Family of Minnesota Man With Mental Disabilities Says He Is a Victim of Voter Fraud

Fox News ^ | April 5, 2011 | Eric Shawn

[beaversmom]

EXCLUSIVE: Minnesota resident Jim Stene voted last November -- and thought he was casting his ballot for President Gerald Ford.

"He was exploited, plain and simple. He was exploited," his father, Alan Stene, charges. "This is a moral and ethical issue."

Jim Stene, 35, suffers from anoxic encephalopathy, severe brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain. He has lived with the condition since 1987, when, as a 12-year-old boy, he jumped into a river to save the life of his drowning sister, Heather.

Stene had spent the last 15 years living in a group home in Brainerd, Minn. He and other residents of the home were taken to the Crow Wing County auditor's office on Oct. 29 to vote by absentee ballot. Minnesota is among the states that offer early voting by absentee ballot days before Election Day.

In an affidavit, Stene's father charges that "a voter crime was committed ... because James is mentally incompetent and is very coachable."

He fears his son, and others like him across the country, could be used to swing elections.

"They are a forgotten member of our society, I think, to where people can exploit them because nobody really knows what goes on behind the scenes," Alan Stene said.

"I felt that he was used as a pawn."

Fox News met Stene at a private residence, with his sister beside him, and asked him about voting. While his words came slowly, he clearly understood the conversation, smiling and trying to do his best to answer. When asked who he voted for, he answered quietly, "Ford." Gerald Ford? Stene nodded in the affirmative.

He was unable to name the candidates or any current elected officials, and he said a worker at the group home where he lived told him for...

[Sopater]

He Is a Victim of Voter Fraud

We're all victims.

[chris_bdba]

This happens all of the time. In nursing homes the staff fills out the absentee ballot for the ones who have no mind left. I used to watch a woman at the polls bring her 40 yo Downs Syndrome son in and help him vote.They are not voting for themselves because they don’t really undestand a thing they are voting for it is the person who is wih them getting two votes legally.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

You sound like a democrat, that is misplaced compassion.

We have far too many people voting who have the mental capacity of a rutabaga.

Universal suffrage is the mistake which will finally destroy this Nation, just as it has destroyed EVERY other democracy in recorded history.

The vote is too important to be treated lightly. If someone can't pass a comprehensive literacy test they shold not have a vote. This would likely disqualify half of last year's high school graduates but I don't really give a Damn, we are being voted to destruction by idiots.

[Son House]

Yep, the rumor here is if they voted for the Democrat candidate they would get another $500 stimulus pay-out like under Bush, and they never got it.

[Radagast the Fool]

I certainly see your point, swampsniper. But here’s something else to consider:
1. Who writes the literacy test?
2. Who administers it?
3. Who monitors and stores the results?
4. Isn’t this going to create a whole new bureaucracy?

BTW, I’m no democrat.

[Wuli]

Let me see: the person is where they are because someone else now has the legal right to make the legal decision that they must live where they live, but they somehow have the mental capacity to vote. No.

If they do not have the legal right to live independently on their own, because the law has determined they lack the mental capacity to do so, they cannot be said to have the intellectual capacity to vote on larger decisions in life affecting everyone.

Asking them to vote and taking them to vote is nothing other than exploitation advancing mythical non-existent “rights” of the mentally incompetent.

[Finny]

VERY WELL SAID!

[PeterPrinciple]

He was unable to name the candidates or any current elected officials,

---

That high bar would eliminate a lot of voters..........

[tickles]

while we have both guardianship and conservator ship of our adult child, many parents choose not to go that way. Some people who are unable to live independently do really have the ability to make their own decisions. While there are many individuals with mental retardation who are capable of doing something like voting, I really don’t see any problem with taking it away from someone who really doesn’t know or care what the whole thing is about, like my child.