Voter Fraud In Georgia - Absentee Ballots

[WhiskeyGirl]

Georgia spent five years and countless dollars to win federal consent for a plan for citizenship checks for voters.

Partisans dispute the value of the new mandate, which the feds approved a few weeks back. Supporters argue it blocks illegal aliens from corrupting our elections. Critics keep up the fight in court, railing about disenfranchising poor and minority voters.

While that debate plays out, though, the real election fraud continues. The kind perpetrated by Americans.

Although citizens must have photo IDs to vote in person, they usually may cast ballots by mail without IDs. More than 300,000 people — 7.5 percent of Georgia’s turnout — voted for president that way in 2008.

Who’s marking those ballots?

All kinds of folks, judging from records of the State Election Board. Members last month heard at least six cases alleging candidates, campaign workers, registrars and others had improperly marked and handled hundreds of absentee votes.

Some were accused of lying to say they were related to voters and therefore legally entitled to assist them. Others, investigators said, lied about voters’ need for help or failed to sign the necessary paperwork — effectively hiding their involvement.

In Twiggs County, the FBI crime lab found fingerprints of a former sheriff and his son, who was running for his dad’s old job, on envelopes containing absentee votes, officials said. A state investigation is continuing.

Evil-doers, and the public at large, would have to pay close attention to appreciate the extent of vote fraud in Georgia and the penalties for such. News of a fraud case spreads quickly in the affected community, but often nowhere else.

Smaller communities, with fewer voters and less outside scrutiny, are wide open for abuse.

In Brooks County’s Quitman precinct, records show, 605 voters showed up for the July 20 primaries. But a remarkable 665 ballots had been mailed in, enough to unseat a county commissioner and two school board members. The GBI and Secretary of State’s Office are investigating.

Nevertheless, elections enforcers are still catching too many absentee abuses after the votes are counted.

That’s one reason, McIver said, that beneficiaries of vote fraud often take office and serve much of their term before the deception is detected and proven.

“That,” he said, “is a real frustration.”

more here - http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/absentee-ballots-abused-612327.html