06-08-2008, 08:11 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Registration requests overwhelm officials </b>
Saturday, June 07, 2008By Richard Rainey
Using to its advantage the allure of this year's captivating presidential contest, one Democratic organization has culled the names of as many as 50,000 people in four major parishes -- including Jefferson and Orleans -- to be added to Louisiana's voter rolls.
The group, called Voting Is Power and financed by the national Democratic Party, has been canvassing neighborhoods since February, collecting personal information and signatures from as many new potential voters as possible, said Brian Welsh, a spokesman for Louisiana Victory, the umbrella group coordinating local and national Democratic voter drives. Voting Is Power members also have targeted East Baton Rouge and Caddo parishes.
<b>The group, based in Washington, D.C., has fanned out to several states to beef up Democratic voter rolls. The ultimate goal is to register roughly 70,000 new voters in Louisiana before the November election, Welsh said.</b>
[...]
<b>While Voting Is Power has sent in batches of applications for months, registrars have begun to see a disturbing pattern of misinformation on the forms, including duplicates, cards filled out with different colors of ink, or using the names of pets or dead people. In Jefferson, DiMarco sensed something amiss when a new registration card recently crossed his desk.</b>
<b>The card, partially filled out, had his name and listed his office's post office box on Citrus Boulevard as the address. It also listed him as a male, a Democrat and African-American.</b>
"And I can tell you I'm only one of those," said DiMarco, who is white and Republican. There was one bright spot, though. "They flattered me by making me younger -- I did appreciate that."
The mistakes have proved costly for his office, however. DiMarco said he's burned through 65 percent of his $20,000 postal budget by mailing back erroneous registration cards. Still to be determined is how much will be spent on overtime for employees, he said.
<b>The errors also raised suspicions among registrars and the secretary of state's office that Voting Is Power was paying its canvassers by the application. Welsh, however, said the group pays its workers by the hour, no matter how many forms they return.</b>
"The most precious possession any registrar has is the accuracy and integrity of the records," DiMarco said. "You start corrupting that then you're inviting problems at the polls." <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is called voter fraud, where pet and dead people will vote for Obama.
Saturday, June 07, 2008By Richard Rainey
Using to its advantage the allure of this year's captivating presidential contest, one Democratic organization has culled the names of as many as 50,000 people in four major parishes -- including Jefferson and Orleans -- to be added to Louisiana's voter rolls.
The group, called Voting Is Power and financed by the national Democratic Party, has been canvassing neighborhoods since February, collecting personal information and signatures from as many new potential voters as possible, said Brian Welsh, a spokesman for Louisiana Victory, the umbrella group coordinating local and national Democratic voter drives. Voting Is Power members also have targeted East Baton Rouge and Caddo parishes.
<b>The group, based in Washington, D.C., has fanned out to several states to beef up Democratic voter rolls. The ultimate goal is to register roughly 70,000 new voters in Louisiana before the November election, Welsh said.</b>
[...]
<b>While Voting Is Power has sent in batches of applications for months, registrars have begun to see a disturbing pattern of misinformation on the forms, including duplicates, cards filled out with different colors of ink, or using the names of pets or dead people. In Jefferson, DiMarco sensed something amiss when a new registration card recently crossed his desk.</b>
<b>The card, partially filled out, had his name and listed his office's post office box on Citrus Boulevard as the address. It also listed him as a male, a Democrat and African-American.</b>
"And I can tell you I'm only one of those," said DiMarco, who is white and Republican. There was one bright spot, though. "They flattered me by making me younger -- I did appreciate that."
The mistakes have proved costly for his office, however. DiMarco said he's burned through 65 percent of his $20,000 postal budget by mailing back erroneous registration cards. Still to be determined is how much will be spent on overtime for employees, he said.
<b>The errors also raised suspicions among registrars and the secretary of state's office that Voting Is Power was paying its canvassers by the application. Welsh, however, said the group pays its workers by the hour, no matter how many forms they return.</b>
"The most precious possession any registrar has is the accuracy and integrity of the records," DiMarco said. "You start corrupting that then you're inviting problems at the polls." <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is called voter fraud, where pet and dead people will vote for Obama.