While the big clunking bat of the Justice department and FBI are being aimed by a Republican administration at a legitimate voter-ed NGO that registers poor, minority (and consequently more likely Democrat) voters – 2 weeks before an election, in breach of political bias rules – it took Canada to actually arrest a Republican for vote fraud:
Ontario police arrest man in voter fraud case
By Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 20, 2008
SACRAMENTO — The owner of a firm that the California Republican Party hired to register tens of thousands of voters this year was arrested in Ontario over the weekend on suspicion of voter registration fraud.
State and local investigators allege that Mark Jacoby fraudulently registered himself to vote at a childhood California address where he no longer lives so he would appear to meet the legal requirement that all signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California. His firm, Young Political Majors, or YPM, collects petition signatures and registers voters in California and other states.
Jacoby’s arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department late Saturday came after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by people employed by YPM. The voters said YPM workers tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters.
The firm was paid $7 to $12 for every Californian it registered as a member of the GOP
Law enforcement and the media are all over ACORN like a rash, with little or no reason other than having been told to do so, yet actual fraud by the party now in power is taking place in clear daylight all over the nation and it’s barely even reported; the news of this arrest was, hidden away in the LA Times Local section.
But hearteningly it’s spreading like wildfire across the interwebs and is top of the paper’s own ‘most viewed’ story list and if you google for YPM you’ll find a host of stories from all over the place about their voterigging activities.
YPM has been accused of using bait-and-switch tactics across the country. Election officials and lawmakers have launched investigations into the activities of YPM workers in Florida and Massachusetts. In Arizona, the firm was recently a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit.
Even in McCain’s home state? Fancy that. YPM’s voter suprresion efforts are widespread:
It all sounds familiar to Beverly Hill, a Democrat and the former election supervisor in Florida’s Alachua County. About 200 voters — mostly college students — were unwittingly registered as Republicans there in 2004 by YPM staffers using the same tactic, Hill said.
“It is just incredible that this can keep happening election after election,” she said.
Isn’t it just. Why, you’d almost think it was planned, wouldn’t you? Typically, even while wriggling on the hook the Republicans try and smear their accusers with the very crime they themselves are accused of:
In a written statement Sunday, the state Republican Party called the charges against Jacoby “politically motivated.” The party said the charges do not support accusations from voters and Democratic officials that YPM has been duping voters into joining the GOP.
The statement accused Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who announced the arrest, of “using her office to play politics.”
Bowen is a Democrat.
