The hysterico-pundit wing of the GOP has been accusing ACORN (via its contractors) of fraudulently registering football teams and cartoon characters to vote. They see it as a vast left-wing conspiracy, but really it’s low-income contractors trying to defraud ACORN, because they get paid by the number of registrations they turn in.
As has been pointed out repeatedly, Mickey Mouse isn’t going to show up to vote. It might throw off the statistics for total number of registered Democrats there are in each locality, but there’s little likelihood of any serious electoral fraud being committed.
Now, here’s a twist: a GOP activist who seems to operate in multiple states has figured out a different way to run this kind of piecework scam.
Ontario Police Arrest Man In Voter Fraud Case-LA TIMES
SACRAMENTO– The owner of a firm that the California Republican Party hired to
register tens of thousands of voters this year was arrested in Ontario over the weekend on suspicion of voter registration fraud.State and local investigators allege that Mark Jacoby fraudulently registered himself to vote at a childhood California address where he no longer lives so he would appear to meet the legal requirement that all signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California. His firm, Young Political Majors, or YPM, collects petition signatures and registers voters in California and other states.
Jacoby’s arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department late Saturday came after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by people employed
by YPM. The voters said YPM workers tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters.
The firm was paid $7 to $12 for every Californian it registered as a member of the GOP.
Okay. If the point was to change election outcomes, this isn’t going to fly; it’ll ensure that some initiative petitions have enough signatures to make it onto the ballot (hmmm…) and it might convince some people to vote for the initiatives if they bought the spiel that got them to sign the petition. As far as statewide and national races go, people are going to vote how they really are, not as a fraudulently registered Republican (or Democrat, for that matter).
It’s really all about the bottom line, except that for this company, the workers were motivated to bring in as many GOP registrations as possible, and the guy at the top was even more highly motivated, because it essentially works like a pyramid scheme – the worker bees are Jacoby’s “downline.” And it’s not confined to California:
Several dozen voters recently told The Times that YPM workers said they had to become Republicans to sign the petition, contrary to California initiative law. Other voters said they had no idea their registration was being changed.
YPM has been accused of using bait-and-switch tactics across the country. Election officials and lawmakers have launched investigations into the activities of YPM workers in Florida and Massachusetts. In Arizona, the firm was recently a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit. — Ibid
Florida, eh? Arizona? Very interesting. If the story grows legs, look for the anti-ACORN theme the GOPundits have been yammering about to suddenly go quiet. It’s funny how during the current election cycle, so often the GOP’s strategeries turn on them and are rendered useless. They’ve been hoist by their own petard rather a lot, really.Via One Utah » Blog Archive » RNC Operative ARRESTED for Voter Fraud!
