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‘Wait a darn minute!’ Dems, media eat crow as felony charges are filed in California ‘voter fraud scheme’

November 23, 2018 | | Print Article

Felony charges have been filed in California following an illegal voter effort that bribed homeless people to sign ballot petitions and voter registration forms.

Tent cities are popping up all over LA and California as the state’s homeless epidemic grows.

The charges against nine people were announced by Los Angeles County prosecutors this week as a scheme was uncovered revealing that cash or cigarettes were given to homeless people in exchange for hundreds of forged signatures and the registration of nonexistent voters, the Los Angeles Times reported.

And while Democrats like former Attorney General Eric Holder famously cried that fraud involving voters was nonexistent, it seems the Los Angeles Police Department would beg to differ, adding that the same scenario played out in the 2016 election cycle.

After resigning his position in the Obama administration in 2014, Holder slammed the push for new voter ID laws implying the issue of voter fraud “doesn’t exist.”

But according to the Los Angeles Times:

Using cash and cigarettes as lures, the defendants approached homeless people on skid row and asked them to forge signatures on state ballot measure petitions and voter registration forms, the district attorney’s office said. The defendants — some of whom were scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday — face several criminal charges, including circulating a petition with fake names, voter fraud and registering a fictitious person.

The charges, which were filed three weeks ago but made public Tuesday, followed a Los Angeles Police Department crackdown on suspected election fraud on skid row earlier in the year.

 

The senior lead officer on Los Angeles’ skid row decried the “assault on democracy.”

“They paid individuals to sign the names,” Officer Deon Joseph told the Times in September. “That’s an assault on our democracy.”

The publication did not note what party or special interest group was set to benefit from the scheme.

While scams like the ones for petition signatures are not widespread in California according to state officials, Joseph said they do occur on skid row.

“People hired to help qualify initiatives for the ballot are often paid per signature collected, typically $1 to $2, but officials said a recent slew of proposed ballot initiatives had pushed the rate as high as $6 a signature,” the Times reported.

In September, California’s Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that would have banned per-signature payment for those collecting petition signatures, claiming the law might allow ballot control by “the wealthiest interests.”

Kirkland Kauzava Washington, 38, Harold Bennett, 53, and Louis Thomas Wise, 36, will face up to six years and four months in prison, while he others charged — Richard Howard, 62, Rose Makeda Sweeney, 42, Christopher Joseph Williams, 59, Jakara Fati Mardis, 35, Norman Hall, 61, and Nickey Demelvin Huntley, 44 — face up to four years and eight months in prison, according to the Times.

Undercover officers and security camera video revealed a card table was allegedly set up by Washington outside the Midnight Mission, as homeless people lined up for meals and shelter, according to  Los Angeles police Capt. Marc Reina.

Thousands of people live in the streets under the glitz and glamor of L.A. lights.

Kevin Clark Torrance, 43,  and Ashley Owen, 29, who were also arrested along with Washington in September, were not among the nine defendants charged by L.A. County prosecutors, as Torrance reportedly was living in a single-room-occupancy apartment on skid row, and Owen was homeless.

“We didn’t charge any homeless people,” district attorney spokeswoman Shiara Davila-Morales said.

Dean Logan, the head of Los Angeles County elections, admitted he was worried about “any activity that causes voters to lose faith in the process,” although he had earlier expressed confidence that forgeries would not get past his office which compares ballot signatures to voter registration forms.

With arrests made and charges filed, it seems protests by Democrats insisting voter fraud does not exist seemed to be worthy of plenty of mockery on social media.

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Frieda Powers
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