Specialist says he was paid for ballots

[DoYouEverWonder]

A consultant says politicians, including Sen. Mel Martinez, illegally hired him to collect absentee ballots.


January 9, 2005


ORLANDO - A campaign consultant at the center of an investigation into alleged ballot fraud in a disputed mayor's race has told prosecutors that the campaigns of many central Florida politicians, including newly elected Sen. Mel Martinez, paid him to gather absentee ballots, according to his attorney.

Ezzie Thomas, who has been given immunity, is a specialist in getting out the absentee vote and has been hired for this service since 1998, attorney Dean Mosley said Friday.

"The problem is that you're not supposed to be paid to collect absentee ballots," Mosley said.

Thomas worked on the campaigns of Martinez when he served as Orange County chairman; Glenda Hood, former mayor of Orlando and current Florida secretary of state; Democratic Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer; state Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando; and Circuit Judge Alan Apte.

<snip>

The practice of paying ballot brokers was outlawed in 1998 when Florida cracked down on election fraud in the wake of a Miami mayor's race that was nullified by a judge, primarily due to fraudulent absentee ballots.


http://www.sptimes.com/2005/01/09/State/Specialist_says_he_wa.shtml


Funny how they only investigate election fraud when it involves Democrats but this investigation opened up a can of worms that implicates Sec. of State Glenda Hood and Senator Mel Martinez. Keep in mind this case is just the tip of the iceberg into one of the main ways the Repugs rigged the 2004 elections.

The absentee ballots are the easiest and ripest ballots for the fraudsters to do their dirty work and the Repugs took full advantage of this situation all over the state of FL, not just in Orlando. I do believe that this is an area that with further research we can find all sorts of wrong doing. No wonder the Repugs were so gung ho to get rid of witness signatures on absentee ballots, it just makes them so much easier to steal.

[WritersBlock]

1. Regardless of the party involved, it needs to be investigated,

But my money is on it quietly fading away without charges, probably due to "insufficient evidence," now that Republican candidates are involved.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. This isn't the first time Ezzie Thomas has gotten in trouble

However he keeps getting off, while he taints everyone else around him. Seems that in the case of Thomas and the Orlando Firefighters Union, Jeb and Glenda found a great excuse to implement their own special brand of voter intimidation. Yet despite this fiasco, Thomas was free to continue to work at his specialty, of collecting absentee ballots.


September 28, 2004


Secretary of State Glenda Hood (in the UK Independent), involves simple voter intidimidation on the part of the State Police in the course of a suspiciously partisan-looking investigation of alleged voter fraud and money mishandling by an individual named Ezzie Thomas and the firefighters union in Orlando. The investigation most famously included armed State Police investigators visiting numerous black voters who had taken advantage of Mr. Thomas' offer to deliver their ballots, asking threatening-sounding questions of these (frequently elderly) and flashing their firearms in a prominent manner....which, as a tangential aside, makes me look more fondly day by day at the lapse of the assault weapons ban. The image is vivid: Trooper Barney Fife sitting cross-legged, tapping the butt of the pistol now prominently displayed in his ankle holster while he barks out dark menacing questions that I, striving to maintain a calm demeanor, try to answer while zipping stripper clips of rounds into the 30-round clip for the Colt AR-15 assault rifle leaning up against the ottoman...the entire temperment of the meeting plummets....

...anyway, all credible investigations and a grand jury have found no irregularities in Mr. Thomas's absentee ballot activities or in the firefighter union's fundraising, yet the investigations continue (in Mr. Thomas's case, after the state police who are conducting the investigation had written a letter - one they're having trouble explaining now - stating that there was no grounds for such an investigation). As with the election-rolls removal effort, the Orlando investigations are being directed toward the black vote and have been done in a manner most conducive to intimidating black voters....


http://www.ruminatethis.com/archives/001872.html

[WritersBlock]

3. I remember reading about the FDLE visits

last summer. I thought about that as soon as I read the above story today, but I didn't realize it was the same person.

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. Here's another fellow who specializes in collecting absentee ballots

from poor black people. Remzey Samarrai has managed to get himself elected to the Micanopy City Commission three times, despite the fact that almost everyone in the town can't stand him. How does he do this? By going into the homes of poor, elderly, preferably illiterate black people and 'helping' them fill out their abstentee ballots. The big difference between Remzey and Izzie is that Remzey is a Repug Party loyalist. Remzey and the fellow who wrote this article, both just got appointed to high level jobs in the State Dept.


Guest columnist: Immigrants are Republican Party's future

November 28, 2004


In the town of Micanopy, a majority black town outside of Gainesville, the election of Arab-American Remzey Samarrai to mayor is another indication of how immigrants and their children are finding the Republican Party appealing. A conservative Republican, Samarrai was re-elected in June 2003 with 83 percent of the black vote on a platform of increasing and improving city services.

Unlike many black and white politicians who are tripped up by the thorniness of race in politics, Samarrai's solutions have practical appeal. A Christian, he received strong support from the black religious community, which shares his conservative social views on abortion, gun rights and gay marriage among other topics in this small, rural town.

cache of http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/pj_edt_columnists/article/0,2546,TCP_1127_3356402,00.html

http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:PbzgB1IV0r0J:www.tcpalm.com/tcp/pj_edt_columnists/article/0,2546,TCP_1127_3356402,00.html+Guest+columnist:+Immigrants+are+Republican+Party%27s+future&hl=en



Oh BTW, how the hell does Green know that Remzey got 83% of the black vote?

[ClintonTyree]

5. Florida is only slightly above sea level.................

oh how I wish the Atlantic Ocean would rise a mere 25 feet (just in the Southern part of the country) and create another Bible story for the kiddies to read about on Sunday mornings.
Florida was, is and will always be a festering swamp of political muck. The world would be far better off without it's existence.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. Excuse me

I happen to live here.

Florida is really a blue state but thanks to rigged elections BushCo is going to win every time.

I much prefer a more targeted approach to getting rid of the bad guys, thank you.

[GetTheRightVote]

7. I kinda like Florida too, so please it above sea level, what I do not

understand is why the Dems here are not doing more about the fraud, they have to know it has been there for ages ?? I am getting pretty sick of the Dems too.

:mad: