Posted on 12/16/2005 2:53:22 AM PST by mcg2000
Republican leader calls former congressman's claim 'absurd'
As a Shelby County voter fraud investigation lurches forward, former congressman Harold Ford Sr. isn't waiting for answers.
Ford said Thursday he's opened his own investigation into allegations that two dead voters cast ballots in the September state Senate race that his sister, Ophelia Ford, won by 13 votes.
Ford said he's not prepared to make any accusations, yet suggested evidence of any skulduggery will lead to Republicans, not his own Democratic Party.
"It's gotten to (where people are saying), 'Hey, we're out here voting dead people.' It is clear that is not the case. We know that for a fact,'' said Ford.
"We're going to get all the facts. The other side's got all the information, and I think that they are well aware of what took place and what went on."
Shelby County Republican Party Chairman Bill Giannini called Ford's statements "absurd.''
"Tell Harold Ford Sr. that the folks at the Flat Earth Society say hello,'' Giannini said.
"All we said from day one is we wanted this (tight election) to be looked at. And for Harold Ford Sr. to get involved in it at this point is certainly puzzling.''
Emotions have flared since Ophelia Ford won a squeaker Sept. 15 over Republican challenger Terry Roland for the Dist. 29 Senate seat vacated by another Ford sibling. John Ford resigned in May after his indictment on bribery charges.
Contesting the results, Roland is asking the Senate to overturn the election, alleging widespread voting irregularities.
Meantime, an investigation by The Commercial Appeal found that the names of two elderly voters who died weeks before the election were used to cast ballots in a North Memphis precinct.
Requesting a criminal probe, Shelby County Election Commission Chairman Greg Duckett said he believes as many as five ballots may have been forged in heavily Democratic Precinct 27-1. Those ballots include the two cast in the names of dead voters as well as three others, he said.
Duckett said authorities are suspicious, in part, because ballot applications for all five votes appear to contain similar handwriting.
Duckett said at a Wednesday press conference he suspects the culprit is a poll worker or someone with specialized election knowledge, a suspicion advanced Thursday by longtime commissioner O.C. Pleasant.
"It took several persons involved to make happen what did happen,'' Pleasant said. "I don't know where it will lead to.''
Citing the criminal probe, election officials have declined to release the names of poll workers who manned the Precinct 27-1 polling place at Fire Station No. 6, at 924 Thomas.
Verline Mayo, the official in charge of the polling place, said she had no clue how votes were registered for Joe L. Light, 70, and Archie L. Kirkwood, 72, both of whom died weeks before the election.
"I don't know how that could have happened,'' said Mayo, 68, a longtime North Memphis resident who has worked as an Election Day poll worker since 1964 and who has overseen Precinct 27-1 for several years.
"We've got a pretty good clean record up there.''
Speaking in her North Memphis home, Mayo said she didn't have all the names of the poll workers who worked with her on Election Day.
Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons said he called the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday to open a criminal probe but said the investigation likely won't start in earnest until next week.
Not waiting around, Ford Sr. said he's already made several calls and intends to interview all 32 of the living voters who cast ballots in Precinct 27-1. Including ballots of the two dead voters, 34 votes were cast in the precinct, and 32 of them were for Ophelia Ford.
"We want the truth to come out,'' said Ford, 60, a lobbyist who served in Congress until 1997. His son, Rep. Harold Ford Jr., succeeded him.
Ford Sr. first called the newspaper on Wednesday to make it clear that his family business, N.J. Ford & Sons Funeral Home, didn't bury Light or Kirkwood. On Thursday, Ford confirmed that J.E. Herndon, the funeral home operator who buried Kirkwood, also works for the Ford Funeral Home as an embalmer.
"This was an inside job,'' he said. "Why would Ophelia Ford want to get into the Election Commission and vote the dead?''
Despite his own suspicions, Ford said he believes fraud may be limited to the ballots of the two dead voters. The other three ballot applications with similar handwriting likely involved a poll worker assisting illiterate voters, he said.
Republicans invested a lot of money in North Memphis' Democratic precincts in advance of the election, Ford said, indicating that that's the trail to follow.
"I see the trend where this is going to be headed,'' he said, "and it's not coming to us.''
Time Tested Formula ... Ford Family + Opportunity = Corruption
Ford family and Dimwit SOP, here. Accuse your opponent of the very crimes that you have committed. And, what better place to race-bait than in Memphrica? The Ford sycophants will eat this rhetoric up.
That's okay, though; Junior's senate bid is going deeper into the toilet with every utterance of every crooked pol and election commissioner involved in this latest fraud, and that, as they say, is a good thing.
My aunt, a lifelong liberal who always voted Democrat, passed away this last summer.
Someone took a picture of her in the casket in case MN requires picture ID to vote in the future.
DimoGenerats, are the ones who flesh out their
voting members with stiff people.
Necrophilia has a long history tied the DimoGenerat
Culture of Death Party.
Memphis is as corrupt as New Orleans. It's just that the crime familiy's name is Ford instead of Landrieu.
"Tell Harold Ford Sr. that the folks at the Flat Earth Society say hello,'' Giannini said.
Priceless.
That's a fact. Harold Senior must have been storing votes for thirty or forty years, and his brother is another story. They had a history with a banker in Knoxville, Butcher was the name I think, that happened twenty or so years ago. I have forgotten what happened with that, but I'll google it and find out.
The Fords have always been good at escaping the snare.
So they think the Republicans are behind it, huh? Makes sense to me for the Republicans to have dead people vote for their opponent.
"He was also the incorporator and president of a small company, Tenn-Ford Inc., that figured in a Tennessee political scandal. Beaty and former Rep. Harold Ford Sr., a Memphis Democrat, were indicted on federal bank fraud charges in 1987 and acquitted in 1993 after two trials. The government argued unsuccessfully that Tenn-Ford was a shell company created to funnel payoffs to Ford from Tennessee bankers Jake and C.H. Butcher Jr."
There is a lot more, but the escape artistry, abeted by state political interference, has kept the family in political office, and in effective control of Shelby County, Tennessee for many years.
Like the Longs of Louisiana of years past. Is the articulate very light skinned black U.S. representative Harold Ford, Jr.?
"I see the trend where this is going to be headed,'' he said, "and it's not coming to us (if I can prevent it).''
Democrats!!!
Yes, Harold Ford Jr. "Inherited" his congressional seat from his dad, Harold, Sr. Harold Senior's brother, a state senator, is under indictment now, I believe. Harold Jr., meantime, is running for US Senator in Tennessee.
If I had taken the time to read the article more thoroughly I would have seen that State Senator John Ford had resigned after his indictment on bribery charges, setting up the race in question for Ophelia Ford, who appears to be short a few votes from live voters.
It's the FORDS that are corrupt...and they own a funeral home..good place to obtain the names of dead people and their votes.
I didn't even think of the funeral home angle!? G'job!
Your Post is dead on. The Democrats always accuse the opposition of doing just what they are doing. But ya kow what?? It works. It has been working for them for years. They dont lay down like the Republicans, they attack.
They are crooked slimes they rotten to the core but they win many times because they dont lay down.
I wish I could say the Republicans had some fight in them, Unfortunately I cant.
Sleaze will out.
I have long held the position that incumbent politicians are a huge threat to our well-being. The corruption in the Ford family is only the tip of the iceberg; every level of government is filled with career politicians intent on filling their pockets at our expense.
I will never vote for another incumbent, at any level of government, again. Maybe, just maybe, we would get better government if those in office were a little more wary of losing their spots in the ivory towers.
How much do you wish to wager that the complete list of workers no longer exists?
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