A long history of corruption
As Michigan Republicans work to suppress voting rights in our state under the guise of “election reform”, one of their own, disgraced former Congressman Thad McCotter, has had long history of election fraud. After being busted for submitting fraudulent nominating petitions THIS year, MIRS news service is now reporting that he did the same in 2010.
In fact, he turned in less than 500 of the required 1,000 signatures meaning that less than a quarter of the 2,000 that he submitted were valid. This year, he turned in only 224 valid signatures and in both years, staffers photocopied pages to make it appear as if he had enough.
According to MIRS, “at least 13 of the 167 petitions turned in as part of the 2010 campaign were photocopied twice..[and] 42 had been photocopied once.” They also note that the people in McCotter’s campaign that have been charged in this year’s fraud, Don Yowchuang, Paul Seewald, Mary Melissa Turnbull and Lorianne O’Brady, do not appear to have been involved in 2010.
In other words, this is specific to McCotter, not just rogue staffers gone wild.
Republicans are, of course, silent on this, even as they continue to push ALEC-style voter suppression bills through the Legislature. Just further proof that solving a non-existent election fraud problem is NOT their goal.
Disenfranchising Democratic-leaning voters, on the other hand, IS.
The question is whether or not Republican State Attorney General Bill Schuette will pursue criminal charges against McCotter as he promised. Magic Eight Ball sez, “Outlook not so good.”
[McCotter image credit: Gage Skidmore | Flickr]
