Posted on 10/06/2006 2:53:26 PM PDT by SmithL
Authorities are conducting a criminal probe into allegations of vote buying by two people — including a county commissioner — in Union County.
Eighth Judicial District Attorney General William Paul Phillips said Friday the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is looking into the election activities of Union County Commissioner Charlie Cox and another person he wouldn’t identify.
"We had allegations concerning Mr. Cox, the county commissioner, and the other allegations had to do with another individual," Phillips said.
Phillips said the initial information had nothing to do with the contested 8th Judicial District public defender’s office race. Leif Jeffers, who lost a bid for that seat Aug. 3 to Martha Yoakum by 12 votes, filed a lawsuit to have 15 votes tossed out because of vote buying.
Phillips said a criminal probe was already under way when his office received copies of affidavits from voters who say they received money in exchange for their votes in the public defender’s race.
Those documents, too, are now in the hands of the TBI, Phillips said.
In his lawsuit, Jeffers argues that Cox took voters to the polls, passed out money and exhorted people to vote for Yoakum. Yoakum has said she wasn’t involved in any vote-buying scheme.
There has always been vote buying on an individual basis. What worries me is the larger vote buying by politicians who promise to take money from some and give it to those who vote for them.
It's called the Welfare State.
Party affiliation not important -- ergo -- dhimmicrat.
Maybe, maybe not. A lot of local races are nonpartisan.
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