Voters Losing Out to Phone Hoax

[LadyTevar]

This is just scary, and I hope they find out who's behind it soon. Those in the US, check around, especially if you're in a 'Swing State' like WV is. Yes, I could just be paranoid, it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but tricking voters out of their right to have their vote count is just .... just... It's a CockBlock of the lowest, meanest cut.

October 15, 2004
Some may have lost real vote to phone hoax

An unknown number of Cabell County residents might have been stripped of their right to vote by a phone scam that tricked them into filling out “provisional” ballots — ballots that probably won’t count on Election Day.

The scam also is targeting Kanawha County voters. It operates like this:

Victim X gets a phone call. A recording asks X to press a certain number if he would like an absentee ballot mailed to his home. X presses the number and soon gets the promised ballot in the mail. He fills it out and sends it in — not noticing the strict rules that, more than likely, disqualify him from voting absentee. (To qualify, X must be unable to vote in person not only on Election Day, but also during the entire 20-day early voting period beforehand.)

The county clerk’s office gets X’s absentee ballot request. The clerk sees that he doesn’t qualify, but as Vera McCormick of the Kanawha County Clerk’s office said, “you never turn someone down” who wants to try to vote.

The clerk sends a “provisional” ballot, which X fills out and mails back — probably never suspecting that his ballot won’t count on election night unless the county board of canvassers decides to let it count.

“Our board of canvassers has really gone pretty strictly by the letter of the law” on provisional ballots in the past, Cabell County Clerk Karen Cole said. “Under the letter of the law, they would not count.”

And once you vote a provisional ballot, you can’t take it back. “The ballots we have already received are locked up until the election,” Cole said.

You can’t really blame the people fooled by the scam, said Jan Casto of the Secretary of State’s office. “We do so many things by telephone,” she said. “Last night, I refilled my prescription by telephone.”

The recording sounds quite official, too, according to victims’ accounts. In fact, several victims thought it was the county clerk’s office offering them the absentee ballots. “Some of them called us asking why we marked their ballot ‘provisional’ when we were the ones who called them in the first place,” Cole said. “That’s what tipped us off.”

Cole doesn’t know how many people in Cabell County already might have been disenfranchised by the scam, which she began to suspect 10 days ago. In Kanawha County, the absentee ballot problem doesn’t seem to be as widespread, McCormick said.

But there’s a slightly different phone scam hitting both counties. In this scam, the recording asks people if they’d like to cast their vote now, by phone, to just press the corresponding number for their candidate.

Casto worries that those people will think they have already voted, and they won’t show up at the polls.

Anyone with information that might lead to the capture of the scammers — such as a number on caller ID — is asked to call the Secretary of State’s Office, at 558-6000, or their county clerk.

Right now, investigators have few leads. Democrats, Republicans and independents have been victimized.

“One [victim] said they got a phone call from an actual person,” perpetrating the scam, Cole said. The victim “asked the caller several times to identify the organization they were calling from, but they never would.

“Eventually, the person hung up.”

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Google News: Phone Scam Voter Fraud

Confirmed, and not just in WV either. Tyranny is not far off with this shit...

[Beowulf]

Google News: Phone Scam Voter Fraud

Confirmed, and not just in WV either. Tyranny is not far off with this shit...

I click the link, 4 results. 3 of them are about fraudulent registrations, the last is about a NAACP telemarketer calling people saying they might be ineligable to vote.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Google News: Phone Scam Voter Fraud

Confirmed, and not just in WV either. Tyranny is not far off with this shit...

I click the link, 4 results. 3 of them are about fraudulent registrations, the last is about a NAACP telemarketer calling people saying they might be ineligable to vote.

Oh ok. It's still related to the issue at hand. It's symptomatic of widespread electoral 'engineering' bordering on, if not actual, voter fraud. They are attempts at subverting the democratic process and therefore attempted tyranny.

[Alyeska]

What the fuck good is a provissional vote if its not going to be counted?

[Admiral Valdemar]

How the fuck does America turn a standard election procedure into a year long popularity contest with all the fraudulent schemes I'd expect from a high-school presidential election?

Roll on 2/11/04.

[Jalinth]

How the fuck does America turn a standard election procedure into a year long popularity contest with all the fraudulent schemes I'd expect from a high-school presidential election?

Roll on 2/11/04.

The US really does need to set some national standards. If necessary, create something like Elections Canada that handles all federal matters. They set the voters list, they create the ballots, etc...

Use the carrot method - offer states a fee (a few dollars per voter) if they will use the standard federal ballot format, voters list criteria and machinery.

Could anyone clarify whether the federal government in the US can legally take over the elections, or must they be run by the states for constitutional reasons?

[Chardok]

In related news. Republicans are again acting like Damned dirty apes.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=4111459

During the 2002 election in Manchester, N.H., a number of phone banks used by Democrats to get out the vote were all but shut down by computer jammers. Democrats accused Republicans of dirty tricks -- and on Thursday, attorneys for the Democrats were slated to question a Republican official under oath about the incident. But federal prosecutors stepped in, and asked a judge to delay the deposition. Democrats are again crying foul -- this time, accusing the Justice Department of playing politics by delaying the proceedings just before the 2004 election. NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Fred Bever of Maine Public Radio.

The interview talks about a tactic where people could call into the phone bank and recieve rides to the polls for people who did not have transportation, but the phone banks were jammed. some bigshot republican campaign supervisor was supposed to be charged, and he's withdrawn from this race not because he is guilty, mind you (To hear him say it, anyway), but because he doesn't want to draw negative attention to the Bush campaign. Riiiiiight. I think shrubby's doing a fine job on his own anyway.