Yet another illustration of the voter fraud that is actually happening (as opposed to the fiction that Scott Brown and right wing promote with their Voter ID scam) is reported on the front page of the Metro section in this morning’s Globe:
The district attorney in Hampden County is investigating whether a Republican candidate for state representative orchestrated an illegal scheme to cast absentee ballots on behalf of hundreds of voters in hope of winning a primary election.
State election officials were tipped off to the potential voter fraud when a suspiciously large number of residents of the Springfield suburb of East Longmeadow suddenly changed party registration from Democrat to independent, making them eligible to vote in the upcoming Republican primary.
When contacted, several of the voters said they had not changed party affiliations, raising concern that someone had switched their party in an attempt to cast fraudulent absentee ballots on their behalf.
Lest anyone fear that this is some sort of Democratic Party witch-hunt, the facts in the case seem reasonably clear (emphasis mine):
Angelides detected the possible fraud while gathering information from the town clerk’s office about Republicans who requested absentee ballots for the Sept. 6 primary. When campaign workers began calling the voters, they discovered that the residents had not requested absentee ballots and were not even Republicans.
The Angelides campaign workers had expected about 50 requests for Republican absentee ballots, but they found about 450 requests, according to Spencer H. Kimball, Angelides’s attorney. The absentee ballot requests were not scattered either, but were concentrated on certain streets and in certain neighborhoods. Also, many of the voters were age 60 or older.
Finally, in a stunning display of incompetence that seems to be the hallmark of everything the Massachusetts GOP attempts, the final tip-off was the identity of those requesting absentee (Republican) ballots:
“We recognized there may be a problem,” [Kimball] said since some of those listed as requesting Republican absentee ballots were “hard-core Democrats, including members of the Town Democratic Committee and a retired judge.”
At that point, Kimball contacted Secretary of State Galvin’s office. “Something was really wrong,” he said.
“Something was really wrong” — indeed. Something is really wrong with the entire Massachusetts GOP.
Sadly, this episode exemplifies the truth about Massachusetts voter fraud — and the GOP’s role in it.
Discuss
46 Comments . Leave a comment below.Crazy!
because this guy is a (contract) employee. Or something is wrong with people from E. Longmeadow. Or people named Enrique.
He’s not even the GOP nominee.
Should I use this whack job to tar the MA Demcorats? You might recall her from 2010. She’s a “LaRouche Democrat”
http://rachelbrown.net/
I’m simply observing that, as in virtually ALL cases of voter fraud, the deception was on the part of the candidate/campaign, not the voters. While the GOP is beating the drums of bigotry in its relentless voter ID charade, the real fraud continues.
The truth is that “voter ID” is a ruse for denying minority votes. While Scott Brown is attempting to scourge Elizabeth Warren because the state chose to obey the 1993 voter act, a GOP candidate was being investigated for fraud.
But if you think adding welfare people to the rolls is about fraud then who am I to contradict you.
We were talking about some loser in E Longmeadow. He can say on LinkedIn that he was a Senior Policy Advisor but he was a kid at the time. He appears to have done nothing political since except lose in 2010.
This story is not at all about Voter ID, or about the MA GOP, but assuming it’s true, it’s about a real dumb attempt to get votes.
I should have said partisan political. He is of course a selectman.
The Scott Brown campaign attacks complain because the state chose to comply with the 1993 law. The complaints mean that the campaign wanted to instead continue disenfranchising voters. The Voter ID mania is about disenfranchising voters. The “voter fraud” argument is a meaningless ruse — the Voter ID scam is no different from poll taxes and literacy tests.
It doesn’t sound like you did much fact-checking before making your caustic comments about “some loser” from your party. Mr. Villamaino was recommended by former State Representative Reed Hilman:
Multiple sources reported that Mr. Villamaino was endorsed for his seat by retiring State Senator Brian Lees in 2006.
Mr. Villamaino may be “some loser”, but if that’s true, it doesn’t speak well for those GOP figures who recommended and endorsed him.
The truth hurts.
and you are just worried they will scoop up liberals on their way to killing all the other groups.
Why don’t you just say it? That’s what you think isn’t it?
Didn’t Obama say we’re not Red & Blue Americans, we’re all Americans?
Not in Tom’s mind. Everyone not of his mindset is wrong, stupid, evil.
The GOP (and Republican voting unenrolleds) are under the direction of a central evil conspiracy. People support it due to their inherent bigotry, or else they’re dupes.
And just so everyone is clear (because this has happened before on this supposed intelligent site) I am being sarcastic.
“Wrong”, “stupid”, and “evil” are your words, not mine. Sarcastic or not, wouldn’t it be easier to just admit that this is a major screw-up and move on? I predict that Mr. Villamaino will announce that this was the action of a rogue subordinate that he knew nothing about. He’s probably telling the truth.
The point is not to skewer Mr. Villamaino too thoroughly, the point is — as I said in the title and thread-starter — that this kind of thing is what constitutes voter fraud, and has nothing to do with voter ID.
Since the disconnect between real voter fraud (like this) and voter ID has been known and documented all along, episodes like this highlight the real motivation for GOP’s emphasis on voter ID.
that produces the hostility of today.
Have you seen the news?
Republicans killed four potential Democrat voters in Dorchester.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/08/14/boston_police_seek_unique_white_suv_seen_fleeing_dorchester_quadruple_shooting/
Your response to this is fascinating.
You’ve been all over the map today. You shot from the hip with things like “something is wrong with people from E. Longmeadow”, “people named Enrique”, “whack job”, and “LaRouche Democrat”. Then, you followed those up with “some loser” and “kid at the time”. After all that failed, you attack ME.
I guess it’s hard to be a Massachusetts Republican.
so you are the subject.
You take one instance of someone who happens to be a Republican and spread it to millions.
I merely did the same thing back. Sorry it took so many posts for you to get it (or maybe you didn’t).
After you accused someone of all these vile things, somehow — unexplained by you — you are ‘being sarcastic.’
Maybe I’m missing some kind of thing here because the internet’s 2d… but, otherwise, your post is unhinged and unfit for BMG.
Please explain your real meaning if you’re being ‘sarcastic’ because I’m not seeing it. Explain.
because many people (clearly not very bright) on this blog in the past want me to explain, cite, or link to what are obviously sarcastic statements. If this does not apply to you, sorry for over explaining.
There are no shortage of people who say crazy things on the internet and mean them. What is “obviously sarcasm” when you post something is rarely ever so obvious to others. That is why emoticons were invented decades ago.
Voter ID not Brown’s rant about not following the bi-partisan 1993 law is what was referenced.
Even allotting for some standard resume puffery, he was working in the most important GOP legislative office in the state- this is certainly not the campaign of some LaRouchian nut job. In his losing 2010 primary race, he was even endorsed by Scott Brown and Richard Tisei and pretty much the entire western mass GOP establishment. Brown even drove out to western mass for one of his fundraisers.
Of course, I’m not saying any of those people are responsible for what happened here. But, it is notable since the GOP has made the non-existent problem of voting fraud and its companion issue of voter ID such a bogeyman to themselves that many repubs, including Scott Brown, seem to view the act of trying registering voters in and of itself a suspicious- which is pathetic and IMHO un-American. Yet, here we have the craziest and biggest instance of attempted voting fraud in recent memory in a repub primary no less- and done in such a way that the faux “solution” the GOP has been screaming about (throwing up more barriers to voting) would have done nothing to catch or prevent.
Not the MA GOP as a whole.
Since there are only FOUR Republicans in the Massachusetts Senate, his seat counts for twenty percent of the GOP Senate voice.
I hope you’re at least willing to admit that we’re not talking about “some loser in E Longmeadow”. The irony is rather spectacular, is it not?
100% of the MA House leadership since 1998 has been indicted.
I should really concentrate on my job anyway. I suppose you have summers off and can lounge around and blog all day.
They’re blind with anger towards the GOP.
?
the “losers” in Somerville? Seriously?
And you haven’t even got your facts right. Our current Speaker of several years now has not been indicted.
I meant to say 100% of the Speakers in the period 1998-2009.
It isn’t too much to say that Enrique John Villamaino III has not yet been implicated, that this incident does sound unusual — unusual for Massachusetts and unusual for the GOP.
That said, there is plenty of evidence that a number of Republican operatives, less upstanding than merimackguy, have been involved in a wide range of voter suppression activities, e.g., the distribution of voting machines in Ohio, the large Jewish vote in Florida 2000 for anti-semite Buchanan, the flyers that appear in Black communities with the wrong date for the election or threatening legal repercussions for voting, the Pennsylvania State Senator crowing about how their new law will put their state in the Romney column, and the ongoing suspicions with respect to Diebold.
It’s not impossible that one of the things I just listed is completely innocent, but my, my, my there have been a lot of them. As for the voter fraud that the GOP nationally has claimed is rampant and about to undermine our democracy is consists of 99 parts rumor and maybe 1 part actual incidents. For example, Pennsylvania has no cases that the Pennslyvania law is meant to counter.
*
I recognize that sheer tribalism, which is natural to all of us, may make it difficult for Republicans to believe that their guys could be so dastardly. In fact, the Watergate burglaries were related to an election too and it took a good long while for Republicans to accept Nixon’s culpability.
While also pointing out that it hasn’t been proven he was part of this scheme (maybe his friend in the clerks office acted alone)- the candidate was a Senior Policy Adviser to the previous two State Senate Minority Leaders and “oversaw the daily operations of the state house office of the senate minority leader and its staff.”
This really is one of the dumbest election dirty tricks in recent memory- it’s bizarre that anyone would think they would get away with this.
Of course he isn’t. Because there isn’t a GOP nominee, because there hasn’t been a primary yet!
did you think he had a shot after losing last time and feeling so good about his chances that he allegedly needed to do this?
more dim witted commentary! (notice my cute exclamation point)
1) You don’t know that he did this. Somebody on his campaign sure did, but we don’t yet know who. (Yes, he probably had something to do with it, but it’s not a sure thing.)
2) Lots of people have lost a primary and come back to win the next time around. People like … hmm, having a hard time thinking of an example. Oh yeah, like Mitt Romney.
3) My original point, dim-witted though you may deem it, is that you can’t distance him easily from the GOP just by saying he’s not the nominee. I might as well write off your opinion and actions by the same measure. You’re not the nominee, so nothing you say should be held as representative of, well, anything. Right?
which is where one always does politicking here in town.
On one occasion he was gathering signatures for a Voter ID ballot measure. I engaged him for a while on the topic, until he begged off because he was trying to gather signatures and I was making the subject unpopular.
On another occasion, he was gathering signatures to get on the ballot. I will ALWAYS sign such petitions, and I signed his. But he didn’t ask me for ID, and I noted that that was strange for him. He didn’t really have a response.
at least they do in my town.
Just sayin’.
on a list and put it in a spreadsheet with clear names and associated addresses. The town clerks told him not to do that because they were required to look at each name and signature.
I think checking ID would be an unreasonable condition on what is already a tiresome process not enjoyed by either the sign gatherers or the person signing. There is currently no requirement that every signature you submit be valid, only that the valid number is above the number required.
You are also required to submit every single signature you gather, even if they are obviously fake, like “Mickey Mouse”. And god help you if you’re a liberal community organization like ACORN and are forced to submit fake signatures that make you look skeezy. Why, you might even be forced out of business for following the law!
because there’s no requirement (or maybe even purpose) to having ID for signing petitions. I was just tweaking on Weaver and found it amusing.
youtube video here. Villamaino says he and Brown “have a history together.” We’re getting the picture.
Virtually MA House Rep “has a history together” with Speaker DiMasi. All part of his criminal conspiracy?
I have pictures of Willy Lantigua with virtually every Democratic politician in MA. When he gets indicted we’ll what people have to say.
Don’t let Republican operatives and their fart-catchers near ballot boxes. That will pretty much eliminate it.
This is yet another reason why we need voter ID!
Please explain how voterID would have changed this in any way.
All the indications are that someone associated with Mr. Villamaino hacked the voter DB — from the article linked in the thread-starter:
How would the presence of voterID change ANYTHING about this apparent fraud?
Oh, really? You are? Says who?
No, you are not. What a silly thing to say.
It’s a silly thing to say? So I should feel free to gather signatures for candidate X, make people think they’ve signed for him, and then pitch them in the trash? I’m pretty sure that sort of thing is election fraud.
No, you shouldn’t do that. If you willfuly destroy or “supress” a petition like this then, yes, you are viloating election law (In Massachusetts that’s covered under MGL Chatper 56; Section 11).
But intent is an element of this crime (as with almost all crimes). If you destroy the nominating petition for purposes of supressing the vote (by making it more difficult for the candidate to be nominated), then this is a crime. If your intent is to avoid submitting false signatures or you destroyed the petition without any intent, then you have committed no crime or, at least, will not be charged.
Imagine, for example, that you collect valid signatures for a candidate. But then you forget or are unable to submit them on time. Or maybe you lose the completed sheets or they are accidently destroyed (left them in the rain? a fire?). Maybe you or someone else put mistakingly put “extraneous markings” on the sheet (which is invalidates all the signatures). Have you committed election fraud? I think not.
Now what if your very first signature on a paper is “Mickey Mouse” or someone who signs and then says “wait a minute, actually I’m not a registered voter in this District, I didn’t understand that was required” Certainly you could (and should!) destroy that petition paper.
It’s simply silly to suggest that election fraud laws are so poorly written and so rigidly enforced as to require one to submit signatures that one has reasonable cause to belive are false. They are not.
All papers should be turned in for the sake of the valid signatures that are on them. Let the clerks weed out the bad ones.
that the candidate in question was my student. He worked as a staffer for Brian Lees and was hired during the Republican tenure at the MBTA.
He has my personal support, if not my political support.
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