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Here, I
use the definition of Red States by the Swing State Project. Please
select your state of interest to proceed. (If there is no link, that
means there is no content for that state yet).
SOUTH
CAROLINA
11/16/04
[Permalink]
South Carolina's Horry
County orders election to be held AGAIN to decide County Council seat
based on incumbent Democrat's complaint that voters who were eligible
to vote were not allowed to vote and those ineligible to vote in the
District were allowed to vote
Via reader VL, a report in the Sun
News:
Horry County's
Election Commission decided voters will return to the polls to
determine the race for County Council's District 3 seat, but one
candidate wasn't pleased with the ruling and plans to appeal to the
state election board.
In a hotly contested
race, 37 votes separated Democratic incumbent Marion Foxworth and
his Republican challenger, Joe DeFeo, with DeFeo being declared
winner of the seat.
A recount was held
the week after the election, and then Foxworth petitioned for a
hearing.
He said the election
was tainted because some residents were not allowed to vote in the
race and others not living in the district were allowed to cast a
ballot.
After hearing
testimony Monday in a courtroom at the Horry County Government and
Judicial Complex, the election commission agreed with Foxworth's
assessment and unanimously voted to hold another election in the
district.
Foxworth will remain
on the council until the matter is resolved through another election
or state appeal.
DeFeo said he likely
will appeal the decision to hold another election to the state
Election Commission for a ruling. He has until noon Nov. 22 to file
his appeal with the state, which could either agree with the
county's decision or overturn it.
The state commission
could hold a similar hearing to determine the outcome of the race.
It is unclear if another election is held how much it could cost
taxpayers or when it would be scheduled.
Foxworth said some
residents did not vote in the proper district races - that some from
District 2 voted in District 3, and some voted in District 1 when
they should have voted in District 3.
He said those mix-ups
included residents in Emerald Forest, Myrtlewood and Sea Oats.
Similar errors
occurred in the May primary with an unknown number of voters from
Horry County's District 1 cast votes in the District 9 County
Council primary races, but it did not affect the outcome of the
race.
"I'm encouraged
the election commission understood our protest," Foxworth said.
"I'm thankful for another opportunity to let voters decide ...
once the rolls are correct."
10/30/04_2 [Permalink]
Employee of left-leaning
but nonpartisan voter registration group South Carolina Progressive
Network (SCPN) involved in submitting numerous fraudulent
registrations. Fraud was however discovered by SCPN and reported to
state authorities for prosecution of the employee. Via
Votersunite,
I came across this
story:
A Florence man was
arrested Wednesday amid allegations he used people’s names and
personal information, including that of the mayor of Florence, on
more than 1,000 voter registration forms and turned them in to the
Florence County Voter Registration Office.
Terence Hines, 44, of
603 National Cemetery Road was taken into custody about 5 p.m. on
charges of forgery and multiple counts of fraudulent registration or
voting, 12th Circuit Solicitor Ed Clements III said.
Hines’ arrest was
the culmination of a State Law Enforcement Division investigation
that began soon after Hines turned in two large boxes containing
more than 1,500 completed voter registration forms to the Florence
County Voter Registration Office last Thursday.
“There were a lot
of forms there and from the beginning, something just didn’t seem
right about them,” Clements said. “Florence County election
officials began checking some of the names and quickly found out
that a lot of the people were already registered and the information
on the forms didn’t match what was on the records, and several
other people whose names were on these forms were deceased. None of
the information added up.”
The name and address
on one of the forms happened to belong to Florence Mayor Frank
Willis, which gave officials even more cause for suspicion.
“Yeah, a
registration form for Frank Willis immediately sent up a red
flag,” Florence County Voter Registration and Elections Director
Russell Barrett said, chuckling. “We were pretty sure that the
mayor was already a registered voter and had been for some time.”
A check of voter
registration records confirmed officials’ suspicions and revealed
that although Willis’ name and address matched records, nothing
else on the recently submitted form was correct.
Just to make sure
there was no mistake, officials contacted Willis.
“I was just
dumfounded when the lady from voter registration called, especially
when she told me that what really alerted them to the whole thing
was the fact this guy used my name,” Willis said.
“She started
reading the information on the form to me, and the name and address
were right, but that was it,” Willis said. “Everything else -
the Social Security number, the phone number, the birth date - all
of it was complete fiction. The guy had me born in 1982 - knocked 30
years off my age for me. The more I thought about it, the more I
just couldn’t believe anyone would be stupid enough to use my name
of all names on a fictitious voter registration form.”
After talking with
Willis and confirming that information on almost all of the forms in
the two boxes was either fake or wrong, election officials contacted
SLED, which in turn contacted Clements.
According to the
arrest affidavit provided by SLED, Hines was employed by the South
Carolina Progressive Network, an affiliate partner organization for
America’s Families United, based in Washington, D.C.
The S.C. Progressive
Network’s Web site describes the organization as a broad-based
coalition of advocacy groups and individual activists from across
the state who have joined forces to promote social and economic
change in South Carolina. Created in 1995 as a tool to engage
ordinary citizens in their communities and in their government, the
network at its core has been about connecting people to each other
and to resources designed to leverage the work of grassroots
activists and organizations, according to the site.
The Web site also
promotes the Network’s Missing Voter Project, proclaiming, “The
Network’s Missing Voter Project has been funded to do nonpartisan
voter registration across the state. We can pay your organization $3
for every registration gathered at a residence, or $2 for
nonresidential cards.”
A message left by the
Morning News at the S.C. Progressive Network headquarters in
Columbia was not returned Wednesday.
However, Angela Manso,
deputy director and chief of staff of America’s Families United,
said regardless of what authorities were led to believe, her
organization is in no way affiliated with Hines or the S.C.
Progressive Network.
SCPN posted
this notice on the website in connection with the above report:
The Director of the
S.C. Progressive Network alerted the Florence County Voter
Registration Office and the State Law Enforcement Division on Oct. 4
that fraudulent voter registration forms had been turned in to the
Florence office by Terence Hines, who was gathering the forms as
part of a nationwide voter registration drive. Hines was referred to
the Network by the national Civic Engagement Project.
Hines was arrested
Oct. 6 for multiple counts of fraudulent registration.
The Progressive
Network is a 10-year-old statewide coalition of more than 60
organizations working together to promote democracy and sound public
policy in South Carolina.
"Our Missing
Voter Project was a successful state-wide, nonpartisan voter
registration drive to register some of the nearly one million
eligible citizens in this state who do not vote," said Brett
Bursey, director of the Network.
The Network received
a grant to reimburse organizations for the expenses of their voter
registration drives that had strict rules governing the nonpartisan
nature of registration, and had a system of quality control to
insure that registrations were valid.
"Mr. Hines
represented himself as a civic-minded individual who had organized a
team of canvassers in Florence to gather registration forms,"
Bursey said. "He was the only one of dozens of people,
organizations, fraternities, sororities and churches who failed to
faithfully follow the rules."
"We successfully
registered more than 3,500 voters in 24 other counties without any
problems," Bursey said.
Hines had turned in
several-hundred legitimate forms early in the process, but waited
until the day before registration ended to submit over 1,000 bogus
registrations.
"When our
internal review over the weekend revealed that some of Mr. Hines'
forms were fraudulent, we called the appropriate authorities,"
Bursey said. "We expressed our concern to Russell Barrett at
the Florence Voter Registration Office on Oct. 4 that legitimate
forms might get lost amidst the fraudulent ones."
"We take voting
very seriously," said Donna Dewitt, Co-chair of the Network.
"We regret that Mr. Hines misrepresented himself to our
organization, and we believe that our effort to include more South
Carolinians in the voting process helps make our system more
democratic and equitable."
10/30/04 [Permalink]
UPDATED 10/31/04
Jim Crow Dirty Tricks in
South Carolina: Bogus letter claiming to be from NAACP threatens
arrest of voters who have failed to pay parking tickets or child
support, among other things
Via reader PJK, here's an AP
report:
A bogus letter
circulating in South Carolina, purporting to be from the NAACP,
threatens the arrest of voters who have outstanding parking tickets or
failed to pay child support. The NAACP said Friday the letter is a
scare tactic and called for an investigation.
"I'm outraged," said Jill Miller, director of the Charleston
County Board of Election and Voter Registration. "This is so
bogus."
The Rev. Joe Darby, vice president of the state chapter of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he
received the one-page letter -- which had a Columbia postmark with no
return address -- at his Charleston home.
He said it was an attempt to frighten minorities from voting Tuesday
because the letter-writer assumes black people are in trouble with the
law.
"This is old South Carolina politics," said Darby. "I
don't think anybody will fall for this."
Darby said he wants the State Law Enforcement Division to investigate.
The letter also says voters must have a credit check, provide two
forms of photo identification, a Social Security card, a voter
registration card and a handwriting sample.
"None of that is true," said Miller. "I certainly hope
no voter would be taken in by this."
Miller said voters need to show just one piece of identification -- a
voter registration card, a South Carolina driver's license or a motor
vehicles department-issued photo ID card.
UPDATE 10/31/04
More
here from SCDP including a copy of the flyer.
Josh Marshall notes that this is an old
trick practiced in the past.
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