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| March 1, 2002 | |||
Defense of 'Signature System' Flops
"No Vote Fraud in New York" Claim Inconsistent with Media Reports On Thursday, February 28, 2002, Senator Charles "Chuck" Schumer made the following comments on the floor of the U.S. Senate:
"In New York -- and I checked again yesterday; we called around the State, people not just of one party or another -- there has been almost no allegation of any kind of fraud with our system, which is a signature system."
[Congressional Record, S1330; emphasis added]
He added:
"I am sure there is occasional fraud in New York. I said to the Senator there is no instance of widespread or organized fraud, of large numbers of people who come in and vote fraudulently, organized by someone or not."
[Congressional Record, S1331; emphasis added]
However, a brief check of recent New York new sources turned up the following accounts, which certainly appear to be examples of the kind of fraud Senator Schumer said doesn't exist in his state:
"A week after county prosecutors and election officials deemed a slew of voter registration cards forgeries, a State Supreme Court justice Friday threw out hundreds of new registrants to the Suffolk Independence Party, upholding the party's finding that they were not legitimately enrolled.
"Days before congressional primaries in which minor lines such as the Independence Party are considered crucial, Justice John J. Dunn disqualified all but six of more than 600 new voters signed up by college-age canvassers working for the campaign of Jack Fisher, an East Hampton attorney seeking the party nomination."
[New York Newsday; Saturday, September 9, 2000]
"Cattaraugus County Legislator Larry G. Mack was arrested Thursday by police on charges of filing false absentee ballot applications with the county Board of Elections.
"Cattaraugus County sheriff's deputies placed Mack, 47, D-Humphrey, in handcuffs and drove him to the county jail in Little Valley, where he was fingerprinted and charged with 21 counts of first-degree offering a false instrument for filing. The arrest climaxed several days of questioning of voters by a half-dozen sheriff's investigators who went door-to-door in Legislative District Six. The people had signed forms several weeks ago requesting absentee ballots."
[Associated Press; September 19, 1999]
"A widespread case of alleged voter fraud has been uncovered in the upstate Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel, according to a newspaper report.
"More than 120 times, people's names and birth dates were used to vote twice in the same election - in Kiryas Joel and in Brooklyn - the Times Herald-Record of Middletown uncovered in an investigative report published Sunday. Officials told the newspaper it appeared to be the largest voter fraud scheme ever reported to the New York State Board of Elections, and Orange County District Attorney Francis D. Phillips said he will ask federal authorities for help with an investigation.
"'If it requires federal marshals, or whatever it takes,' Phillips said. 'This should not be tolerated.'
"Voting twice is a felony in New York.
"The double voting took place in six elections in races for president, governor and Congress, as well as state and local races, the Record reported. The double votes all took place in a single election district in Kiryas Joel, located 45 miles north of New York City."
[Associated Press; September 23, 1996]
(Update: An Orange County, New York, grand jury is investigating whether voting fraud took place during a tumultuous village election on June 6, 2001. The Times Herald-Record, December 21, 2001)
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