“There is perhaps no other city in the country like Sunland Park, N.M.,” according to Fox News.
“The dusty border town minutes from El Paso, Texas, has been called ‘a city in chaos’ by the state auditor, because a slew of public officials are facing felony charges that they ran City Hall like a personal piggy bank, tried to steal an election in order to remain in power and ruled the 14,000 residents through intimidation and fear,” the report states.
While the news reports suggest Sunland Park is a den of corruption, there should be a major push for voter identification in Sunland Park and the rest of the United States.
So far, 12 people, most of them public officials, have been indicted, including the mayor-elect, one Daniel Salinas.
Among the allegations are charges that city workers registered people who did not live in New Mexico, but convinced them to vote for the mayor-elect. Also allegations include absentee ballot applications were fraudulently intercepted by the city clerk to diminish the number of votes Salinas’ opponents would receive.
“They pressured the poor, old people, the people who don’t know English,” said mayoral candidate opposing Salinas Gerardo Hernandez.
Yes, I know that’s New Mexico.
However, Florida is in a similar position. “The questions about voter eligibility surfaced as the state continues its months-long efforts to scrub the rolls, including asking supervisors to remove more than 53,000 dead people discovered by comparing voter rolls to federal Social Security files,” a report states. “... the list of more than 2,600 people who have been identified as being in Florida legally but ineligible to vote. That list was sent to supervisors recently, but state officials have also said there may be as many as 182,000 registered voters who may not be citizens.”
Now, if Florida and New Mexico are “scrubbing” the voter eligibility files, why is Minnesota not doing the same?
—Keith Hansen
Comments (32)
Add commentWait for the hate filled letters Keith.
They would rather spit at you and Fox News than have the cajones to admit there might actually be a problem!!
not true, pdnet
This whole town sounds like it has a history of corruption where anything goes and that includes illegal voting.
Obviously, the same corrupt officials who were allowing illegal voting, would have accepted fake ids, and voter id laws wouldn't have cured what ails this town.
How did they manage to indict them all? It does not say who broke up the crime ring.
Florida's situation is totally different. Lots of dead people are on the voting registers. There is no proof that someone is using their names to vote in this story.
Keith should dig into the local angle and ask the Crow Wing County auditor/treasurer what the process is for removing the names of the deceased in CWC from the voting registers. That is what a decent reporter would do.
Keith, buddy, you need to do a reporter's job and not just copy other papers' articles.
Some investigation should be
Some investigation should be done on the number of felons that illegally voted in MN during the 2008 election. Convictions have already been handed down, with a number of illegal votes large enough where there is not enough staff to prosecute them yet.
lake
Perhaps you should do some investigating. Keith is not employed as a reporter.
getagrip or lifelong resident
And how would Voter ID eliminate felons from voting exactly?
Of course the libs will reject this
as another right wing rag but it is interesting that the facts come from the Secretary of State. The simple fact of the matter is that the Democrats couldn't care less about disenfranchising people, they care simply to cheat on elections. If they truly cared they would be howling a lot louder about other things that require a photo id.
http://www.minnesotamajority.org/TheIssues/ElectionIntegrity/tabid/188/D...
obviously, pdnet
Keith: "Now, if Florida and New Mexico are “scrubbing” the voter eligibility files, why is Minnesota not doing the same?"
And how does Keith know Minnesota is not doing the same thing? A good reporter would find out and quote an authority in the auditor's office as to if this is happening or not. We can't just take his word for it, can we? A good reader asks questions.
Lake. You tell me, how would
Lake. You tell me, how would it not help reduce it? Remember....you're the one with the position that there is no fraud in our voting procedures.
As for the those that say that they cannot get to a site to get an ID. Once again, you should do your own research.
Case study....from the literally 1,000's in SC that said they would be disenfranchised from voting because they had no transportation to an office that would issue the free ID. SC offered free rides. As few as 23 individuals called for a ride.
Fun facts for today
After calling the auditor's office today, I learned the following:
The deceased are purged from the election registers in Crow Wing County as soon as they get the report of death from the State Department of Health. So if you die in Minnesota, the state, in a timely manner, manages to purge your name as a voter. (if you die a week before election day, it might not be in time to do so) These updates are done often, as often as twice a week.
So, Keith is trying to misinform (intentionally or through promotion of his agenda) the citizens of this county by writing that dead people are probably voting in Minnesota.
Prove me wrong, Keith. Do a little research. The ladies are very nice at the auditor's office.
And of course you believe what they told you as gospel?
I worked for the Dept of Transportation in Tennessee for some time. We had rules and procedures, like many states, in how to handle deceased people and Drivers Licenses. You would be amazed at how many of these same licenses were confiscated from minors trying to get into bars and such. What they say is not what they always do.
Lake,
"So if you die in Minnesota, the state, in a timely manner, manages to purge your name as a voter" . Oh so you called all the counties in Minnesota and they operate just like Crow Wing County. It's good that you made those 87 phone calls in 1 hour and 2 minutes so you could do your research.
You have to ask the right
You have to ask the right questions Lake.....did you ask them what process was in place to ensure deceased persons did not "reappear" on voter registrations? Curious. It's all in how you ask the question.
so you guys call them
Be my guest!
Then ask Keith if he called even one county in MN before writing the story.
See, you just validated my belief that the commenters on here are better reporters than the writer above.
Lakeweed
What number do you suppose would be greater, those disenfranchised because they couldn't get some kind of voter ID, or those disenfranchised because they decided to stay home figuring that elections are bought (re: stolen) anyway?
lake doesn't care as long
as the voter that stays home wouldn't have voted for her leftist commrads anyway.
"So you guys call them" Thats
"So you guys call them"
Thats funny. It's as if you don't like the rules of the game so you're taking your ball and jacks and going home.
Jupiters
At least Lake did some homework on this issue, and then gets thumbs down. Incredible...............
dead people still voted
and I gave a no thumbs becauwe the whole truth wasnt told. Of course people die after voting. but not nearly as many dead that voted...even a lefty can admit that.
and for the record, dead people voting doesnt only help out lefties so all you lefties that want to give me a thumbs down, know i am as equally as hard on the right for dead people voting.
Idwd
Do you have any proof of your accusations? I didn't think so.
Lifelong,
if the organization you cited had any real proof, don't you think it would be in the courts by now? More blah blah blah from the right-wing noise machine.
Say Keefie boy,
how come Kathleen Harris, SOS and Bush campaign manager in FLA during the Gore-Bush election, didn't scrub all those dead people from the roles? Or why didn't the republican SOS's who succeeded her? But Harris was able to disenfranchise 50,000 legitimate voters prior to the 2000 election. That's the whole republican agenda, isn't it... disenfranchising legitimate voters who might vote Democratic?
ACLU
Remember last March when the MN ACLU offered a $1,000 bet to anyone that produced a conviction for MN voter fraud?
Remember shortly afterward, the Minneapolis Star/Trib actually wrote a story about someone who won the bet by identifying a Coon Rapids woman convicted for MN voter fraud?
Here is an update of the outcome of that bet (source is a member of the MN ACLU Board): The bet has never been paid!
Typical liberals.
Chey,
it is in the courts right now.
Then Lifelong,
I guess we'll find out whether or not it's a legitimate beef.
Freedomist--have to dig further than the right wing blogs....
The group that made the claim to claim the ACLU bet is closely tied to the effort on voter ID.
If I recall correctly, they found a case that HAD been caught by the system. A mother who took an absentee ballot of her daughters, filled it out and sent it in, under the belief that her daughter was OK with that. Then her daughter voted near the college she was attending..
If I recall correctly the ACLU claim was that this pro-voter ID group couldn't collect on the bet because they didn't meet it's terms. Which were to find a case of voter ID fraud that that they existing system didn't catch, but that voter ID would.
In this case, if I understand it correctly, it's a matter of public record. The people responsible WERE caught without need for voter ID, and they were prosecuted.
I'm actually quite interested in how voting goes this fall.
I think there will be a huge backlash on the voter ID thing when people find out how much of a hassle it is. People who have been living in the same place for years are going to run into a refusal to be allowed to vote for various reasons.
It's already painfully slow for some people to vote--the election judges in many precincts aren't exactly spry youngsters and they page through reams of paper even when they know who the voter is. Imagine how those lines are going to be backed up now when aunt bessie's drivers license address doesn't match voting records, when old jim's records weren't updated after he sold his house and moved into the senior housing, etc. etc.
A nightmare to look forward to!
Don't libs realize that each fake vote...
...disenfranchises a legitimate vote from someone who votes the opposite way? I'd love it if there were some way to erase a vote after the fact if you found out it was cast illegally. Unfortunately, that's not possible, so the next best thing is to make sure that a person is eligible to vote before he or she votes. I'm willing to entertain different ways of doing that. The fact that no liberals are interested in the goal of keeping people who are not eligible to vote from voting suggests that they believe illegal voters are a large part of their base. It's only a matter of time before they publicly start calling for equal voting rights for necro-Americans.
Maybe we should all put our
Maybe we should all put our names, addresses and ages and email addresses on our ballots so they can be verified before they are counted?
How about a password system? When you register, you get a password and you have to type that into the electronic box to make it take your ballot? Wouldn't work for all those who are already registered though.
muehlbah,
there is very little credible evidence that 'fake' votes or election fraud is a major problem, especially here in MN (hint: anecdotal stories do not count as credible).
To appease republicans, though, I would favor a system of electronic poll books as proposed by Mark Ritchie which would not automatically deny the right to vote to legitimate voters. Or a 'provisional' ballot system whereby voters are allowed to vote provisionally and given a fair amount of time to prove their identity if they can't produce it at the polls. Of course, this might delay the results of close elections.
Chey, if you want to live in the gutter
that is your perogative. Making bigoted remarks about people while crying foul and at the same time spitting in their face, may be your way or the liberal way, but it does little in verifying your point. It does however make you look like trash.
Oh that's rich,
coming from you pudnut.