Too Good To Be True...Probably

This article tells us that election officials in Ohio are considering investigating the possibility of real, live, honest-to-goodness voter fraud in that state over the campaign of Flush Limbore and his right-wing brethren to encourage Republicans to switch their party allegiance to Democratic in order to vote for Hillary Clinton in their recent primary, fully aware that they will eventually change it back to Republican (though they would not need to do that for the general election when they vote for McCain, of course…I don’t believe so, anyway – I’ve never voted in Ohio).

Because, as it turns out…

...What Limbaugh encouraged Republican voters to do in Ohio was a fifth-degree felony in that state, punishable with a $2,500 fine and six to 12 months in jail. That is because in order to change party affiliation in Ohio, voters have to fill out a form swearing allegiance to that party's principles "under penalty of election falsification."

On Thursday, March 20, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the "Cuyahoga County Board of Election has launched an investigation that could lead to criminal charges against voters who maliciously switched parties for the March 4 presidential primary." According to the report, "One voter scribbled the following addendum to his pledge as a new Democrat: "For one day only."

"Such an admission amounts to voter fraud," the report continued, attributing that conclusion to BOE member Sandy McNair, a Democrat. The report said the four-member board - two Democrats and two Republicans - had yet to vote on whether it would issue subpoenas, although Ohio's secretary of state, Democrat Jennifer Brunner, is empowered to cast tie-breaking votes when the BOE is deadlocked.

In 2008, 2.22 million Ohioans voted in the Democratic primary, compared to 1.27 million in 2000, according to unofficial results released by Brunner's office. In contrast, 1.01 million Ohioans voted in the 2008 Republican primary, compared to nearly 918,000 people in 2004.

Both Ohio's secretary of state and attorney general, both Democrats, were reluctant to embrace the prospect of voter fraud prosecutions.

"Secretary of State Brunner has not been contacted by anyone regarding the prosecution of alleged improper crossover voting," Brunner spokesman Jeff Ortega said. "Prosecution of such activities is the exclusive domain of the county prosecutor or the Ohio attorney general."

"We will not make a blanket statement that we would never pursue a case such as that, but it would be our position that a case such as that would be very hard to prosecute," said Ted Hart, spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, who added that a senior attorney in his office said it would be difficult to ascertain voters' motives on particular days. "The county prosecutor would have the first right of refusal."

This ties into an earlier post about the efforts of Limbore acolyte Dom Giordano to do the same thing for the April 22nd PA primary, with last Sunday at midnight being the deadline for registration (and again, it would not be necessary for a Repug-turned-Dem voter in PA to switch back in order to vote for McCain in November, though that person may try to do that, and it would create a real headache for voting officials in this state if that many people did that).

I have a feeling that the PA Attorney General should know about these voting shenanigans if he doesn’t already; I don’t know how similar election law is in Ohio versus Pennsylvania.

I’ll contact the PA AG Tom Corbett just to engage in the exercise and let you know if I get a response. However, since Corbett is a Republican, I’m not expecting anything (though if I were in Corbett's shoes, I would want to have a nice, long "heart to heart" with Emily Person of West Chester, PA, who apparently switched her registration from Republican to Democratic noted in this story, followed soon afterwards by Giordano himself).