcel of the GOP’s strategy to create a false “epidemic” of fraud in hopes of encouraging polling place photo ID restrictions which, as non-partisan public interest groups have documented, would actually disenfranchise millions of legal minority, elderly, and young (read: Democratic-leaning) voters — Coulter remains on the Fox payroll as an analyst.
She has not been asked about her own voter fraud in Florida on the Republican “news” channel since former Fox host Alan Colmes asked her about it in 2006.
“I think the syphilis has gone to their brains,” Coulter fired back at Colmes when he asked about the allegations of voter fraud made against her by the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections.
“Did you knowingly vote in the wrong district?” Colmes followed up. “No, I live in New York,” Coulter indignantly — and perhaps incriminatingly — lied in response. “This is all false, I’m telling you.”
It wasn’t false. She lived in Florida, as we documented in no uncertain terms, where she knowingly registered at the wrong address, as we documented in no uncertain terms, and committed voter fraud there additionally by knowingly voting at the wrong precinct, as we documented in no uncertain terms.
Had Coulter actually “live[d] in New York” at the time, as she claimed to Colmes, and as she had the year before when she voted absentee in Connecticut, she would have violated CT law, which she appears to have done.
To our knowledge, despite regular appearances on the channel, she has never been asked about the pending allegations of her own voter fraud in Connecticut, even though Fox “News” regularly reports Republican allegations (and requests for investigations) of “voter fraud” by Democrats as if such allegations are the same as actual crimes. In fact, ACORN has never been charged with voter fraud or even voter registration fraud, or assisting in same, despite Fox and its “analysts” falsely reporting as much time and time again. We can’t say the same for Republican voter registration outfits, as we were forced to reveal on Fox ourselves. Almost every single alleged “investigation” against ACORN for voter fraud or voter registration fraud has been quietly dropped — usually just a few months after an election, when such charges are no longer helpful to Republicans — without a peep about it from Fox “News.”
“Preservation of the rule of law – which Coulter frequently invokes – necessitates that Coulter be held responsible for her misbehavior and held to the same standards to which everyone else is held,” writes Borchers in a follow-up email this morning. “Throughout her high-profile career, Coulter has survived controversies of her own making while claiming to be the victim (and her fans accept her assertions). … Coulter has flaunted her prestige, power, and connections to elude – and even eviscerate – the rule of law.”
She has indeed been able to flaunt the rule of law in the past. Her Florida voter fraud is only one such example. The only question now is: will she be able to do it yet again in Connecticut? We may find out next Thursday.
• For more information on the Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission’s Oct. 14th hearing on Coulter’s voter fraud complaints, see the SEEC website.
[Our thanks to Ellen of News Hounds who has been assiduous in reminding their readers about Coulter’s storied history of voter fraud over the years, even as others media outlets have lost track of it, and as Fox “News” continues to regularly beat the phony “voter fraud” drum on behalf of the GOP, while happily ignoring the actual voter fraud taking place right under their own noses.]
UPDATE 10/7/10: Rightwinger Andrew Worthing takes us to task for our coverage, dismisses the charges against Coulter as “conspiracy theory”, charges that we’ve misstated the law, and counters that the statute of limitations for Coulter’s alleged crimes might, in fact, have expired in CT. His full response is here…
UPDATE 10/14/10: CT State Elections Enforcement Commission finds “insufficient evidence” to prove “voter fraud, but apparently didn’t look very hard, even as they made enormous errors in their report. Full details now here…
I’ll bet a cookie nothing will come of this. She will never in any way be held accountable for any crime she’s ever committed or will ever commit. And Brad, if I’m wrong, I’ll buy you and Desi dinner. But don’t get too hungry, because I won’t be wrong. She. Will. Never. Be. Held. Accountable. And why? Say it with me now; “It’s Okay If You’re A Republican!”
Probably true, Steve. If she could escape justice for her anthrax hoax, this one should be a piece of cake.
Gee, if Ann is found guilty of VOTER FRAUD, I wonder if they’ll place him in an all-male institution…unless she’s post-op, then off to Connecticut Institution for Women…you’re an L.A. guy Brad, and California Institution for Women in Frontera CA ( )ain’t no cake-walk. Man, and I bet Connecticut’s women’s prison ain’t easy either
I’ve looked over all your so-called evidence, and I don’t care what you say. Obama was too born in Hawaii!
Well done sir!
I like this story much better with the BIG Mountain Dew ads right next to it, via raw story. It’s so smarty pants dry white toast around here. DUMMER IT DOWN, DUMMER IT DOWN.
Brad, for the love of god, stop talking about law.
Yes, there is a SOL (statute of limitations) in connecticut applicable to this case. And it has passed almost certainly passed. if you were hoping for your jihad against her to bear fruit, you are, well, SOL.
I explain it all, here.
I have defended your clueless comments on the law in the past, but it is pretty clear that you need to step away from the keyboard and stop talking about the law.
I hate it when lawyers kill all the fun! The bitch deserves to spend several years in a state prison thinking about her dirty deeds. Even if Brad did fail to get the legal aspects exactly right, only HE has kept us informed of the crap this so and so has been pulling. Way to go, Brad. And Aaron, assuming you are right on the legal points, thanks for clarifying.
Hey Steve, let’s do lunch soon!! 🙂
Not so fast, Aaron Worthing. Statutes of limitations are often tolled if the alleged perpetrator is out of the state. Considering she wasn’t living in Connecticut at the time she voted, nor has she moved back, it is quite possible that the statute of limitations has not run much at all (figuring she may have passed through Connecticut for short periods of time).
Aaron, why would you even try to defend this pathetic attention whore?
Cambridge
Actually, being out of state alone does not toll the statute of limitations. In civil cases, there are ways to serve a person out of state; and if they do not show up, they can lose by default (see, e.g. the famous Black Panther case as an example of that). In criminal cases, you file the arrest warrant, and then diligently attempt to enforce it. If the person evades arrest by any means–including being out of the jurisdiction–then that evasion tolls the statute of limitations. So its not being out of state, but the evasion that tolls it.
But the duty to diligently attempt to enforce the warrant of arrest, includes the duty to diligently seek extradition. Now when dealing with foreign countries extradition can be tricky–Roman Polanski, whatever you think of the man, is a good example of that. But extradition among the several states is frankly routinely done and with little trouble. The fact is that Ann Coulter hasn’t exactly remained hidden. If an arrest warrant was issued for her, it wouldn’t have been hard at all for a local PD to find and arrest her, allowing for extradition, etc. Indeed, for all you know, upon learning of the arrest warrant, Coulter might have voluntarily gone to CT and turned herself in.
The fact is that since receiving the complaint the state has basically sat on its hands. No matter how you slice it, they have not met an easily attainable deadline by their own failings. The courts will have no sympathy for that.
But that all being said, it was a good question.
flout.
Ann Coulter should have voted absentee ballot. Money can’t buy your way out of lawlessness. Can it?
What about those Republicans who stormed the recount in Florida? They didn’t observe the poll distance laws. They stopped the recount. There is a photo of them.
Judy in #13,
“What about those Republicans who stormed the recount in Florida? They didn’t observe the poll distance laws. They stopped the recount. There is a photo of them.”
What is the legal distance for a standardless, partial recount, that is ILLEGALLY taken behind closed doors?
@Mark #14, the legal distance for those GoP operatives and employees of congress should have been about 1000 miles. Not a single one of them had any business inserting themselves into a Florida State process.
Mark Da ~ I hate to feed the animal, but:
“…(a partial recount) that is ILLEGALLY taken behind closed doors?”
Don’t care what your bullshit obfuscation will be to defend that lie. You have a whole bizzarro superman universe in your head that makes you read like an over-the-top, dummy, partisan zealot idealogue – only far less compelling because you lack any real character development.
Oh, and we know now those bitchcrackers were ENRON employees, flown in just to intimidate the canvassing board and halt the recount at any cost. We also know now, with complete certainty (and you do, too, Mamason Dojo Head) that the 2000 U.S. election was a botched and thrown to the wrong candidate.
Everyone knows that by now.
It’s such a hard fact I’m not even going to bother providing you with all the real life, real world links to prove it. You don’t care because it aligns with your paradigm of para-DUMB.
Your defense (and cheerleading) of such anti-democratic thuggery, the wholesale intimidation through violence of a group of corporate haggies to stop the legitimate and legal vote count of an election(no matter how much you wanna waaaaah away the legality of it) is just as predictably intractable as everything else you write here.
Consider getting some new material.
You’re boring me.
Jeannie in #16
Honey, your ignorant rant does not serve you. You have shown in the past that you have to rely on utter bullshit to make your argument.
By supporting the UNCONSTITUTIONAL recount in Palm Beach v. Harris (not be confused with Gore v. Harris), you have proven that you do not believe in fair elections. Of course, I am not surprised. I known for a several weeks that fair elections and fair recounts are not something that you believe in.
Do you really want to defend this ANTI-Democratic partial recount? For what reason?
I have a novel question for you. There were more than 179,000 “spoiled” ballots spread over Florida’s 67 counties, how was a recount of 4 Democratic majority counties going to settle this dispute?
Why do you think that IGNORING the rest of the state makes this a legitimate recount?
“The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”
Joseph Stalin
Jeannie,
Why are you avoiding these questions? You told us that a partial recount is a “legitimate and legal vote count of an election”. But now, when challenged on your view, you have ran away.
Why do you feel that it is fair to only recount 4 counties, when their are spoiled ballots in every county in the state?
Why do you think that we shouldn’t require that all ballots to be included?
You claimed that my view is a lie. Why is that? Why do you think that it is a lie to claim that recounting 4 of 67 counties is a partial recount of the state?
Clearly, you have shown us that you are an outright fraud. You can’t claim that you support free and fair elections, and then claim that only some people deserve to have their ballots recounted, and that others do not deserve the same opportunity.
You may think that I “lack any real character development”. That is fine, but when I see that you are a cleerleader for election theives, I really don’t give a damn what you have to say.
Mark da Shark @ 18 said :
I can’t answer for Jeannie, of course, but that was the Florida law at the time, requiring each requested recount to be filed in each separate county. While you may wish to argue the state law to be unfair (as the Bush team did when they went to court), it was the law and it’s not a particularly unusual one. The same law applies here and was used against opponents of Prop 8 who had wanted the Sec. of State to recount ballots statewide in 2008 (before they were told that each request for a recount had to be filed in each, independent county).
Given the ridiculous certification deadlines in FL in 2000, the Gore team decided they were better off spending money and resources in just the four counties where they felt that most legally cast ballots were inappropriately tossed out.
You may agree or disagree with their legal strategy, or FL’s rule of law at the time, but there was nothing unfair about their following of that rule of law.
As mentioned, that is not the norm. In addition to my point made above about statewide elections in CA, any elector may also choose to have a recount of any single precinct (or more) that they wish during an election contest. If there is a belief that, for example, ballots have been stuffed in a single L.A. precinct, why should the contestents be required to recount all 4000+ precincts at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars instead of a few hundred to recount a single precinct?
Look, we have very clear rules about personal insults against other commenters here. While it is impossible for me and other volunteer moderators to police all comments (and we don’t want to have to!), we’ll ask that you do your best to mind the rules. I appreciate that you may feel that Jeannie Dean also violated that rule, and she may have (if not quite as directly). So I’d ask you both to knock it off, please, and have your vigorous debate in respectable opposition to each other. Thank you!
Apologies for inferring Mark Da Shark is an animal. He does a fine job of that on his own.
Mark ~ I’m not running away, buddy. I just don’t have time to give you all the attention you need, nor do I care to re-visit Florida 2000 (most of the rational rest of us have come to a consensus on the matter)or spar with someone who has no sense of humor and so little moral center as to defend (or legally justify) the Brooks Brothers Riots.
I didn’t respond because I figured it would be common sense that because the partial recount was ordered under FLORIDA STATE law, doesn’t make a partial recount ILLEGAL. Brad was kind enough to take the time out of his very busy day to spell that out for your benefit…tho’ I’m betting you already knew that and just wanted to turd disturb. Which is another reason why I didn’t bother to respond.
(Worth noting that this is one of those hand-picked, fake arguments where conserva-whackos drop their “STATES RIGHTS” Golden Mantra. Funny that Mark Da Sharks everywhere jump over themselves to back the FED when it favors the side they play for. Same with Justices.)
Really, Mark. Your tired parsing of legalese as a partisan bait n’ switch tactic around here is just no longer worth wasting my words on.
..but I shouldn’t have accused you of lying.
You can’t help being you.
…but I think it’s impossibly sweet that you couldn’t wait to hear back from me.
Noted.
I see the the case got rejected. I do wonder why you waste so much time deriding Coulter, when she is the least of conservatives’ worries. I find, in her work, that she is a good balance to the people who call themselves “conservative” but are so quick to fold in order to remain in the good graces of the “cool kids” …
Maybe you can now turn your attention to Michelle Obama campaigning at a polling place today.
The county guy says she didn’t realize it was illegal!
Beefeater – Thanks for the thoughts, but that’s not what she said. Nor did Michelle Obama “campaign at a polling place today”.
As a wingnut, I realize that nothing but Fox “News” willndo for a source for you, so here ya go.
Anytime you wish to start putting your country, democracy, rule of law and Constitution over your pathetic partisan knee jerks, we’ll be here to welcome you.
Brad @19,
“I can’t answer for Jeannie, of course, but that was the Florida law at the time, requiring each requested recount to be filed in each separate county.â€
Florida actually had two laws that could be used for recounts. The first was Fla. Stat. 102.166, which is for tabulation errors in specific counties or precincts. The other code was Fla. Stat. 102.168, which could be used to get a statewide recount.
When Fla. Stat. 102.166, which is the code that Gore used to get a recount of 4 Democratic majority counties, is shepherdized, we find that the court in Broward v. Hogan refused to order a manual recount for under and over voted ballots.
Instead of using this code, Gore should have filed, which he was eventually forced to do, a challenge under Fla. Stat. 102.168.
“While you may wish to argue the state law to be unfair (as the Bush team did when they went to court),â€
And Bush won. The US Supreme Court, without dissent, found that the order from the Florida Supreme Court was UNCONSTITUTIONAL. The case was Bush v. Palm Beach (not to be confused with Bush v. Gore).
“Given the ridiculous certification deadlines in FL in 2000,…..“
On the contrary, if Gore had followed the law, then he would have had from Nov 17th to Dec 12th to get a fair recount of the state.
“……the Gore team decided they were better off spending money and resources in just the four counties where they felt that most legally cast ballots were inappropriately tossed out.â€
This was a mistake. As I pointed out, the order for this recount was found to be unconstitutional.
“You may agree or disagree with their legal strategy, or FL’s rule of law at the time, but there was nothing unfair about their following of that rule of law.â€
This is false. When an order, that allowed for a standardless partial recount ballots, has been found to be UNCONSTITUTIONAL, you can’t argue that this order followed the “rule of lawâ€.
That leads me back to my point. How can anyone claim that an UNCONSTITUTIONAL recount was, and I quote, “a legitimate and legal vote count of an election�
Again, I contend that a person can’t claim that they are for fair elections, but then SUPPORT such actions.
“If there is a belief that, for example, ballots have been stuffed in a single L.A. precinct, why should the contestents be required to recount all 4000+ precincts at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars instead of a few hundred to recount a single precinct?â€
Your analogy fails because you are trying to compare apples to oranges. The spoiled ballots was a statewide issue, thus the real question is why would Gore IGNORE the law that deals with problems on a statewide level and try to use a law that would deal with the case that you describe?