Madison County supervisor of elections, school board member arrested

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: Tallahassee Democrat

Eight Madison county residents, including the Madison County Supervisor of Elections and the district one school board member, have been arrested in connection with a 2010 Madison County school board race.

The arrests surround an investigation launched after the Florida Department of Law Enforcement was contacted by the Department of State’s Division of Elections involving possible fraud in the 2010 school board race, said Heather Smith, FDLE spokeswoman.

The investigation revealed that the winner of the election for district one, Abra Johnson, had unlawfully used absentee ballots, Smith said.

Those arrested include Johnson’s husband, Ernest Johnson and Jada Williams, Madison County Supervisor of Elections.

Read more: http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20111101/NEWS/111101010/Madison-County-supervisor-elections-school-board-member-arrested?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|frontpage

[Seedersandleechers]

1. Can not read article

unless you pay.

[plumbob]

2. Here's another for free.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/01/2482642/madison-co-elections-school-officials.html

Madison Co. elections, school officials arrested


BY BILL KACZOR

ASSOCIATED PRESS

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Madison County's top elections official and a school board member are among eight people arrested Tuesday in an alleged voting fraud scheme.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement and FBI agents made the arrests in Madison, about 50 miles east of Tallahassee. The suspects later were released on bond from the Madison County Jail.
Supervisor of Elections Jada Woods Williams was charged with 17 counts of neglect of duty and corrupt practices.
Williams was accused by authorities of allowing the distribution of absentee ballots used in the alleged scheme to help elect school board member Abra "Tina" Johnson, who is facing 10 counts of election fraud and two counts of absentee ballot and voting violations.


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/01/2482642/madison-co-elections-school-officials.html#ixzz1cV1nnext

[peacebird]

3. Please tell me these are Repukes?

[madville]

4. Nope, I would bet all are registered Democrats

I'm originally from there, grew up and went through school with some of the accused. I can't remember off hand but I don't think either the Supervisor of Elections race or school board candidates run with a party affiliation.

Madison is a pretty racially divided place, about 45% black and 50% white, hardly anybody wins or even runs as a Republican there anyway, most African Americans are Democrats and a good portion of the whites are as well so most races are either determined in the primary or a runoff if one candidate doesn't get 50% the first time around. All of those arrested today are African Americans, some supporters of theirs held a rally on the court house lawn today after the arrests also from what I read.


Here is a link to the official FDLE press release:

http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Content/News/Madison-County-officials-arrested-for-voter-fraud.aspx

[liberalhistorian]

5. Considering the OP,

I'd say probably not.

[Kingofalldems]

6. Correct. It would not have been posted had they been repubs.

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. I've done a google search and can not find information of their party affiliation

School board members are elected on a nonpartisan basis in Florida.

The county is heavily Democratic, so the victims are Democrats.

[liberalhistorian]

9. And, of course, with the perpetrators being

Democrats, you just couldn't wait to post it, could you? Not that I excuse the crooks at all, but still........where is this outrage from you when things like this involve Republicans? Especially when it involves Republican owners of private "education reform" companies and charter schools who steal public money, do nothing with it, and whose aim is nothing less than the destruction of public schools? In those cases, silence..........crickets...........

[Freddie Stubbs]

10. Who said that the perpetrators were Democrats?

[seafan]

7. Arrests in North Florida for absentee ballot fraud: Now, come to Miami.

This is in today's Florida news, with a hat tip to DUer Freddie Stubbs:


(This Google link leads to the complete article.)

Madison County supervisor of elections, school board member arrested

November 1, 2011

Eight Madison county (Florida) residents, including the Madison County Supervisor of Elections and the district one school board member, have been arrested in connection with a 2010 Madison County school board race.

The arrests surround an investigation launched after the Florida Department of Law Enforcement was contacted by the Department of State’s Division of Elections involving possible fraud in the 2010 school board race, said Heather Smith, FDLE spokeswoman.

The investigation revealed that the winner of the election for district one, Abra Johnson, had unlawfully used absentee ballots, Smith said.

.....

Now, send the investigators to Miami.


June 27, 2011

.....

In 1993, after the Hialeah city election was tainted by illicit commerce in absentee votes, a Miami Herald editorial warned, “Florida’s absentee ballot guidelines are among the nation’s most lenient. Indeed, the laws encourage ‘ballot brokers’ who exchange blocs of absentee ballots for money. The Legislature needs to adopt tighter regulations for obtaining absentee ballots. The Florida Senate wisely voted down a bill this year that would have made the code even looser.”

That bit of wisdom did not hold. In 2004, the Legislature relaxed absentee ballot rules. And ballot brokers are still deciding elections. (The Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections mailed out 126,372 absentee ballots for Tuesday’s county mayoral election.) If the rules were any looser, my dog Jasper could vote absentee.

.....

The state attorney’s office found “ample evidence of illegal or improper activity in connection with the handling of absentee ballots” in a 2008 Miami congressional race, but decided our election laws were too tepid to support a prosecution.

Yet this spring, when Florida lawmakers took on election fraud, early voting was curtailed and tough new regulations were imposed voting registration. But absentee voting went unremarked. It was if the Republican-controlled Legislature had been guided by a 2010 state Senate report noting that more Democrats, particularly black voters, took advantage of early voting while “voters casting absentee ballots casting ballots in the 2006 election were predominantly Republican, with 55.5% voting absentee while only 33.3% of Democrats voted absentee.”

So Florida’s new election fraud law, rather conveniently for the ruling party, ignores the main source of election fraud.

.....

Let's remember who was governor in 2004, when the Republican-controlled Legislature loosened the absentee ballot rules.



AP Photo/Phil Coale
Link




When Republicans cannot win elections fairly, they change the rules so they can cheat.

Jebbie says we got it! Jebbie says we got it!

"It was just the three of us guys handing the phone back and forth--me with the numbers, one of them a governor, the other the president-elect. Now that was cool." ---John Ellis, Bush cousin, working the Fox News Channel election desk on November 7, 2000, as the network unilaterally proclaimed a Bush win at 2:16 am.

Until and unless we restore the integrity of our elections, nothing, absolutely nothing else will matter.

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. Speaking of absentee ballot fraud in Miami-Dade:

Robocall in Hialeah mayor's race accuses candidate of threatening violence

Some voters in Hialeah were greeted Monday night by this Spanish-language robocall waiting for them in their answering machines:

"This is an alert about possible fraud," a woman's urgent voice says. "Attention Hialeah: Raul Martinez threatens with throwing punches and taking your absentee ballot.

"Be careful, Hialeah," the call continues. "If you see that Raul Martinez's campaign is asking for your absentee ballot and you don't want to vote for him, report him immediately to the authorities. This has been an alert about possible fraud." (Listen to a recording of the call here.)

The political disclaimer at the end of the call says it was paid for by Citizens for a Reality Check, a Hialeah-based electioneering group registered to Nestor Alfonso Iglesias. Iglesias could not immediately be reached for comment Monday night.

more: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2011/11/robocall-in-hialeah-mayors-race-accuses-candidate-of-threatening-violence.html