Gingrich: Campaign worker's signature fraud cost slot on Virginia ballot

[brooklynite]

from CNN:

Algona, Iowa (CNN) - Newt Gingrich cited fraud Wednesday as the reason he didn't get on the Virginia primary ballot.

Last week his campaign acknowledged they used paid volunteers to scramble to get the required 10,000 signatures but fell short after the former House speaker and Virginia resident boasted his campaign was submitting as many as 12,000-14,000 signatures.

On a campaign stop at an Algona chocolate store, the former House speaker said the "mistake" occurred because one of their workers committed fraud.

"We hired somebody who turned in false signatures. We turned in 11,100 – we needed 10,000 – 1,500 of them were by one guy who frankly committed fraud."

And based on my leadership skills in picking trustworthy staff, you should elect me President...

[izquierdista]

1. Which makes me ask....

How do you tell a fraudster from a regular Republican?

[FSogol]

2. LOL. n/t

[Cosmocat]

29. ACORN!

This is the one tangible thing that some rogue idiots did for ACORN in falsifying forms for registered voters, and the lugnuts went nuts on ACORN ...

[booley]

3. acorn

and yet fraud by paid signature collectors was more then proof enough that ACORN as an organization was some evil group out to destroy democracy.(even though the fraudsters were turned in by ACORN. that's no way to run a conspiracy)

Hmmm, well if the republicans are at al consistent, they will immediatly pass a bill barring Gingrich from getting into government again.

Yeah, I am sure they will do that.

I'll just sit here and hold my breath, waiting for the GOP to be morally consistent.

[unblock]

8. the gop is VERY consistent when it comes to morality

they believe that morality to be tauted by republicans and enforced against democrats.

they are VERY consistent in this view.

[Charlemagne]

14. exactly right

People who collect voter registrations and ballots are required by law to turn in every form they receive. They can flag the clearly fraudulent forms but they cant discard them themselves. This is important because you dont want someone throwing out registrations based on political bias (i.e. im a liberal so I throw out all the registrations from the conservative part of town).

Its such a basic thing. but the republican base cant/wont think for themselves so every time they are told a lie they believe it.

[unblock]

4. brilliant leadership, relying on a structure where one person's fraud scuttles the entire state.

at a minimum, just turn in enough signatures so that you need TWO people doing this before you go below the minimum number of legitimate signatures needed.

[DrDan]

5. in other words, they were attempting to cheat

[SpiralHawk]

6. Republicon Family Fraud Values. As usual.

And as usual, Republicon Draft Dodger Newtie Gingrich is dodging reponsibility, passing the buck, trying to blame someone else for his own peeeculiar Republicon brand of FAIL.

Pathetic.

[kwassa]

7. and speaking of fraud, why should we believe anything Gingrich says?

[bluedigger]

9. Nobody hates getting grifted more than another grifter. n/t

[Nay]

28. Ain't that the truth! Perfect comment!

[lunatica]

31. You haven't seen outraged indignation until you've seen a grifter getting stung.

LOL!

[auburngrad82]

10. Have you ever known a Repuglican to take responsibility for their screw ups?

Blame it on an unnamed campaign worker. If he was all that and a bag of chips he wouldn't have had scrape by the the minimum number required. Instead he ate the bag of chips and pointed fingers at his staff. Nice.

[Tom Ripley]

11. The buck stops over there. Way over there.

[Fuddnik]

12. Hey Noot! 10-15% spoilage is about average without fraud.

Back in 2006, in a congressional race, we turned in over 6,500 petitions when we needed 5,300.

But, we verified every petition against the voter files from the district before we turned them in. Our spoilage rate was about 3%. Lowest in the state.

[Charlemagne]

13. They will blame it on a liberal conspiracy

I can already hear the right-wing blogs typing away.......

"Dateline Virginia: Liberal OWS provocateurs, likely former employees of the anti-american ACORN organization, pose as Gingrich supporters in order to commit fraud and keep his name off the primary ballot. Yet another sign that liberals hate freedom and want to stifle democracy in order to bring about their socialist atheist utopia."


Of course this will be held as absolute truth because conservatives rely so much on facts and logic.

[chowder66]

15. Maybe Newt should have made sure his 12 to 14 k number was realized then.

See Newt, if you had actually followed through on your word then you wouldn't have had this problem. It's kind of like what a marriage vow means according to "Republican Family Values". In sickness and in health....now you have made a pledge to not go negative and that lasted what..... a day? Your word/pledge/boasts mean nothing Newt. Pack it in and retire please.

[Hugabear]

16. He's just pissed that he got caught

It's only bad when the other guys are doing it, right?

[Ccarmona]

17. Definition of A Leader

is someone who takes responsibility for the actions of those he or she are in charge of. Newt it's your candidacy, obviously you failed as a leader...again!!

[DeSwiss]

18. I'm not even going to bother.....

...addressing the oxymoron inherent in the concept of a ''paid-volunteer.''


- But next time Noot buys volunteers, he ought to make sure they have warranties for this sort of thing.......

K&R

[AllyCat]

20. That's what I was wondering...how do you have a "PAID volunteer"???

I think he is probably lying. Again. And they will blame this on libruls'

[OKNancy]

19. although I wouldn't put it past someone to do this, for some reason I think it might not be true

sounds real fishy to me. Newt has been know to make shit up.
Sounds like a convenient excuse.

[truthisfreedom]

21. He's got to be seriously pissed. Obviously he's a magnet for fraud and corruption.

[Pab Sungenis]

22. The rule of thumb is

hand in no less than 150% of the required signatures. Preferably 200% if you can manage it. That way you don't worry about spoilage.

What this shows is that until recently Gingrich didn't take his campaign seriously enough to build a proper organization. For all we know, he still isn't taking it that seriously.

[Kahuna]

23. Three was incentive for fraud because newt paid for many

of those signatures...

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2011/12/gingrich-paying-for-virginia-petitions-108170.html


By ALEXANDER BURNS | 12/20/11 12:03 PM EST A reader sends along an email message offering "quick money" in exchange for help getting Newt Gingrich on the Virginia ballot:

Because the deadline is coming up so quickly, we've got a pretty good budget to work with. We can offer $1 per signature, with a $50 bonus for every 100 signatures (in other words, if you get 100 signatures, you get $150, if you get 300 signatures, you get $450, if you get 1,000 signatures, you get $1,500).

In addition, if you can put together a crew to get signatures, they can get paid the same amount, and you can get a $1,000 bonus for every 2,000 signatures your crew collects.

[sandyd921]

24. Guy must have worked for ACORN. LOL! n/t

[ScottLand]

25. The fraudster must've been a liberal (if I'm getting the spin straight):

In this case, it's a liberal who did it knowing he would sabotage Newt's campaign. If it had been Obama, the fraudster would have been working directly for Obama and committing fraud at his direction. Am I getting that right, Newtie? What do I win?!!!

[NBachers]

26. Ah, the old "Rogue Contractor" ploy

So if Newtie got on the ballot and then found out about the fraud, would he have taken himself off the ballot?

[Politicalboi]

27. This reminds me of

"One heck of a job Brownie" LOL! Incompetence hires incompetence.

[icnorth]

30. I have doubts they could find 10,000 legitimate supporters in the State so they really had no option

But Mickey Mouse? Come on! Even republicans know Mickey splits his time between California and Florida.

[L. Coyote]

32. There was only one small problem: They got caught!!

this time