Election board reports three fraud cases
Cindy Leise | The Chronicle-Telegram
SHEFFIELD TWP. — The Lorain County Board of Elections on Wednesday referred three cases of suspected voter fraud to County Prosecutor Dennis Will and tossed out 1,705 ballots for reasons ranging from lack of voter registration to voting in the wrong precinct.
A man who is not a U.S. citizen apparently registered and voted in Lorain, according to Board of Elections Director Jose Candelario.
A poll worker spotted the man and reported him to election officials, Candelario said. Unfortunately, the man’s vote could not be retrieved and discarded, Candelario said. When people register to vote, they indicate they are U.S. citizens and the man must have lied, Candelario said.
Elections Board Chairman Robert Rousseau said, “That’s a serious one and could get you kicked out (of the country).”
Two other cases referred to the prosecutor’s office were people who voted twice, Candelario said. One voted in Lorain County and then voted provisionally in Cuyahoga County, and the other voted in Cuyahoga County and then voted provisionally in Lorain County, Candelario said. The duplicate ballots were tossed, he said.
Elections board member Anthony Giardini took a wait-and-see attitude, saying there might be extenuating circumstances such as elections officials telling the person they voted in the wrong county.
Elections board member Thomas Smith said, “I can’t conceive of anyone who would vote two times and risk a year in jail.”
Rousseau said it remains to be seen if anyone will be prosecuted, saying prosecuted cases of voter fraud are few and far between.
Among the 1,705 ballots thrown out by the elections board were 697 voters who were not registered in Lorain County or the other county they listed. After Wednesday’s meeting, Rousseau said it appears to him that those people also may have attempted to vote fraudulently.
Sadly, 223 ballots were thrown out because people voted in the wrong precinct.
Candelario said poll workers are supposed to help people get to the right precinct, but some voters lost patience and insisted on voting provisionally.
Giardini said, “I’m not so concerned about that person than the person who thinks they’re in the right place.”
Rousseau suggested that elections officials look into whether there were trouble spots where voters did not get the assistance they should have gotten.
While the elections board tossed more than 1,700 ballots, it added 1,300 ballots to the official count. Those included 437 ballots returned out of their identification envelope, 284 envelopes that were not sealed and 140 ballots where identification documents did not include birth dates.
Elections officials said it was a well-run election — perhaps because of all the early voting — although there were some minor problems.
Rousseau said one man stood outside a polling place in Avon telling incoming voters, “Vote paper only.”
His advice wasn’t heeded very much on Nov. 4 — not counting absentee ballots, only 1,254 people used paper ballots, far fewer than the 40,000 the Elections Board was required to print.
Wednesday’s meeting was in a room where the elections board is retaining 38,746 blank paper ballots as required by the law.
“We have to keep all this for 22 months,” Board of Elections Deputy Director Marilyn Jacobcik said.
Elections board member Helen Hurst said, “Good grief!”
Elections board member Thomas Smith asked, “Why would we keep blank stuff?”
Jacobcik said the office of Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said someone might want to investigate use of paper ballots and the blank ballots must be retained.
Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.
| |
|
Filed by Cindy Leise | The Chronicle-Telegram November 20th, 2008 in BREAKING, Top Stories. Popularity: 2% |
 Email this story
 Print this story
Read comments and discuss this story
Report an innappropriate comment
|
In order to comment, you must agree to our user agreement
and discussion guidelines.
You must be registered and logged in to post a comment. If you aren't already registered, click here. If you are registered, click here to log in.
Comments
Comment from
DonTCare
November 20, 2008, 7:55 am
Change? Clinton as Sec of State, Daschle as Secretary of Health and Human Services. His chief of Staff worked for Mr Clinton, and his Attoney General work to let a criminal off….. Besides the face of the President what has changed…… most have been those voting who voted for a color and not a man…… same washinton insiders, change…..lol
Write a Comment