Category: politics

Advisor to New York Rep. John Hall registered to vote in Ohio

UPDATE: Below I referred to a letter sent to about 150 people with questionable residency. Here is that letter.
I suppose this might be the fourth dot. The Franklin County Board of Elections confirmed tonight that Ms. Little did cast a vote In Ohio by absentee ballot.
There are three dots to connect in this post.
Dot one – Amy Little, former campaign manager for Rep. John Hall (D-NY) and current advisor, resides in New Paltz, New York (this is near Poughkeepsie).
Dot two – Ms. Little is in Columbus, Ohio (1979 N. Fourth Street to be exact) co-organizing Vote Today Ohio, a pro-Obama get out the vote group.
Dot three – Ms. Little registered to vote in Ohio even though she is a resident of New Paltz, NY.
Currently, Prosecutor Ron O’Brien and the Franklin County Board of Elections are investigating about 150 people with questionable residency who registered to vote in Franklin County. Michael Stinziano, Director of the Franklin County Board, told me:

It is public knowledge that the Franklin County Board of Elections is investigating all allegations submitted to either our office or the Prosecutor’s office and as part of that, consideration of what the allegation alleges. At this time, I cannot state whether the investigation is voter fraud, registration fraud or something additional.

No telling how widespread this is. Vote Today Ohio and similar groups are in major Ohio cities and at large state universities. I have reported on this before. Obamatravel.org helps fund people to make these trips. Here is the mission of Obamatravel.org:

Welcome to OBAMAtravel.org. This site is designed to help volunteers from non-swing states get to crucial swing states by connecting them with the resources they need.

If these volunteers come to get out the vote, that is organizing. If they come to vote, that would be considered improper. Clearly, it disrupts the election to have people from a state the Obama campaign deems safe come to a swing state and vote there.

Franklin County (OH) pulls out of state ballots for review

I talked this morning with Carolyn Gorup at the Franklin County Board of Elections in Columbus, Ohio. She noted that 200 absentee ballots have been pulled for review. Some of these were due to inability to verify the address. Others, however, were due to concerns about out-of-state voters entering Ohio to vote. The Vote Today Ohio group is one that was specifically identified.
Ms. Gorup indicated that the BOE is very serious about maintaining the integrity of the election and are actively researching leads about improper out-of-state voters. Information can be emailed to the Franklin County Board of Elections at boe (at) vote.franklincountyohio.gov.

Franklin County (OH) removes voter registration information from website

UPDATE: The website is back up. The BOE says there are about 200 absentee ballots they are examining at this moment. The reason the information was removed was due to some concerns that peace officers had about their information being available to the public – an legal reason to shield that information. In the effort to remove several addresses, all were removed temporarily.
On Saturday, I posted about Vote Today Ohio leaders who live out of state but registered to vote in Franklin County, Ohio.
However, if you go now to the Franklin County website to look up registration information you will find that the address and other poling location information associated with registrants have been removed.
redacted Ohio
All addresses and absentee ballot information have been redacted for all voters. The statute 149.43 is Ohio’s public records law. This statute provides exceptions to the release of public records. Someone must have complained about the addresses being online although I can find nothing in the statute that would exempt voter registrations.
As a follow up, here are the funding sources of Vote Today Ohio.
You have to wonder how widespread the practice of Obama supporters from safe states heading to swing states is. There is a website that encourages people to make just these kinds of moves called Obamatravel.org. The page says it is not directly supported by the Obama campaign.
UPDATE: I should have known Palestra.net would have more on the out-of-staters.
No doubt, more to come…