Prosecute them all…Do we take voter fraud seriously or not?
Now that the media attention has covered the 13 people connected to Vote From Home possibly breaking Ohio’s election laws by registering to vote and a few have been stated actually did vote, the Democrats are making the same claim directed at some McCain campaign staffers who could be in violation of the same section of the law that states temporary residents are not allowed to vote.
Brian Rothenberg of Progress Ohio shares his thoughts:
“The Franklin County Board of Elections made national news last week by referring 13 volunteers from the Vote From Home project to the Franklin County Prosecutor alleging they are not eligible to vote because they are not from Ohio and have no intent to stay in Ohio,” said Brian Rothenberg, Executive Director of the non-partisan ProgressOhio.org. “If this is how they interpret the law, it should be applied equally, without regard to political affiliation or belief, or not at all.
“We call on the Franklin County Board of Elections to investigate this accusation, and any similar accusations that may arise and to forward the information in similar fashion to the Franklin County Prosecutor,” said Rothenberg.“We don’t believe the Vote From Home volunteers are any more or less guilty than these McCain/Palin campaign workers,” said Rothenberg. “You can’t selectively prosecute. Either drop the investigation to all concerned or expand it to all concerned. Otherwise this smacks of a partisan game.”
Rothenberg said given past practice in Ohio the best thing for Prosecutors and the Franklin County Board of Elections to do would be to drop the whole issue. “The state of Ohio has been around for 205 years and campaign workers have probably done this riding in from horseback, stagecoach, steam locomotive and airplanes. This is partisan hype singling out 13 kids for simply trying to help people exercise their rights to vote. If you are going to investigate them, then all ‘out-of-state’ campaign workers, should be subjected to the same standards.”
I suggest all of them be prosecuted. Let’s stop targeting one party and allowing people to break election laws, refer them all to the prosecutor and see what happens. It makes a mockery of the legal system when we ignore the laws and if both sides want people to have confidence in our electoral system? Following the laws would be a good start.
Background on the McCain campaign staffers is on Blue Bexley.
Rothenberg says “if this is how they interpret the law”. That’s not the point, the point is, what does the law say? If they broke it, prosecute, if not dont’. How difficult is that to deal with. Rothenberg’s suggestion that we just drop it because he thinks they’ve been doing for the last 200 years is ludicrous. They’ve been robbing banks for years too and we still prosecute that crime. This is typical liberal thinking. Everyone does it so don’t bother punishing anyone.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:07 pmWe would not have this problem if we did not have the Electoral College. If your vote in Alaska was worth as much as your vote in Ohio, people would not do this. Some states count more than others. For an example, now that I’m a California voter, it doesn’t matter a bit who I vote for. My state’s going to Obama, and the winner takes all. It is bizarre that one could easily win the Popular Vote, and then still not win the election.
However, this is the law that is in place, and while it is, it should be followed across the board. Fight to change the law. Don’t disenfranchise those that ARE following the law.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:11 pm“This is typical liberal thinking. Everyone does it so don’t bother punishing anyone.”
Fred, I really don’t recall that being one of the tenets
October 21st, 2008 at 2:15 pmLisa Renee, I agree with you that they should all be prosecuted and with Brian when he writes, “If you are going to investigate them, then all ‘out-of-state’ campaign workers, should be subjected to the same standards.”
You are right and it is the most reasonable thing to do.
One question to which I do not know the answer – what is the legal definition of a temporary resident?
This post at the Volokh Conspiracy has a number of references to this question, but I’m guessing that it’s case law interpretation that best supplies an answer.
This Ohio Supreme Court case isn’t exactly on point, but it does state the implication that no where in the ORC is “temporary” defined, in general (lol sorry that’s vague – if you go read the link, you’ll see what I mean).
Anyway – the other thing? This is just not new. And I imagine like many people, it is exasperating that we – me too – keep electing people who then, when they get to the legislature, are fine with leaving these things so vague as to cause these kinds of problems. It’s one of the things I like least about people who have a legal education and know better and still game the legislation that becomes law.
We should be Ohioans first, political partisans second – I say that knowing that I’m blogging in a generally partisan way right now but again – I agree with you on this point about investigate them all. It’s the only fair way. The other trick is figuring out the threshold of what should trigger questioning someone – but that can be established too.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:19 pmOh wow – just saw that click to edit message with the countdown! lol cool
October 21st, 2008 at 2:21 pmFred–“Rothenberg says “if this is how they interpret the law”. That’s not the point, the point is, what does the law say?”
Um, Fred…when you ask “what does the law say?” that means the same thing as interpreting the law. If it were as black and white as you think it is, we wouldn’t need the judicial branch.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:23 pmHickman – knock it off – no matter how many addresses you come up with? You have been banned for extreme harassment and your posts will be deleted.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:26 pmJill, I’ve read that section of the ORC a variety of times, it’s pretty clear – it goes to intent.
It’s also clear that these people had no intention of making Ohio be their home since they are only here for the election.
All registrars and judges of elections, in determining the residence of a person offering to register or vote, shall be governed by the following rules:
(A) That place shall be considered the residence of a person in which the person’s habitation is fixed and to which, whenever the person is absent, the person has the intention of returning.
(B) A person shall not be considered to have lost the person’s residence who leaves the person’s home and goes into another state or county of this state, for temporary purposes only, with the intention of returning.
(C) A person shall not be considered to have gained a residence in any county of this state into which the person comes for temporary purposes only, without the intention of making such county the permanent place of abode.
(D) The place where the family of a married person resides shall be considered to be the person’s place of residence; except that when the spouses have separated and live apart, the place where such a spouse resides the length of time required to entitle a person to vote shall be considered to be the spouse’s place of residence.
(E) If a person removes to another state with the intention of making such state the person’s residence, the person shall be considered to have lost the person’s residence in this state.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:42 pm[...] Glass City Jungle’s post on the letter contains an active comment thread about the proposal. [...]
October 21st, 2008 at 2:58 pmThank you!!
So – the next thing would be to look at the actual decisions, to see how they’ve applied these rules, would you agree?
October 21st, 2008 at 3:00 pmYeah, re-reading a few times – it’s that last clause, college students and still really no exact definition of what “temporary means” – esp. for coming into the state, that seems to be problematic.
That’s what I think but – you seem more familiar – what do you think?
October 21st, 2008 at 3:03 pmNot necessarily, there has been little investigation into voter fraud so relying on a precedence of probable inaction does not mean that we need to continue to follow that. If someone is clearly not going to stay in the state, they should not vote in Ohio. It’s pretty simple though I’m sure lawyers from both sides will make it complicated.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:04 pmFederal law applies to college students, and it has determined that they are more than just “temporary residents” which would mean they unlike the Vote from Home group or campaign staffers, are different.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:05 pmI’m not sure what you mean by a “precedence of probable inaction.”
I am saying that it would be a guide – not precedent in terms of having to do whatever was done in the past, same as it usually would be. I am meaning that we look to see what factors were looked at and how they were interpreted. Justices/magistrates are of course free to use their own discretion but prior decisions I would suggest still need to be looked at – and then accepted or ignored or whatever.
I actually disagree that it’s so simple – in part because the legislature and the ORC themselves fail to make it simple. A lawyer’s job is to represent the client. Of course they should never intentionally obfuscate the process. But if they’re proceeding as adversaries, well – I’m not sure what anyone who hires a lawyer to help them win a case would expect.
Again, I feel strongly that if the people we’ve elected – and the leadership in Ohio government in particular in 2000 and 2004, had wanted to resolve these kinds of gray areas, they certainly could have – esp. if it’s as simple as you say.
I suspect, as I intimated above, that they, like a lot of lawmakers regardless of party affiliation, were happy to leave things vague.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:54 pmIt’s not really vague, people know if they are going to be here long term or not, if you attend school here then you are a part of that community with the intention to return for the duration of your college education.
If you come into a state to only work on an election or a campaign, and then leave? You would not be considered a resident with voting rights.
For people schooled in voter registration, it seems rather hard to believe that they wouldn’t know what the residency requirements are for voting. I took the time to learn about it with the whole voter registration we were doing, and covered it in our training session.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:02 pmLisa Renee, I agree. Let’s investigate them all! If we were just to drop the matter, then future campaigns might work hard to “hire” lots of out-of-staters to be voters. Busloads of people could arrive from out-of-state, pull up to the county Board of Elections, everyone hops off the bus, files in, registers, votes absentee, etc., and when the permanent residents of Ohio become upset that non-residents are hijacking our elections, will the candidate be allowed to say “Hey! What’s all the fuss! I hired all these people to work for my campaign in Ohio for the next thirty days. Let them vote!” I think NOT! Otherwise, the number of out-of-state campaign workers bused in may escalate into the thousands as the campaigns try to outdo one another in swing states. Investigate them ALL!
October 21st, 2008 at 4:14 pmThanks Daniel, and Jill, I realized I didn’t answer your question, we have a history in Ohio of not investigating or prosecuting voter fraud. So I’m not even sure how many cases there would be to use as a precedence or if they should be used as one.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:20 pmWell – I agree that the people know, for sure! Like anyone who has acted, they are the only ones who know for sure why they’re doing what they’re doing and whether they should be doing that. Wouldn’t that be nice if they just followed the law.
But obviously we’re talking about people who for whatever reason, from the get-go, aren’t planning on following the law. So we have to figure out how to apply the law to them – that, to me, seems to be the tricky part.
I’m really not sure what other ways there are to manage such actions by people than do better with the laws themselves and application of it.
Would we actually consider legislation that bans out of state campaign workers? I obviously really don’t know this area of law – are there states that do that? Hmm – I don’t know – maybe it is advisable. I really have never thought about it that way before.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:21 pmI’m sure they could write legislation that would ban out of state campaign workers from voting here or make it easier to make sure they were not illegally voting by requiring them to register when they have arrived, or have them sign some type of an acknowledgment that they are aware of the laws in Ohio when it comes to voter residency requirements.
Groups like Vote from Home would be problematic though, because even though they support Obama, they are not a part of his formal campaign.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:27 pmActually, Vote from Home should be less problematic, as they don’t have anything to tie them to the state, not even a job, except for the desire to temporarily squat here for the sole purpose of impacting our election. They should be clearly prosecutable under existing laws.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:46 pmI meant more problematic as far as future legislation.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:08 pmI’d put money on you reading this already, but just for the record, because there are some details in there about the kind of evidence the pros. office says it will look for to determine residency and temporary:
http://blog.dispatch.com/politics/2008/10/prosecutor_going_after_mccain.shtml
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:19 am