vote today ohio – Page 3 – Warren Throckmorton

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.

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…

Vote Today Ohio out of state leaders register in Ohio

Democrats have been downplaying Republican concerns about voter fraud but it appears that there are at least some reasons for their worries. Yesterday, Vote from Home folded operations in Ohio because it was learned that some of their members had indeed voter incorrectly. Their votes were disallowed. Some Obama workers have withdrawn their votes as well.
Another effort to organize voters is Vote Today Ohio. Co-founded by Tate Hausman, a political organizer and member of the Working Families Party in New York, Vote Today Ohio says that the group exists to bring unlikely voters into the polls and boasts that they are responsible for at least 3300 votes.
Watch this report from Palestra.net for the background.
The organization’s Facebook group page has this description:

Progressives from Ohio and all over the USA are banding together to turn out new and unlikely voters during Ohio’s Early Vote Period (up until Nov 3). Early votes are smarter and easier to cast, and they can’t be lost to long lines, broken machines, or GOP tampering on Election Day.

The window of opportunity is referred to as Golden Week:

What’s this “Golden Week?”
Ohio recently changed its voting laws in a way that creates an extraordinary opportunity for Democrats to win Ohio, and thus win the election. For a 7 day window, from Sept 30 – Oct 6, Ohio residents can register and vote early in all of Ohio’s 88 counties. That means we don’t need to spend double the time and energy registering folks, and then turning them out to vote a month later. During the Golden Week, it all happens in one fell swoop — so our energy and money works doubletime.

As far as I can tell, no one leading VTO is from Ohio or intends to remain in Ohio. The leaders listed on the Facebook group with their location are Tate Hausman, Amy Little (Poughkeepsie, NY), Billy Wimsatt (New York, NY), Pam Kapoor (Ottawa, ON), Yolanda Hippensteele (East Bay, CA). Ms. Little was the campaign manager for progressive democrat John Hall’s successful campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006.
Tate Hausman made it clear on his blog that he was going to Ohio, not to become a resident but to organize for Obama. And his blog makes it clear that he resides in New York City where he recently had a meet and greet for another Working Families Party member, Daniel Squadron.
He announced his new Vote Today Project project on September 11, 2008.

In my never-ending quest to make our government more progressive, I’ve gotten myself mixed up in an exciting new campaign. Actually, I’m running it.

He notes the transient nature of the effort.

(Note: This is going to be a super-intense campaign, without much time to blog, much less eat or sleep. Forgive me if I go radio silent for a while.)

As noted above, Mr. Hausman is a member of the Working Families Party. Like the New Party before it, the WFP seeks to encourage fusion voting, meaning allowing a candidate to represent more than one party. The political strategy of the Working Families Party also reprises the New Party via electing far left Democrats to replace centrists. Mr. Hausman describes the method:

My friends at the Working Families Party have chosen Daniel as one of their top races this year, because he could be a poster child for the WFP’s strategy of replacing “bad” Democrats (centrist, corporate, do-nothings) with “good” Democrats (progressive, responsive, high integrity).

While organizing here, at least three of the VTO people have registered to vote according to the Franklin County Board of Elections website. There registrations are here. As you will see, they have received absentee ballots to the 1979 N 4th street address.
Ms. Little’s registration is posted as an example. The other two are here (Hausman) and (Hippensteele).

I am not aware if there has been any official investigation into these registrations and I do not know if these individuals have actually voted. It does not appear that Mr. Hausman and Ms. Little intend to remain in Ohio and they reside in New York. I do not know what Ms. Hippensteele’s intentions are regarding the Buckeye state.
The broader concern is the potential for abuse. The reporting of Palestra.net (kudos to Tiffany Wilson and crew who have been all over this story) raises serious concerns about the integrity of the election in Ohio.