Trying to prove voter fraud in 2000.
Gov. Matt Blunt appeared remotely this afternoon on Fox News Channel to repeat allegations against community organizing group ACORN. Blunt is among the officials in some states that claim ACORN has purposely been turning in bogus voter registrations.
Big difference–as long time readers may recall, I have been a huge critic of ACORN’s efforts in the past because they didn’t audit the people doing the registrations. They started doing that-and shockingly, the problems have largely disappeared. Don’t take must me word for it:
But this year, the group has caused no such problems, according to Republican city elections director Scott Leiendecker. ACORN finished its efforts in St. Louis about three months ago, he said. So far, he said, “Everything’s been on the up and up.”
Now, I haven’t talked to Scott about this in some time, but Scott was very concerned about previous situations. For him to be relatively satisfied is very telling.
Remember when the young, fresh Secretary of State demonstrated he was a complete boob?
CITY MISLABELED DOZENS AS VOTING FROM VACANT LOTS;
PROPERTY RECORDS APPEAR TO BE IN ERROR, SURVEY FINDS;
JUST 14 BALLOTS ARE FOUND SUSPECT
*BYLINE:* Jo Mannies And Jennifer LaFleur Of The Post-Dispatch 2001, St.
Louis Post-Dispatch Tim O’Neil And Eric Stern Of The Post-Dispatch
Helped Survey Properties For This Story.
*SECTION:* NEWS; Pg. A1
*LENGTH:* 1507 words
Dozens of St. Louis voters are being wrongly accused of casting ballots from
fraudulent addresses in last year’s Nov. 7 election.
They are among thousands of registered voters who, based on city
property records, appear to live on vacant lots.
But a Post-Dispatch survey of every one of those suspect properties
turned up something else: hundreds of bona fide houses and apartment
buildings that seem to be wrongly classified by the city assessor’s
office as vacant lots.
Because of those inaccurate records, many of those properties’ occupants
have been wrongly tagged as registering to vote from fake addresses.
City records indicate that 2,214 residents appear to be registered to vote
from 1,000 vacant lots. State and local elections officials have targeted
79 of them for casting possibly illegal ballots last fall.
The Post-Dispatch count found 432 city residents registered from 296 truly
vacant lots. But most of those residents haven’t voted in years, an
indication they may have moved elsewhere.
Only 14 of those people appear to have voted last November or in a special
state Senate election in January.
None voted in the closely monitored mayoral primary in March.
The secretary of state’s office says such voters have broken no election
laws if they can prove that they legitimately reside elsewhere in the city.
But most of the 79 people on the state’s suspect voter list from last
fall probably shouldn’t be on it.
They’re voters like city Budget Director Frank Jackson, who has a
legitimate address.
His 10-year-old condominium in the 1200 block of Hadley Street is
erroneously listed as a vacant lot on city assessment records.
All told, the Post-Dispatch survey of alleged vacant lots with
registered voters found 704 legitimate addresses citywide that are
wrongly classified. Some are newer homes like Jackson’s.
Others are residences that are 50 years old or more. Some are businesses
or lots that have been turned into side yards by neighbors w
ho have bought the land.
The city’s misclassification of the properties affects the voter status
of the 1,782 occupants because state and local election officials rely
on those property records to help find those who might be casting illegal
votes from fictional addresses. The apparent errors also raise questions
about whether those properties are assessed at the right level.
New city Assessor Samuel Simon, appointed last month, said that his staff
was examining records to determine whether the office concurred or disagreed
with the Post-Dispatch findings. “While 700 out of 138,000 represent 1/2
of 1 percent of the city’s parcels, any errors are unacceptable,” he said.
“As a result, it appears that the property owners in question were undertaxed
rather than overtaxed.”
He added, “When Mayor (Francis) Slay appointed me, he ordered me to improve
the reliability of the city’s assessments and assessment records.”
The city Election Board tried to do a physical survey last winter after it
alleged that 1,000 people might have vacant-lot addresses. Election officials
complained then of faulty city property records.
The board’s final number of suspect registered voters was 161. At most of
those alleged vacant-lot voter sites, the Post-Dispatch found legitimate
addresses.
Jackson first discovered his home’s faulty vacant-lot listing when he went
to vote in the mayoral primary. He’d never been questioned at the polls
before. But because of accusations of misdeeds in November, federal and
state monitors were at the polls.
“The people at the polling place had a notation by my name, and said I
couldn’t vote,” Jackson recalled.
When he learned that he had been targeted as a possible lawbreaker, Jackson
assembled the documentation needed to clear his property and his name. He
also got to vote.
But the correct information apparently wasn’t forwarded to Secretary of
State Matt Blunt’s office, which still includes Jackson on its list of
suspect voters.
A spokesman for Blunt said state election officials have long been concerned
about the vacant-lot voting issue because “it’s a local legend in St. Louis.”
Sheila Greenbaum, the city Election Board’s new Democratic elections
director, said the Post-Dispatch’s survey confirmed her view that the
accusation of rampant vacant-lot voting “is overblown.”
But Blunt replied, “The Post-Dispatch’s discovery that the city board’s
list of vacant lots is inaccurate is shocking. This suggests that the
system is even more in need of reform than we’d previously imagined.”
Blunt said he planned to call for the Legislature to take action when
it goes back into session in January.
Election Board regroups
Questions about the accuracy of the city’s list of possible vacant-lot
voters echo the confusion that continues to plague the city’s Election
Board almost a year after last November’s disaster at the polls.
Hundreds of people, mostly in St. Louis and some in St. Louis County,
claimed they were wrongly turned away from the polls on Election Day
and sought court orders to let them vote. Democratic officials sued to
keep the polls open three extra hours – until 10 p.m. – but a judge ordered
them closed after about 45 minutes. Hundreds of people went to Election
Board headquarters downtown seeking to vote.
Since then, there have been city, state and federal investigations of
the confusion at dozens of polling places.
On Election Night, Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo., alleged rampant
vote fraud in the city, pounding the podium and shouting, “It’s an outrage!”
Bond and Blunt say they suspect that at least 1,500 residents in St.
Louis and St. Louis County may have been improperly allowed to cast
ballots. The bulk of those votes were allowed under court orders that
Bond and Blunt say shouldn’t have been granted.
Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr., D-St. Louis, is among those who contend that
perhaps thousands of legitimate city voters were turned away on Nov. 7
because they had been erroneously included on a new “inactive voter” list
and could not correct their status before the polls closed.
Gov. Bob Holden replaced the entire four-member board in May. The new
board recently hired new Democratic and Republican elections directors
to oversee the mandated overhaul.
Greenbaum, a lawyer, said she’s committed to improving the city’s elections
operations. The staff is reviewing Blunt’s report that outlined his
concerns that last November’s elections in the city were rife with
administrative problems and voter fraud.
Meanwhile, a federal grand jury here and Justice Department officials
in Washington continue to investigate allegations of election-related
wrongdoing.
A key issue is the city’s bloated voter rolls, which all sides agree
likely include tens of thousands of names that shouldn’t be on them.
That includes duplicate registrations and those of people who are dead
or no longer reside in the city.
The Post-Dispatch found at least 250 city voters with multiple
registrations.
But as Jackson’s predicament shows, correcting those voter lists
means tackling problems elsewhere in city government.
Some fail to report moves
What about the 14 recent city voters who are registered from vacant lots?
Most could not be traced to other addresses or reached for comment.
One man listed as a vacant-lot voter reports a neighboring address -
which does exist – on his drivers license, according to state records.
Three of the alleged vacant-lot voters come from one family. They’re
relatives of Otis Woodard, director of North St. Louis Outreach for Lutheran
Family & Children’s Services. He also is co-host of a morning radio show
on station WEW, 770 AM.
Woodard’s wife, Debbie Woodard, and two of his adult children – Brigitte
and Otis Woodard – are registered to vote from 2023 Bissell Street. The
address is in the midst of a grassy stretch of vacant land that spans much
of the block. The Woodards own most of it.
The elder Woodard said that he’d raised his family in that house, but that
a fire had destroyed it several years ago. Various adult family members
moved elsewhere, he said. Some – including his wife – had failed to revise
their voter registrations to reflect their new addresses,
which he says are still in the city.
“It’s not a case of anybody trying to defraud the city,” Woodard said. He
speculated that since some of his children have moved frequently, they were
waiting until they were settled before changing their voter registration.
“Voter registrations sometime get lost in the shuffle,” Woodard said, adding
that he thinks many of the city’s poor move frequently and just want to know
where their polling place is.
Blunt said he recognized the difficulty some people have in updating their
voter registration.
“Voters have a responsibility to update local election authorities when
their physical address changes,” he said. “But case law makes it difficult
to enforce this.”
He contended that the vacant-lot confusion in St. Louis might help him win
support for his proposed changes in state election laws.