The Connecticut State Election Commission announced this morning in Hartford that “it cannot make a full and fair determination of the allegations” against Ann Coulter who was alleged to have committed voter fraud twice in the state by voting illegally from her residence in New York City while being registered at her parents home in the Nutmeg State.
After a nearly inexplicable 20-month investigation, the Commission found “insufficient evidence in the present matter to substantiate the Complainant’s claims.”
However, The BRAD BLOG can report that, based on the Commission’s five-page “Findings and Conclusions”, it appears the Connecticut board either overlooked or ignored key evidence, including specific documentation of Coulter’s illegal voting history in the state of Florida (they were only off by more than a year!), as well as her own incriminating admissions on the Fox “News” Channel about living in New York City……
The Connecticut complaint, orginally filed by conservative activist and longtime Coulter critic Daniel Borchers in early 2009, charges that the best-selling author and former GOP superstar was living in New York City when she voted inappropriately via absentee ballot from her residence in NY in both 2002 and 2004 while still registered at her parents home in New Canaan.
Connecticut General Statutes 9-23g, 9-140, 9-172, 9-359 and 9-360 disallow that, and the Commission has previously come down on not-as-famous voters, such as NY resident Daniel Jarvis Brown, for having committed the exact same offense. We we detailed Brown’s case in June 2009, five months after the original February 2009 complaint against Coulter was filed.
In the five page document released today detailing “Findings and Conclusions” from her case, File No. 2009-10, the Commission offers information directly contradicted by documents long ago made public and published by The BRAD BLOG, concerning Coulter’s voter history (including her history of voting illegally in the Sunshine State).
As noted in the Commissions findings, per General Statutes 9-172, “only individuals who are bona fide residents of the town in which they are offering to vote will be permitted to vote in state elections”.
The “determinative issue”, therefore, in this case was whether Coulter was a “bona fide resident” of New Canaan at the time she was living in NYC domiciles in 2002 and 2004. General Statutes 9-360 state that violation of these laws shall incur a fine of “not less than three hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars” and shall cause imprisonment of “not less than one year nor more than two years”.
The Commission’s document details how the determination of “bona fide resident” may now be made in Coulter’s case [emphasis in original]:
…
9. As such, where an individual truly maintains two residences to which the individual has legitimate, significant, and continuing attachments, that individual can choose either one of those residences to be their bona fide residence for the purposes of election law so long as they possess the requisite intent…
…
10. Thus, the issues in the present matter are whether 1) the Respondent truly resided at her childhood home in New Canaan when she voted in that town on November 5, 2002 and November 2, 2004 and, if so, 2) whether she had legitimate, significant, and continuing attachments to that home.
In short, it seems the Commission now allows the voter in question to determine which of their multiple domiciles, if they have more than one, is their “bona fide residence”, whether they actually intend to return there or not.
Coulter is contending in turn, that as a 41 and 43 year-old Constitutional attorney and best-selling author living in New York City and having moved away from “her childhood home in New Canaan” decades earlier — where she originally registered to vote in 1980 at the age of 19 — in 2002 and 2004, even after having purchased her $1.5 million condominium in NYC, her parents house was still her “bona fide residence”.
It’s a shame Daniel Jarvis Brown, the NY resident still registered at his “childhood home” in Connecticut, as we detailed last year, didn’t have attorneys smart enough to help him make that same claim when he agreed to settle virtually identical charges against him a year or two ago.
Nonetheless, it appears the Commission ultimately based their findings on Coulter’s own assertions (rather than available evidence to the contrary), “that she maintained a bona fide residence at a property which at all relevant times was owned by her parents.” That, despite the fact that she has notoriously lied in the past concerning other charges of voter fraud and voter registration fraud against her in Florida in 2005, and despite documented hard evidence showing that Connecticut’s findings as issued today were in error.
According to the Commission’s findings, Coulter “maintained an apartment in New York City at the time of the November 5, 2002 general election and … she owned a condominium in New York City at the time of the November 2, 2004 general election.” However, she told them, “her residences in New York City, even the one that she purchased in 2003 and appears to own to this day, were secured by necessity and…she had no personal and/or permanent connection to them like she had to the residence in New Canaan.”
But that’s not what she stated publicly when facing voter fraud charges in Florida.
Moreover, the document notes that Coulter’s parents have since died, and her childhood home in Connecticut “is held in a trust administered by a relative.” In short, she never moved back to Connecticut after moving out of her parents home decades ago.
However, Coulter’s own admissions, voting record, and even tax records in the state of Florida would suggest that she simply lied to the CT investigators to evade the rule of law. Again.
Evidence shows Coulter lied to and/or mislead investigators
Among the body of evidence contradicting the claims by the Commission, many of them apparently offered to them by Coulter herself, would be the following…
Voting Registration Record
The Commission notes while Coulter “first registered as a voter at the address in New Canaan…on or about January 8, 1980. The evidence also shows that she maintained this registration for over twenty-six (26) years until on or about August 17, 2006 when she submitted a request in writing to the New Canaan Registrar’s Office that she be removed. The investigation revealed no indication that she registered and/or voted in any other place during that time period. The evidence also shows that after the aforementioned date, the Respondent registered to vote in the State of Florida and has since remained registered there.” [emphasis ours].
That information is flat out wrong.
As we documented during our years-long investigation of the felony voter registration fraud and misdemeanor voter fraud Coulter carried out in Florida in 2005 and 2006 (an index of our many reports on the entire affair is located here: BradBlog.com/CoulterFraud), she registered to vote in Florida prior to the August 17, 2006 — contrary to the “Findings” of the state of Connecticut.
Her voter registration in Florida was signed on June 15, 2005 and was received by the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections office on June 23, 2005, as seen below…
She not only registered in Florida in 2005, fraudulently using the address of her realtor on her form (without the realtor’s knowledge) at 999 Indian Rd. instead of her own home address at 242 Seabreeze Ave., (as then publicly available at the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s website), she also knowingly voted at the wrong precinct in February of 2006, as attested to in the following document from then Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson…
Despite the evidence posted above — which has been published multiple times over the years at The BRAD BLOG — the Connecticut Commission’s findings say their “investigation revealed no indication that she registered and/or voted in any other place” prior to “August 17, 2006 when she submitted a request in writing to the New Canaan Registrar’s Office that she be removed” from the voter rolls in that state.
That investigators were unable to find the information provided above is disturbing, and casts a cloud over the entirety of their investigation.
If Coulter agreed with the Commission’s findings, or led them to believe that she hadn’t voted elsewhere until after August of 2006 in Florida, then she lied to them, as the record above shows.
On air admissions
After news of Coulter’s voter fraud in Florida broke, she lied to the media about it, claiming that she didn’t even live in Florida, she actually lived in New York (as opposed to Connecticut). In fact she did both live and vote in Palm Beach County, Florida as shown above.
Nonetheless, during the one known instance in 2006 when she was directly asked about the Florida charges on Fox “News” where she is a contracted contributor, she simply lied.
“I think the syphilis has gone to their brains,” Coulter told Fox host Alan Colmes when he asked about the allegations 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 incriminatingly lied in response. “This is all false, I’m telling you,” she said.
But as we documented in no uncertain terms, it wasn’t “all false.” None of it was. Coulter did knowingly vote in the wrong district after knowingly registering at the wrong residence in Palm Beach County. The testimony of the poll worker who witnessed it, and confirmation from the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections was published by The BRAD BLOG on May 10, 2006.
This record — all clearly documented here for years — was apparently not even reviewed by Connecticut investigators. We also sent the above information, concerning her claim to be living in New York, to the Commission again just last week.
Furthermore…
Tax Records
If Coulter did “live in New York” in her $1.5 million condo, as she claimed, rather than in the $1.3 million Florida homestead she purchased in March of 2005 when she illegally registered to vote there, she would not have been entitled to the $25,000 Homestead Tax Exemption she enjoyed in the Sunshine State that year and in years subsequent to it, according to Palm Beach County Appraiser records at the time.
As The BRAD BLOG detailed in June of 2006, Coulter had been taking that $25,000 exemption on her property even though the Florida homestead law requirements state [emphasis ours]:
The exemption requirements also state that “A copy of your deed and proof of residency is required” in order to receive the exemption.
If she didn’t live in Florida, but rather lived in New York City, then it would appear that she broke Florida law again by taking that tax exemption — in addition to the laws she broke during her voter fraud spree there.
If she lived in New York at the time, as she claimed to the media, then she would have broken the law in Connecticut by voting there absentee, since her parents home was clearly not her “bona fide residence” as she then owned her condo in NY and her mansion in FL.
The above information, concerning Coulter’s claims of living in New York while actually having permanent residence in Florida, just after voting in Connecticut was given to the State Elections Enforcement Commission. It would seem that as part of their inexplicably long 20-month investigation — (previous cases had been handled in an average of two or three months, though a SEEC spokesperson told us their case load had grown over the years, so investigations were taking longer) — to determine whether Coulter voted illegally or not in 2002 and 2004, they didn’t bother to review reams of already-available public documents casting doubts on her claims.
Why any of it matters
As the complainant Daniel Borchers told us last week, when we announced that Coulter’s case was finally coming up for a vote before the SEEC, “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.”
Indeed she “flaunted” the rule of law in Florida where superstar, former Bush Administration GOP attorneys, an inappropriate intervention from a former boyfriend in the FBI, lies and obfuscations, months of refusal to respond to officials, and friendly Republican law enforcement agencies eventually helped Coulter to run out the statute of limitations on her voter fraud and voter registration fraud charges there. [We told the entire FL story in a feature article published by Hustler after all was said and done as posted here.]
In Connecticut, there is no such statute of limitations for such charges before the State Election Enforcement Commission. But she may have managed to get away with it anyway by buffaloing investigators unless the SEEC reopens the case to review their errors and the evidence we’ve provided here.
“Ann Coulter – that great proponent of the rule of law – has again eluded justice, proving once again that the rich and powerful are held to a different (unaccountable) standard,” Borchers, a Christian conservative (and occasional BRAD BLOG guest blogger) told us today after CT’s findings. “If the Coulters of this world – those Ivy League educated lawyers, newsmakers, and shapers of public opinion – cannot be held accountable for their irresponsible and illegal behavior, then where is the justice for the little man? Who really speaks for him?”
He added, “Justice deferred encourages injustice. Justice denied is no justice at all.”
But far more important than Coulter’s own flaunting of the law, Republicans have, for years, been using baseless charges of “voter fraud” against Democrats in order to keep voters from voting via inappropriate challenges at the polling place and disenfranchising photo ID restrictions meant to do little more than keep minority, elderly and student (read: Democratic-leaning) voters from being able to cast their vote at all.
In fact, Coulter’s employer Fox “News”, in their regular election season disinformation campaign featuring breathless, evidence-free reports of “voter fraud” has gone so far as to set up a special VoterFraud@FoxNews.com tip address to allegedly help ferret out dastardly Democrats and their “massive voter fraud” efforts.
That campaign, of course, formed the basis for the infamous (and fake) ACORN “Pimp” Hoax carried out by Rightwing scammers and dirty-tricksters James O’Keefe and his dissembling employer Andrew Breitbart. The scheme was meant to put ACORN out of business for having the temerity to legally register millions of low- and middle-income Americans to legally participate in their own democracy.
Though ACORN is now largely gone after four-decades of anti-poverty, pro-democracy work, thanks to the O’Keefe/Breitbart scam, the Right is still working themselves into a phony lather over imaginary “voter fraud” by Democrats again this year, as seen recently in Houston and elsewhere of late as the mid-term election grows near.
While the GOP campaign has succeeded in sending a tiny handful of folks to jail over the last decade, several for far lesser crimes than Coulter’s, all the while, Fox has virtually ignored her repeated acts of violating voting laws in several states. They’ve also ignored well-documented evidence of voter fraud and voter registration fraud schemes by other Republicans and far larger schemes of election fraud by Republican officials.
“Coulter’s Connecticut voter fraud case was breaking news in February, 2009. To date, her case was never mentioned on the Fox News Channel, despite Coulter’s frequent guest appearances on that network,” Borchers noted today via email. “Indeed, after the news broke that the case might be resolved in October, 2010, Coulter appeared on five Fox shows in eight days. Not a single host queried their guest about the her case.”
“Obviously, this ‘fair and balanced’ cable network pursues the rule of law in general, and voter fraud in particular, from a highly partisan perspective. Conservative icons and prima donnas like Coulter can do no wrong in their eyes.”
Borchers quotes author Charlie Savage who observed, in his book Takeover, “The rule of law is the enemy of the powerful” and notes that “While a pundit on MSNBC in 1996-97, Coulter zealously espoused the same sentiment. On 9/26/97, Coulter exclaimed, ‘This is such a great issue. This is very important, how our society treats the rich and powerful – other than Al Gore and Bill Clinton, we know how they get treated: they can commit felonies and get away with it. But not everybody can! It’s not anarchy yet! We are still a nation of laws.'”
“Apparently no longer,” added Borchers.
• The complete five-page 10/14/10 “Findings and Conclusions” from the Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission is now posted here.
I KNEW the skank wouldn’t see the first minute of justice. Other people do the same thing and get time, she doesn’t. So much for JUSTICE. I’m annoyed as all get out that some people in this country are so much more “equal” than others of us, but I’m not surprised for a heartbeat. Those who have the gold make the rules. Everyone else can just get screwed.
Failed again did ya? Have you clowns EVER proved any of your MORONIC allegations?
Well the commission got it half right. They couldn’t make a “fair” determination. It took them 20 months to figure a way to squirm out of their duty to recommend prosecution, and this is the best they could come up with?
Of course, as can be expected, we’ll now get our share of wing-nuts who’ll claim, as our Beefeater has, that the failure of a commission to perform its legally mandated duty is “proof” of Coulter’s innocence–documentation to the contrary be damned!
Can you say “Government Plant/spy/provocateur”
Someone employed to encourage or provoke citizens into doing something illegal so they can be arrested or discredited.
Listen to what this bitch gets away with while people who speak truth go down in flames. Helen Thomas comes to mind. Maybe if I’m lucky IT will try her luck with that one.
Hello Brad,
Just like WJM52 said about “equal”. Think “Animal Farm” as the times to which we exist.
Republicans are above all laws. Ever since 2000, when obscenely wealthy ‘activists’ stormed the vote counting room in FL and used terrorism to directly change the outcome of the Presidential election – and got away with it, followed by Bush’s 8 years of daily gross violations of Federal Law and the US Constitution have set the new standard: there is no law that any Republican will ever be held accountable to.
No matter how high the crime, no Republican will ever be brought to justice.
Vitter hires prostitutes after spending years pontificating on ‘Traditional Family Values’ and not only is he NOT prosecuted, he even gets a standing ovation from the Senate for successfully getting away flagrantly breaking the law!
George Bush and Dick Cheney brazenly and openly lie to the American People in order to start two wars of choice on the brown people of the Middle East for the sole purpose of transferring wealth from the poor and middle class to the already obscenely wealthy, and not only do the get of scott-free for that most heinous violation of the US Constitution, but they get re-elected AND their intentional fiscal crimes get successfully transferred to the moderate Republican successor President Obama!
So I am not surprised in the least that the State of Connecticut was not allowed to indict Coulter for her unabashed voter fraud.
The Republicans scream all day long about the non-existant voter fraud of outfits like ACORN, but when actual, real-live, brazen voter fraud is perpetrated out in the open by a Republican – nothing.
Being a Republican means not being accountable to the US Constitution and the Laws of the Land.
For cases involving voting in wrong jurisdiction or voting twice, here are some cases to look at (incomplete and nonomprehensive list) below. Case decisionsn for the SEEC are available at:
http://www.ct.gov/seec/cwp/view.asp?a=3556&q=431782
Note there are many missing numbers even in past years – not clear what happened to those cases.
 File No. 2009 -014 Voter allegedly voted in both Mansfield and in New Haven in 11/4/2008 prez election.
File No. 2010-005 – Bridgewater voter took job out of state and voted at home where wife and family still lived
File No. 2010-009 – Ridgefield voter tried to vote twice and was registered in two towns.
File No. 2010-090 – voter voted twice
And here’s a link to another SEEC decision story in which the voter lived in two places and had strong familial ties to a house so got off the hook:
http://northhaven.ctcitizens.com/story/seec-finds-out-town-voter
It’s well worth looking at how this agency does and does not function — many states do not have such a commission. The question is, when a state does have one, how well does it function on substantive issues?
Friedman is a typical frizzyhaired ass. He ignores voter fraud on the left (eg the New Black Panther intimidation) but goes after one voter, wasting taxpayer dollars
The SEEC did the right thing in this case.
You say it’s a shame that Daniel Jarvis Brown didn’t have attorneys smart enough to help him make the same claims that Ann Coulter made when he agreed to settle virtually identical charges against him a year or two ago. Actually he probably had attorneys smart enough NOT to even try, because the facts of his case were COMPLETELY different than those alleged against Ann Coulter.
AND by the way he works for Duval & Stachenfeld, an NYC law firm with more than 50 lawyers.
Did you read the SEEC file on Brown? Brown’s 2008 application to Southbury CT for an absentee ballot inexplicably listed his voting address as 101 West 24th Street, NY, NY. In response to a canvass letter sent by the Southbury registrar of voters Brown returned a voter registration card listing his residence as being Southbury. When the registrar sent a confirmation letter to Brown at the Southbury address he had listed, the USPS returned it to the local registrar with the message “Daniel Jarvis Brown Moved Left No forwarding Address”. The SEEC investigation reports that the registrar made sveral further attempts to contact Brown at the Southbury address he had used and that all were returned to the registrar by the USPS.
The address Brown used in October 2008 HAD BEEN his family home but his mother had sold the house in July 2008 and had moved to Arkansas in December 2007.
When the SEEC investigator sent the complaint to Brown’s Southbury address, via certified mail, it too came back “Not deliverable as addressed Unable to Forward”.
The SEEC investigation revealed that Joseph Costa and Katherine Moore had purchased Brown’s mother’s house in July 2008 (three months before Braown claimed it as being his residence) and that Costa and Moore lived at the Southbury address that Brown had used. Costa told the investigators that he had never heard of Daniel Jarvis Brown.
So smart attorneys could not and would not have made the claim that Brown had a “bona fide residence” at a home where the actual owners and residents didn’t even know him and where the USPS did not deliver mail to him.
Ann Coulter’s parents had not sold the family home that she used as a voting residence for 26 years.
Had the complaint against Ann Coulter been filed while her parents were still living, the SEEC could have asked them about their daughter’s presence (or absence) and about her “significant, legitmate and continuing attachments” to New Canaan. And it could have determined whether the USPS delivered mail to her in New Canaan in 2002 and 2004. However, because the complaint was filed so long after the relevant events, those investigatory trails were foreclosed.
In Complaint of McLaughlin (SEEC File No. 2003-116) the SEEC stated that,
“when an individual resides in more than one place he or she can determine which residence to use as a voting residence AND THAT CHOICE IS NOT DICTATED by the INDIVIDUAL’S DOMINANT RESIDENCE OR DOMICILE”
As the decision released yesterday affirms, Connecticut has long allowed students and nonstudents alike to decide where their voting interests lie (as long as they choose a residence, a bona fide residence)
You mention that Ann Coulter herself stated that she lived in New York. So what! Lots of people have multiple residences
Barbara and Stanly Cohen–who both registered as Democrats in Litchfield Connecticut– also lived in New York (on Beekman Place), and paid New York city and state income taxes there. But in Complaint of Cropsey (File No. 2008-047), the SEEC confirmed the Cohens’ right to CHOOSE Litchfield Connecticut as their voting residence.
The q1uestion was not whether Ann Coulter resided in NYC in 2002 and 2004; the question was whether she ALSO, resided in New Canaan CT in 2002 and 2004, that is, whether she “truly maintained two residences”, in good faith, .
The complaint against Ann Coulter did not allege that she was REGISTERED in two places (so the SEEC was not asked to investigate that). The complaint only alleged that she VOTED by absentee ballot in Connecticut when she lived in New York City (and, implicitly that she did not have a bona fide residence in Connecticut). The time to complain about her registration is way, way too late under Connecticut law.
Obviously “Ms.” Coulter has freinds in low places…….
Liberty and Justice for All! (No Exceptions.)
OT: Mark Kirk Accused Of Hiring ‘Voter Intimidation Specialist’ For Voter Integrity Squad in Chicago
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/15/mark-kirk-accused-of-hiri_n_764190.html
– Tom
@ TomR #12: riiiighttttttt.. if Alexi Giannoulias was doing the same he would be held in high regard for being concerned about voter integrity. BUT, since the Republican is doing it, well damn it must be voter intimidation! Don’t forget we’re talking about a massive Democratic stronghold which is well known for political corruption and election fraud dating back years. Hell, this is the same area which has conveniently “forgotten” to send out absentee ballots by the deadline disenfranchising thousands of likely Republican votes. Kirk is smart to be concerned about dirty tricks.
It’s a little early to commence the excuse/whining party for the elections across the country being “stolen”. Let the GOP wipe the floor with the left first and then start the crying.
Yukonsam @ 9:
I’ll not bother to tit-for-tat you on the other information you offered (and thanks for it), but I must respond to this:
That is just *completely* erroneous. There is no statue of limitations for such a complaint, and the report from the CT State Elections Enforcement Comm., as flawed an inaccurate as it was on several points (as noted in my article above), said nothing about the complaint being “too late under Connecticut law”.
You have, apparently, made that point up outta whole cloth. I’ll hope the same is not true for the other points you offered above it.
TomR @ 12:
Not “OT” (Off topic) at all. In fact, it’s right ON topic! Thanks for the link!
WingnutSteve @ 13 said:
Look, Steve. Since I know you’re a self-professed wingnut, yet have shown some honest concern about elections issues here, I’m happy to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are sincerely concerned, yet fatally disinformed about these matters. So I am happy to help.
For a start “voter integrity” is a tell. The fact that they are worried about “voter integrity”, not election integrity, is an immediate hint that these guys are NOT actually interested in “integrity” at all. The voters are doing fine. Leave them alone.
If you have doubts, read this article, and closely review the chart below that was published with it, detailing ALL of the so-called “voter fraud” cases the Bush DoJ was able to find from 2002 to 2005 with their unprecedented effort to do so:
No. Since there is no evidence of wrong doing of any of the voters the GOP has put a bounty (literally), it will be voter intimidation. Kirk has called these districts — only large, minorities ones — “vulnerable”. To what, Steve?
Evidence for that? We work in real world facts here. So, if you don’t mind, please cite your claim for us and then we can discuss it. Thanks!
Actually Brad, I’m not a wingnut at all until I come to this web site. Anyone even close to the center is a wing nut compared to the people who typically comment here lol!
And please sir, there’s no reason to play dumb to the well documented history of politics in Chicago and the fraud which accompanies it. This man has chosen areas to monitor the election which is a sensible thing to do. I don’t think a handful of translucent pasty white lawyers are going to intimidate people on their own turf. If Alexi Giannoulias is concerned about “intimidation” he is I’m sure welcome to have his own observers. As a matter of fact, I’m quite sure the Chicago machine already has theirs lined up.
WingnutSteve @ various:
You see, this is why we ask for actual EVIDENCE to back up claims around here. Thanks for posting what you consider to be the evidence for your claim made @ 13 that [emphasis added]:
Oddly enough, however, neither of the two links you provided offered any such evidence of anyone having “forgotten” anything.
The most recent of the two article was the USA Today piece which mentioned Illinois only this way:
So, if we are to believe the DoJ, the only thing “a county clerk” in IL has said so far, according to your evidence, is that a “pending court decision delayed the printing of ballots”. Not that he or she “forgot”, “conveniently” or otherwise.
Your other link, about a month older, says nothing about “forgetting” either. AND, like the USA Today article, notes that a number of states have been out of compliance with the new federal law.
For the record, it’s shameful that *anyone* is out of compliance with that law (though in states where they had late primaries, it’s understandable that they couldn’t meet the deadlines, though if they couldn’t, they could have and should have gotten an exemption from DoJ as allowed by the law).
That said, when you simply make shit up here, as you apparently have, you will be called on it. (At least if I happened to notice it and have time to respond to it.)
If you’d *really* like to be concerned about voting in Chicago (and you should), you should be concerned about the fact that they use 100% unverifiable voting machines there. (Machines whose IP is actually owned by a Venezuelan company tied to Hugo Chavez, btw, as we’ve spent YEARS covering here, to little notice from the phonies concerned about “voter integrity”.)
As to your other points in your most recent note @ 17:
The “well documented history of Chicago and the fraud which accompanies it”, I’ll presume, is a reference to insider ballot box stuffing that took place some 50 years ago. As I’m sure you know, sir, that ballot box stuffing was done by election insiders, not by voters. Now, if you have any evidence — any at all will do — of voter fraud committed by anyone in any of the precincts where Kirk has ordered folks to be challenged at the polls, without a shred of evidence of wrongdoing to my knowledge (and, apparently, yours), please share it.
Beyond that, you wrote:’
If you are unaware of the history of voter intimidation in this country, in both decades past and in recent elections (where, for example, courts have had to order GOP goons to back off, time and time again) let me know and we’ll try to give u a few links to catch u up. Go back to just prior to the ’08 election here at The BRAD BLOG (a search for “War on Democracy” and “War on Voting” will find you quite a few) and you’ll find quite a bit of documented information, court cases, findings, actual evidence and orders, etc.
Hope that helps. Seriously, Steve.
Nope Brad. Nothing to see here. The Republican who’s concerned about voting impropriety is obviously just out to intimidate voters. Because he’s a Republican of course. And because the huffpo and Olberman said so.
The term “forgotten” was used with sarcasm. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t forgotten although I have no proof of that either so nothing to that story. It’s a coincidence that it happened in decidedly blue areas to ballots which will go to decidedly red voters. If the shoe was on the other foot I’d imagine bradblog outrage over that but this is all small stuff.
So what’s happening with the Ann Coulter case anyway?
I didn’t make anything up except to use the word forgotten sarcastically and in parenthesis. If Utah or Montana or some other red state had done the same thing that Illinois, New York, and New Mexico has done, with the potential to effect one vote, you’d be raising bloody hell about it.
WingnutSteve @ 19 & 20:
Look, I appreciate that the society in which we currently live has pushed you, like far too many, to frame *everything* in terms of Right/Left Red/Blue Dem/Rep Lib/Con. But if you go back and read my response to you, I condemn *any* jurisdiction who has failed to meet the 45 day requirement for Military and Overseas voters vis a vis the MOVE Act. It’s a Right/Wrong issue, not a Right/Left issue. Period.
That said, quoting from both of ur most recent comments…
In other words, you made it up, as it was based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever. In fact, you don’t even know if any of the jurisdictions involved are Democratic leaning, since neither of the two articles you used here to support your argument mentioned which counties had violated MOVE or were being investigated for violating MOVE.
None the less, you go on to say…
Again, read my first graf above. I appreciate what this world has done to you. See if you can fight it off. It ain’t good for you or the world. Fact is, had you been around here longer, you’d have known that I’ve beaten the hell out of various parts of IL for their voting systems, including Left-leaning Cook County (Chicago) and Far-Right-leaning Kane County as both of them force their voters to use 100% unverifiable voting systems (and Cook forces them to use the systems where the IP is owned by the Venezuelan company tied to Chavez).
While you suggest IL counties conveniently “forgot” to send ballots to overseas and military voters in time for the 45 day MOVE Act requirement, you neither offer evidence that *any* of them “forgot” (accidentally or on purpose) nor any evidence of which counties you’re talking about. I’ll presume you’ll be equally furious when/if it’s one of the hard-right IL counties that failed to get out ballots in time?
You’d also know how hard I fought for CONSERVATIVE PARTY Candidate Doug Hoffman up in NY-23’s Special Election last year in REPUBLICAN upstate NY when he got screwed by NY’s new e-voting system. You’d also know how critical we’ve been over the years about New Mexico and their various election DISASTERS year after year after year!
No, because he has offered absolutely NO evidence for the charges he is making and is following the precise playbook for which the RNC was forced to sign a consent decree three decades ago and which was re-affirmed by a court last December concerning voter intimidation at the polls! I have actual EVIDENCE for my claim. Do you (or Kirk) have any for his? Please share it if so. If not, it’s about intimidation, not integrity.
No idea what either had to say about it. Sorry.
Then don’t tell it or sell it here, please. Thanks!
You have shown neither that it “happened in decidely blue areas”, nor that the ballots were to go to “decidely red voters”. If you fail to, don’t be surprised that I charge you with “making shit up”.
Imagine all you like. Or, work from the actual EVIDENCE that is offered here. Makes much more sense than “imagin[ing]” anything. It’s also better for your country and mine. Thanks.
And, btw, I see that “red” states AZ and WV, among others, are using Internet Voting for Military and Overseas Voters in pilot programs this year, as TIME Mag notes tonight.
If so, it’s appalling (see what happened in D.C.). And yes, it’s appalling DESPITE the fact that AZ is believed to be a “red” state and that you think the Military voters there are “red” voters. Same for WV. That these states are allowing their military to vote on such easily hacked, 100% untransparent systems is a blight on democracy. Period.
(You may also wish to look up my years long *extremely critical* coverage of AZ’s Dem AG Terry Goddard for his election-related failures. Goddard is currently running against Jan Brewer for Gov there. I’m quite sure the number of words I’ve used disdaining his work there equals and likely exceeds the number of words I’ve used for their horrible former SoS turned horrible Gov Brewer.)
You starting to understand how this Election Integrity thing works yet, amigo?
Dear Mr. WingNutSteve,
I’ve been visiting Bradblog here for about 5 or 6 years. I’ve read most, if not all, of those articles Brad just referred you to.
So I know he’s telling you the truth. On elections matters, he’s been fighting for election integrity PERIOD. He’s not championing the left, right, center, or your mother’s girdle. He’s championing the core democratic value of the sacredness of our right to vote. He relentlessly pursues the truth in these matters, wherever it goes. If you care about honest elections, he is very much acting in your behalf AND my behalf. And unless I am very much mistaken, those are two very different behalves.
Yet, I have seen, time again, commenters pop in, as you have done, and accuse him(and his commenters in the wings)of being highly partisan, misinformed, and/or crazy. To do this you have to ignore or not know of the years of excellent reporting he’s done.
What are you doing? It seems you come in loaded for bear with a bunch of preconceived notions and a lot of anger.
I can relate to the anger. I’m really pissed, too. But I’d ask that you take some time and do a little more homework about who Brad is and what he’s been writing.
A lot of interestig shit goes on here.
WingNutSteve wrote:
You know the one thing I love about Republicans? It’s that they telegraph their own shameless and criminal behavior for us whenever they project it onto Democrats:
“These are lawyers and other people that will be deployed in key, vulnerable precincts, for example, South and West sides of Chicago, Rockford, Metro East, where the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat,” Kirk says on the tape.
Now we know Republicans feel they can “jigger the numbers” in close elections. Thanks for the tell Kirk.
Yeah, why try to stop wrongdoing BEFORE it happens? It’s always better to wait until after, when it’s too late to do anything about it.
Whew! That’s a relief. Somehow I was worried that Republicans were capable of getting eligible citizens purged from the voter rolls and challenging legitimate voters at the polls, thereby suppressing their vote:
http://player.vimeo.com/video/15136101
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/330/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDcMPyVt6eo
Thanks for setting us straight with your unfounded assertions. If you’re close to the center, I’d hate to see what a proud right-winger is capable of spewing.
– Tom
Yukonsam @9, Brad Friedman @ 14
Perhaps you are correct that in Connecticut, there is no express statute of limitations barring administrative action by the SEEC, but the SEEC has acted as though it is bound by the criminal limitations..
A study of the file of James Cropsey’s complaint against New York City Democrats Stanley and Barbara Cohen is instructive. The Cohens were weekenders from New York City, who had owned a two-bedroom house on 8 acres of land in Litchfield, Connecticut since 1981 and who had registered to vote n Litchfield in 1984 (and consistently voted there ever since). Adjacent to their land was 185 acres owned by the Cropseys since God-knows-when. Although James Cropsey lived in New Hampshire he begrudged the “newcomers†from New York complaining about a noisy gun club on his family property. See “Potshots Over a Rural Gun Club†in the “Connecticut Regionâ€section of the New York Times, from Sunday, April 20, 2008.
So he filed a “voter fraud complaint†with the SEEC alleging that for the past five years “and before“, the Cohens had voted in federal elections in Litchfield even though they lived and worked “full time†in New York City.
The SEEC’s decision, exonerating the Cohens (File No. 2008-047) discussed only the national and local elections of 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 (five years), not the 25 elections in Litchfield that the Cohens had voted in from 1984 through 2008). See 11 of the decision.
Paragraph 21 of the decision also supports my beleif that the SEEC considers itself limited in time. It states,
At the very least, the commission declined to take up Cropsey’s open-ended complaint of a registration violation where the [criminal] statute of limitations had LONG since expired. Maybe it would have taken up Cropsey’s complaint to a time “little bit†longer ago than the criminal statute of limitations, but the rest of the decision does not suggest that the commission is inclined to do so. Maybe if the Cohens had been “as guilty as sin†the SEEC would have fined them for twenty-four years. Maybe if the Cohens had voted in both New York City and in Litchfield elections for twenty-four years in a row, it would have asserted the jurisdiction you suggest that it has, but I am unaware of any case where the commission has expressed any such desire to, in fact, reach further backwards in time than the applicable criminal statute of limitation in order to do justice.
I admit I do not know the answer. But can you provide an example of a case where it has gone back and imposed civil penalties for a violation of election law where the applicable criminal statute has expired? Do you have a letter from an SEEC attorney or itrs executive director agreeing with your view?
If you are familiar with the commission’s body of decisions (concerning the powerful as well as the average person) merely being registered in two places at the same time does not automatically upset the commission. As long as the respondent,
(1) did not vote twice; and
(2) has at least a plausible explanation for her oversight and
(3) corrects the situation when it is brought to her attention,
the commission ususaly just “moves on”.That is not to say the commission approves of dual registration, just that it is forgiving of inadvertent mistakes or voter thoughtlessness.
So let me revise my statements:
First, NOTHING in Mr. Borchers’ complaint alleged that Ms. Coulter had violated any law concerning registration; it alleged only illegal voting by absentee ballot in two discrete elections.
Second, if, when she registered in Florida, she intentionally withheld information from the registrar there, then any “crime†or violation was in Florida not in Connecticut. She registered in Connecticut in 1980, 30 years ago (and no one claims her statements to the New Canaan registrars were untrue in 1980).
Third, since (a) she herself had her name removed from the New Canaan voter list in 2006 (within a year after registering in Florida) and (b) did not vote in Connecticut after 2004, I cannot imagine the SEEC imposing any civil penalty about the one-year overlap.
Since the commission essentially found her “not guilty†(i.e, “insufficient informationâ€) of illegally voting in 2002 and 2004, the most recent act of false statement one could try to allege would be in her application for the absentee ballot in 2004 (violation of § 9-359a (which is discussed in ¶ 4 of the SEEC’s decision)).
As that section states, imposition of a civil penalty would require factual findings that (a) she did not believe her statements were true and (b) she intended to mislead the election official. As 9-359a(b) states false statement is a class D felony. The statute of limitations for a Class D felony is five years (§ 54-193(b)). Any alleged “false statement†would have taken place six (6) years ago (and that criminal statute of limitations has, indeed, long since expired).
So based upon my experience I stand by the statements that, at least practically, it is way too late to complain to the SEEC about any “false statement†Ann Coulter made (conceding that you may be correct that there is no EXPRESS statute of limitation restricting the SEEC’s exercise of civil, administrative authority).
“outta whole cloth”? Not really (and certainly not made to mislead anyone
YukonSam @ 25:
Thanks for your detailed analysis. (Though feel free to hit ENTER between grafs to make ’em easier to read in the future!)
We’ll find out if Coulter mislead officials or not during this investigation. I’ve got some questions into the SEEC and they’ve promised to respond next week.
In the meantime, only one point, again, to rebut(ish) in your comments. You mentioned:
Even if we presume you’re correct that a criminal sanction could not take place due to statue of limitations, if that’s true, and if it’s the five years you say, the complaint against Coulter was filed in Feb. of 2009. Her last known vote in CT (via her NY abode) was November of 2004. So the complaint WOULD have been made inside that 5 year statute of limitation.
It then took some 20 months for the SEEC to come to their findings. Don’t know if — as she was able to get away with it in FL — the time taken during the investigation itself runs out the clock, or if the statute of limitations is measured from the time of the complaint itself.
In any case, I’ll try to see what I can learn from the CT officials on that next week.
Independents never stray to the left and they certainly don’t quote Think Progress all the time. This has always been a center-right country and three states come to mind:
California, Illinois (my state), and Michigan.
California and Illinois are plagued with liberals and they are the brokest and saddest states in the union. Indiana is right over the border and many of us shop there for lower taxes, etc. Indiana has their economic house in order and are basically run by Republicans and independents.
The state went for Bush in 2004 and for Obama in 2008. So it is an independent place.
Kirk and Brady will win. Not because of voter or election fraud, but because we are absolutely sick of liberals.