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‘Dangerous and Foolish’: How Legal Vote Harvesting Prompts Illegal Conduct by Political Operatives
The Daily Signal ^ | October 24, 2019 | Fred Lucas

Posted on 10/29/2019 12:50:05 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

In Texas, they are called “politiqueras” and in Florida, they are called “boleteros.” Broadly speaking, these are professional campaign operatives and political activists who have access to absentee ballots and authority to recruit voters.

Such ballot harvesting, allowed in 27 states and the District of Columbia, gained much attention this year when corrupt handling of absentee ballots led to an invalidated U.S. House election in North Carolina. But such controversies are hardly new, as explained in a recent Heritage Foundation report.

Mayor Anthony Grant was elected in Eatonville, Florida, in a close 2015 race thanks to absentee ballots. Grant was convicted on charges of voter fraud in 2017 that included coercing absentee voters to vote for him.

Mayor Ruth Robinson of Martin, Kentucky, was convicted along with family members in 2014 on civil rights and vote fraud-related charges. Prosecutors said Robinson’s conduct included threatening and intimidating poor and disabled residents into casting absentee votes for her in the 2012 mayoral race.

The Heritage report, written by Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative, says ballot harvesting should be banned in states that now allow it.

“Unless a voter checks with election officials after the election to verify that his or her ballot was received, the voter would never know what happened,” von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department lawyer and former member of the Federal Election Commission, writes. He adds:

"It seems highly unlikely that the vast majority of absentee voters, particularly the elderly, the infirm, or the disabled, would engage in such verification. Even if they do, they may not be able to identify which campaign operative picked up their ballot or what happened to it."

(Excerpt) Read more at dailysignal.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Florida; US: Kentucky; US: North Carolina; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: absenteeballots; ballotharvesting; elections; florida; hansvonspakovsky; heritagefoundation; kentucky; northcarolina; texas; voterfraud

1 posted on 10/29/2019 12:50:05 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
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To: 100American; 3D-JOY; abner; Abundy; AGreatPer; Albion Wilde; AliVeritas; alisasny; ...

PING!


2 posted on 10/29/2019 12:52:04 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Show me the people who own the land, the guns and the money, and I'll show you the people in charge.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Anybody know what the ad is all about in which the moron speaking says when you vote, all your information is made public to your “friends, family and neighbors” so they can tell if you are voting or not. It tells you to write down where you vote, when you voted, how you got to the polls and some other personal bull****. I can never remember who is paying for the ad but it’s something like America for the Future of America and the USA or some obnoxious BS like that. Is anyone else seeing this obnoxious and annoying ad? It seems very fascist to me.


3 posted on 10/29/2019 12:56:23 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (You can vote your way into socialism but you have to shoot your way out of it.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

4 posted on 10/29/2019 12:56:33 PM PDT by Travis McGee (EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

“Vote harvesting”, the collection of absentee votes by sometimes questionable methods, may be legal, but by no means universally a moral or ethical process.

Just a modified form of ballot box stuffing, sometimes after the fact by days or even weeks. Fraught with fraud, in a couple of different ways.

Show up physically, present proof of being both registered and eligible to vote in that precinct, and provide valid identification, preferable with photo and satisfactory status of citizenship. Those who cannot show up physically, but wish to have a vote counted, should proceed by the alternate methods provided under the law, WITHOUT going through “intermediaries” who cannot be counted upon to fully account for all the votes harvested, either by “losing” them, or somehow altering the selections made by the clients, once the ballots have been collected, and before turning them in to the official counting facility.


5 posted on 10/29/2019 1:07:07 PM PDT by alloysteel (Nowhere in the Universe is there escape from the consequences of the crime of stupidity.)
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To: alloysteel

My objection is that it is simply another crack that a leftist lever can be inserted in to subvert the system.

People say “oh, conservatives can engage vote harvesting too, so it doesn’t matter” but it does.

Organizing like this, for better or worse, generally fits with the Borg-like groupthink mindset of the Left, and they know this.


6 posted on 10/29/2019 1:11:06 PM PDT by rlmorel (Trump to China: This Capitalist Will Not Sell You the Rope with Which You Will Hang Us.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Someone needs to file a lawsuit in a "friendly" Federal District court. Get the judge to ban vote harvesting, and then make his ruling cover all 50 states.

If Liberals can due this, then why not Americans?

7 posted on 10/29/2019 1:19:30 PM PDT by Cowboy Bob ("Other People's Money" = The life blood of Liberalism)
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To: Cowboy Bob

It’s how they got an impeachment size majority in the house.


8 posted on 10/29/2019 1:37:10 PM PDT by gibsonguy (BL2)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

This is the new normal. You either need to play the harvesting game or outlaw it or.....Republicans will loose.

Right now the DNC is counting on using ballot harvesting to select their Presidential candidate from primaries so that Sanders and his supporters are again left at the altar.


9 posted on 10/29/2019 1:54:04 PM PDT by Robert357
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

‘In Texas, they are called “politiqueras” and in Florida, they are called “boleteros.”’

Why do I think it’s no coincidence they are being called Spanish names?


10 posted on 10/29/2019 1:56:09 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Boogieman

In Chicago they are called Jewish and Irish names, never Polish, Italian or other. The phrase my Chinaman has a different context and meaning than vote harvesting.


11 posted on 10/29/2019 2:33:32 PM PDT by spintreebob (nv)
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