Election fraud in TX small town? Paper ballots, not Diebold.

[tanyev]

This is from the municipal elections last May, but my local news just did a story on it last night. Even paper ballots are not immune if the officials overseeing are corrupt.

Premature Election
Allegations of early voting fraud tear up Forney
By MATT PULLE

Last May, the city of Forney, a tiny but growing bedroom community 20 miles east of Dallas, played host to a election for mayor that featured switched ballots, confounding results and the undue influence of a crony of the incumbent. If not that, then challenger and self-made millionaire Rick Wilson has manipulated the testimony of nearly 200 voters and an election judge, masterfully concocting a scandal that's polarizing an otherwise friendly Texas town. This is a not a case where the truth is likely to lie somewhere in between.

Earlier that morning, Albright began his first day as an election judge after being prodded by an elderly, civic-minded woman named Betty Hatley. At 8 a.m., the city secretary and police chief delivered the box of early votes. Although he didn't think much of it at the time, Albright would later remember that there was no seal on the ballot box.

Albright began counting the early votes. At one point, he came across around 60 ballots in a row for Grooms and Rodney Vike, an incumbent council member. A retiree who had worked as the director of benefits and compensation for a defense contractor, Albright did not jump to any untoward conclusions. He merely assumed that Grooms and Vike had done better than any observer of local politics had expected.

-snip-

Well, there's that. And the fact that the city charter forbids elected officials like the mayor from working in municipal government. But the kicker is that in his city manager role, Grooms served as the supervisor of City Secretary Odessa Moore, and if you've read these types of news stories before, you probably know what's coming: Odessa Moore served as the early voting clerk. In fact, she had one of the keys to the early voting ballot box. The one that Albright said was unsealed.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/Issues/2005-10-27/news/news.html

[WritingIsMyReligion]

1. How reassuring.

:sarcasm:

[Nederland]

2. This is an argument for computerized paper ballots

Unfortunately too many people here have a kneejerk reaction to anything involving computers.