To follow up on a story we covered last October when arrests were made in Orange County, California after it was discovered that “bounty hunters” were being paid per Republican voter registration form they gathered and had switched Democratic (and Green and even non-citizen) voter registration forms to Republican…LA Times is reporting today that sentencing for the first two of the 12 arrested has let the pair off with “time served” and three years probation:
Jason Holly, 36, and Jessica Sundell, 23, were among 12 people arrested last fall and charged with signing up voters during a registration drive that resulted in dozens of Democrats fraudulently being signed up as Republicans.
…
The scandal, which surfaced nearly a year ago, embarrassed the county’s Republican Party and underscored problems that can arise with signature-gathering and voter registration campaigns in which the workers are paid by the signature.
Campaign watchdogs have derisively called that practice a “bounty hunter” system.
One of the 12 defendants, Don Williams, remains a fugitive.
The others await court appearances and face up to three years in prison.
AP adds a couple of details on how the scam was perpetrated:
Neither of the reports went into much detail on exactly who was behind the scheme, aside from statements from GOP spokesmen that they knew nothing about it. Naturally.
(Anybody spoken to Nathan Sproul lately?)
On another front, the two top generals have met the ire of preznit blush … as has Harriet … no probation for those who would embrace sanity.
Nope … its Hannity, insanity, or nothing in the dark land … hey … Mr. Preznit Blush … it isn’t too far from your white house to America … take a walk on the bright side … you and the dick resign … get lost … and we’ll call it even … like Gerald Ford did … but if you hang around talking all funny and stuff … might not be a good idea …
Up to $10 per registrant?
We’re talking big money here! This can’t be a small time operation.
This is why Democrats have such a hard time. Republicans are giving money out right and right. Democrats have to do everything for free on their own time. No wonder the right wingers seem to have no cap on how much money they want.
Forget the “drug user” fish.
Who was the dealer?
I still think that the real purpose of this “drive” to get Republicans wasn’t so much to switch them to Republicans as it was to force these voters to have to go through the system again of new registrations, and get thrown out by McPherson’s newer DMV matching program that has been throwing out 26% of new voters statewide and “coincidentally” 46 percent in L.A. county where these activities were happening. Switching them to Republicans (with probably intentionally mismatching personal info) though sounding interesting publicly probably was more to cover their tracks that these disenfranchised voters were Democrats and not Republicans (if an analysis to see who were being kicked off the rolls by the DMV matching program were studied more).
A deeper investigation I believe is really necessary here rather than just going after their paid “bounty hunter” front men/women.
ALWAYS…it’s the Republicans doing vote-related “Dirty Tricks”…
ALWAYS THE REPUBLICANS! ALWAYS THE REPUBLICANS!
The Republican Party and their operatives ARE THE PARTY THAT STEALS ELECTIONS, SUPPRESSES VOTES, SENDS MAIL OUT TO CONFUSE OR INTIMIDATE VOTERS, SUPPRESSES THE MINORITY VOTE…
Politics as Usual.
Make it stop Please!