Help EJ Tweet the West Virginia Primary

I’m looking for a few citizen correspondents in West Virginia to tweet the Primary on May 13. If you are a poll worker, monitor, campaign/party staffer, volunteer, or a voter and are willing to share your election day experience with the EJ community through live twitter updates, please contact me at: mr (at) electionjournal (dot) org

-MR

Disclaimer: This is a volunteer effort. We will not pay, finance, reimburse, or loan you any money.

Obama Campaign Headquarters in Vincennes, IN Vandalized on Election Eve

According to WHITV Channel 10

Supporters at the Vincennes Obama for America office arrived Monday morning to find something disturbing. Overnight someone had vandalized Obama’s Vincennes campaign site.

Spray paint covered windows with broken glass across the floor. Heartbreaking news to Obama supporters.

Duane Chattin, President of the Vincennes City Council tells News 10, “our hope now is that the police will catch these criminals and they can be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

The report can be seen here (pardon the poor quality):

-J Chiles Esq

More Obama Electioneering Caught on Tape!

On Tuesday, EJ broke the story of an Obama volunteer actively campaigning inside of a polling location in Marion County, Indiana. 

Looks like this wasn’t the only case of electioneering caught on camera.

WTVW Fox-7 reports “On Tuesday, a poll worker in Evansville Indiana made sure voters knew they were stepping into ‘Obama’s House’.” Video below.

H/T to Curtis McNeely.

Eastern Kentucky: where a state senator can be convicted for vote buying, serve his sentence and then run for re-election.

Four years ago, Johnny Ray Turner beat Eric Shane Hamilton by only 24 votes for the 29th District State Senate seat. There are no Republicans running, so the winner of this Democrat primary will be the state senator.

This will be no ordinary rematch for the state Senate seat. Since then, Turner has been caught up in a vote buying scandal that rocked his district. The investigation led Turner to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and serving a three month sentence under house arrest in 2007.

Prosecutors and U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell, who sentenced Turner in April 2007 to three months under home arrest and one year on probation, said Turner wasn’t a ringleader of the fraud but, in Caldwell’s words, was a “willing victim.”

Eastern Kentucky has been marred by vote buying scandals in recent years. The Bath County Democratic Primary from 2006, has resulted in at least 12 residents charged in the vote buying scandal; the Bath County sheriff and county attorney were two of the seven found guilty thus far.

Turner’s troubles stem from payments in 2000 and then another round of suspicious payments in 2005.

Federal investigators looked into election activities of prominent Eastern Kentucky businessman and political fund-raiser Ross Harris and his right-hand man, Glenn Turner, Johnny Ray’s cousin. Prosecutors found questionable campaign checks cut during Turner’s 2000 campaign and in May 2005. A federal grand jury indicted Turner, his cousin and Harris for allegedly paying people for votes. Harris died during the trial in 2006, and Glenn Turner was sentenced to six months in prison for lying to jurors about his involvement in another vote fraud case.

The Kentucky primary is May 20.

-GennX

Obama Campaign Issues an Apology.

Election Journal broke the story earlier today about the Obama volunteer electioneering in a polling place.   The story was picked up by various outlets and addressed by  Beth White, the Marion County Clerk.

The Obama campaign confirms this happened and has apologized.

“A volunteer and credentialed watcher made a mistake and took a sign into the polling booth that was meant for the appropriate place outside of the polling place,” said spox Bill Burton. “The sign has been taken down, and we apologized to the election workers for the mistake.”

H/T to Jake Tapper.

Print More Ballots!!!

County Clerk Beth White has informed us that her office is printing and dispatching ballots to polling locations around the County.  Beth says jittery election officals fear they are going to run out of ballots, but she is hopeful that her dispatchers, traveling by taxi, will get there in time. 

Print them:

Pack them:

And get them out the door.  “TAXI!”

Stay tuned…

-MR

Update - Ballots Arrive (Unsealed) At Franklin Precinct 13

Precinct official Gerald Britton tells us that the County Clerk has delivered 100 additional ballots. This may still prove troublesome as that amount may barely meet the need of those waiting in line.

Mr. Britton has also already placed another order for a round of ballots.

Indiana Statute requires ballots to be delivered sealed….they weren’t in this case. In addition, Marion County officials have told us that it is “policy” that ballots are delivered in the custody of a bipartisan team…again not the case in this instance:

-J Chiles Esq