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"The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected.
To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery."
Thomas Paine
It doesn’t matter who casts the ballots.
What matters is who counts the ballots.
Joseph Stalin
Trust, but verify
(Ronald Reagan’s favorite Russian proverb)
Investigation into Trashed Voter Registrations
George Knapp, Investigative Reporter
Federal, state, and local officials are
gathering information about allegations of voter
registration fraud that were first raised Channel 8
Eyewitness News.
An employee of a private voter registration firm
alleges that his bosses trashed registration forms
filled out by Democratic voters because they only
wanted to sign up Republican voters.
The allegations have set off a political firestorm
stretching from Las Vegas to Washington D.C., and
beyond.
As with everything else in this election year, it's
now become a political football being tossed between
the two parties, with charges and countercharges, but
at its core, there still remains the matter of
registration forms that were ripped up and tossed in
the trash.
Who did it, and why? That's what official agencies
will try to determine. On Tuesday afternoon, Las Vegan
Eric Russell and his girlfriend took a packet of
documents to the Las Vegas FBI office but left before
filing a formal complaint about what Russell says was
a deliberate effort to disenfranchise local voters.
Russell worked for a company called Voters Outreach of
America, along with 300 other people. He says he got
into a beef with the company over a pay dispute, and
witnessed his bosses ripping up registration forms
that had been filed by democrats.
"They were thrown away in the trash. I grabbed them
out," said Eric Russell. One of those forms belonged
to Daren Gray, who was shocked to learn that the
re-registration form he filled out was never turned
in.
"I'm pretty mad, upset. I'm still gonna vote," said
Daren Gray. Russell doesn't know how many democratic
registrations were tossed in the trash but guesses the
number could be very high since Voters Outreach of
America operated in Las Vegas for more than two
months.
The FBI confirms that it is gathering information
about the case but stopped short of calling it an
investigation, saying it wants to talk to Russell
again. Secretary of State Dean Heller issued a
statement that his office is also taking a look,
trying to figure out what if any laws might have been
violated.
Nevada Democrats came out swinging Wednesday. "Most
disturbing is that Voter Outreach of America is being
paid by the National Republican Party and we ask how
can people have faith in government if a national
party is involved in trickery in depriving people the
right to vote," said Clark County Commissioner Yvonne
Atkinson Gates.
The Republican National Committee acknowledges that it
hired Voters Outreach of America to register voters,
but in a statement said it had zero tolerance for any
kind of fraud.
Local party officials said there is no way the GOP
would instruct the company to trash democratic
registrations. However, similar problems have been
alleged elsewhere. In Washoe County, the registrar
says he too has turned over information to the FBI
about Republican backed registration efforts.
In Oregon, the same company that was operating here
has been criticized for its tactics in signing up
voters. There, it used the name America Votes, which
is actually the name of a Democratic organization.
Employees in Las Vegas say they too were told that the
name of the company was America Votes. "They confused
us with the name. They told us one thing and told the
temp force something else. They told us America
Votes," Russell said.
So, why has this company used the name of a Democratic
organization as it signs up voters here and in Oregon?
It's a question Eyewitness News is investigating.
In the meantime, Eric Russell is about to learn what
it's like to stir the pot. He has already been
attacked in other media accounts as a disgruntled
employee who was fired and displayed a violent temper.
Russell was a disgruntled employee. He admits that if
he had been paid, he probably wouldn't have talked.
Even so, discrediting him doesn't explain the
existence of the trashed registration forms.
Are American elections fixed? Don’t ask the mainstream media.
To Election 2004: BLACK TUESDAY NEWZ
WE ARE FUCKED
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