Posted on 06/22/2007 3:25:00 PM PDT by bahblahbah
The second time Duncan M. MacDonald sent in an absentee ballot, an election worker in Federal Way called to ask about the paw print on the envelope. But it took three ballots before the prosecutor contacted the voting dog's owner.
Jane Balogh said she registered the Australian shepherd-terrier mix to vote in protest of a 2005 state voter-registration law that she says makes it too easy for noncitizens to vote.
She put her phone bill in Duncan's name, then used the phone bill as identification to register him as a voter.
"I wasn't trying to do anything fraudulent. I was trying to prove that our system is flawed. So I got myself in trouble," she says.
Prosecutors have offered the grandmother and Army veteran a deal: plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of making a false statement to a public official and they will not file a felony charge of providing false information on a voter-registration application.
Balogh said she doesn't plan to contest the charge because "I know I'm guilty." She said she submitted ballots in the dog's name in the September and November 2006 and May 2007 elections. She wrote "VOID" on the ballots and didn't cast any votes.
Prosecutors said they would recommend she be sentenced to 10 hours of community service, pay a $250 fine and commit no other crimes for a year. Balogh is scheduled to be arraigned in King County Superior Court on Tuesday.
Acting Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg says his office "can't simply look the other way. They say you should let sleeping dogs lie, but you can't let voting dogs vote."
She's decided to not make taxpayers bear the expense. She made her point, and she's paying the $250 they probably expended figuring this out. She's exposed the system, and that's all she intended to do.
Very true. You don’t hear about the rest of them do you?
This may be the answer to why Jazz isn’t eating. He wants to vote.
I don’t know if a jury would covict her, no.
But mens rea is not on her side, she said she knew that what she was doing was against the law.
If her principles are such that she is willing to break the law, so be it and I wish her the best.
I just wouldn’t advise it.
L
In the article, it said there was a paw print on the envelope.
That’s the dog’s signature, not hers.
Which she caused to be there. You wouldn't really want to go to court with that argument, would you?
She said she submitted ballots in the dog’s name in the September and November 2006 and May 2007 elections. She wrote “VOID” on the ballots and didn’t cast any votes.
Duncan, the Australian Shepherd-Terrier mix, responded to Acting Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg with this statement; “Hey Dan, I didn’t vote. So lick me!”
This woman’s form of protest is pretty darn good.
“They ought to give her a job working for the government. Leading a task force investigating voter fraud.”
Well put.
Does our government devote this much attention when an ILLEGAL submits false GOVERNMENT documents to employers??? ........just wandering......
That’s nothin’. One of my old dogs was a licensed minister and would pray on command. Drove the religionists in the family nuts, but he was as genuine as most of his official colleagues and more godly than many.
This was voter fraud with the intent to get away with something. It was an attempt to highlight how flawed the system is. Bravo to her. Sort of like the person who carries a box cutter on board an airplane just to prove the security system doesn’t catch everything.
They know what they are doing is wrong but they see no other way to get official attention.
The problem, of course, is statists hates to have their own incompetence illustrated for them so they have to make sure to severely punish anyone who shows them up.
Ignorance of the law isn’t an excuse, but sometimes the lack of intent to break the law is. There is no defense to speeding by saying that one was unaware of the speed limit, for example. But the intent crimes, such as intent to kill, require knowledge that one is intending to commit an illegal act.
OOPS! Should have read...This was NOT voter fraud with the intent to get away with something.
Obvious, she was not intending to commit a crime or she would have now written the word ‘void’ on the ballot.
I agree with your insight, but it was the 7th century.
Good looking dogs!
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