Posted on 09/29/2004 8:26:57 PM PDT by quantim
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — With four business days to go until Monday's voter registration deadline, a record number of Michigan residents have signed up to vote on Nov. 2, Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land said Wednesday.
But among the many legitimate registration forms are hundreds, if not thousands, that appear to be fraudulent.
Land said advocacy groups for the first time are hiring people to register voters, encouraging some to fill in the forms for people who haven't registered so they can make more money.
Eaton County Clerk Fran Fuller said one registration form was filled out for a man who was dead. That form and others looked like they'd been filled in by someone taking names out of a Lansing phone book, she said. She has turned the information over to the county prosecutor, who's investigating.
"The signatures and the printing of the names were what first tipped off my staff that something wasn't right," said Fuller, who estimates her office has received about 100 fraudulent forms. "The signatures were very similar. A lot of them had no driver's license number, which was very suspicious."
Land said nearly 7 million Michigan residents have registered to vote so far, already beating the record set in 2000, when 6,859,332 people registered. The draw this year, as in 2000, is a close and contentious presidential race that has political parties and advocacy groups signing up new voters to try and help their candidates.
Many of those being paid to register voters are college students, which is why so many of the suspicious registrations are turning up in Wayne County, home of Wayne State University; Washtenaw County, home of the University of Michigan; and Ingham County, home of Michigan State University, said state Elections Division director Chris Thomas.
Kent County and Kalamazoo County, which also have state universities within their borders, are seeing similar problems, he added. Some clerks in the affected counties have their staffs working overtime to sort through suspicious-looking registrations, or have had to hire extra help.
Thomas said the groups submitting the most questionable registrations have been the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan, or PIRGIM, and Project Vote. Fuller said all of the suspicious registrations her Eaton County office received were turned in by PIRGIM, a nonpartisan advocacy group based in Ann Arbor.
PIRGIM state director Brian Imus said his group is taking steps to make sure the registrations are legitimate. Two staff members are looking over the forms before they send them to local clerks, and they're also making random calls to make sure those on the forms intended to register.
"We did notice a pattern that was weird. That was weeks ago, and that's why we started doing the spot checking. Anyone we thought was doing anything wrong we don't allow to work with us," Imus said. "It just needs more scrutiny, and that's exactly what we're doing — double-checking the forms."
PIRGIM has turned in about 17,000 registration forms and hopes to hit 20,000 by Monday's deadline, he said. The group is paying collectors $60 a day if they collect at least 20 new registrations and $50 a day if they don't.
Other groups have relied more on volunteers to register voters. The Michigan Republican Party estimates it has registered more than 90,000 people in the past year.
"We'd love to make the 100,000 mark" by Monday, said GOP spokesman Chris Paolino, noting that the party registered about 10,000 people just in the past week.
The Michigan Democratic Party doesn't have a firm figure on how many people it has registered in the past year. Its efforts have been helped by unions and by advocacy groups that support Democrats, such as Democracy for America and ACT.
Michigan AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney said unions belonging to the AFL hope to have 30,000 new people registered by Monday.
"Most of the unions have done a bigger effort this year than in years past," he said.
Throw all of them out.
Anybody think there's a legtimate Constitutional argument for outlawing the payment of unofficial voter registrars at the federal level?
You can't throw all of them out. Some of those people have the legal right to vote. You can't throw out their form because someone else comitted a crime.
Are these colleges and universities bastians for liberals or conservatives? Have they found out whether the fake registrations were done by demonicrats or GOP?
Time for prison terms to be meted out. Make some examples.
Looks like receiving voter registration forms is going to take on a new adjudicative powers.
We can't 'Throw all of them out' and local officials may not even have the time and resources to properly vet them. But there was one thing I found ever so slightly encouraging...that it was being forwarded to the DA. The ONLY thing that will really help is to start putting democrat vote fraud operatives in prison for extended periods. There are not 'mistakes' these are efforts to steal an election. And I have no doubt that the bigwig D's who are coordinating the fraud all have plausible deniability....we need to punish the foot soldiers of D fraud to the maximum extent of the law.
DIMocRAT voter fraud is becoming so rampant its a miracle we can even have an election.
As if there is any question who is doing it?
Much as I like the idea of participation in the voting process, these advocacy groups need to be quashed with a vengeance. If average Joe does not have the sense to register and vote in the normal way let him cease and desist from the process altogether.
Good site about Democrat vote fraud.
http://billhobbs.com/hobbsonline/cat_voter_fraud.html
I dunno. Seems like they are taking the Dan Rather approach. They are not registering 'dead people' like in other states, they're just making them up.
These are groups with beliefs and funding by Democrats. PIRGIM being listed as a "nonpartisan advocacy group" is a laugh as they use an environmental health doctrine to push socialist intrusion into our lives. Terry Lynn Land, an elected Republican, will make sure this issue stays in the light of day.
I'm worried that this nationwide push for Dems to register voters can have large fraud possibilities, particually as absentee ballot use becomes easier.
When are the Republicans going to take voter fraud seriously? I am getting angrier by the minute knowing my vote is diluted and disfranchised by voter fraud.
>>>>>>>>
PIRGIM state director Brian Imus said his group is taking steps to make sure the registrations are legitimate. Two staff members are looking over the forms before they send them to local clerks, and they're also making random calls to make sure those on the forms intended to register.
"We did notice a pattern that was weird. That was weeks ago, and that's why we started doing the spot checking. Anyone we thought was doing anything wrong we don't allow to work with us," Imus said. "It just needs more scrutiny, and that's exactly what we're doing — double-checking the forms."
>>>>>>>>>
If those folks do ANTHING with that form - other than send it in - they have to be violating the law.
They cannot legally alter it - no matter what they think.
They cannot decide that it is wrong and not submit it - that is not within their power.
Once that form is filled out - it becomes a somewhat sacred document - any tampering or prevention of delivery in any way has to be breaking the law.
this is the only conservative college that I am aware of in Michigan......Michigan has waaay more than its share of the victimhood/entitlement crowd.
http://www.hillsdale.edu/missionstatement/
Of course, there's no mention that both these groups are affiliated with the RATs.
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