I have said from the beginning, that this voter fraud thing was fishy. All we have proved, is the dead people voted for someone. Who did they vote for? They could have just as easily, voted for Terry Roland. Every one that has been questioned, was brought up by the Roland camp. It appears they have invested more time, investigatng these paticular irregularities. They know they are there, because they planted them. I wrote an article on Dec. 13, "I think the violations were planted". Maybe we should be taking votes away, from Mr. Roland. Instead of thirteen, mabe it should be twenty-six. We are undercutting the significance of the voter. If we don't like the results, let the officials overide them. If you're happy now, enjoy it while you can. What goes around, comes around.
Everybody involved has skeletons. The people of district 29 are the ultimate losers.
ReplyDeleteA voided Senate election would throw it back to the County Commission with GOP majority
ReplyDeleteBy Michael Erskine
Contact
January 19, 2006
If the state Senate voids Shelby County's special District 29 election, expect a divisive and highly partisan debate at the County Commission.
Upon the removal of Democrat Ophelia Ford from office, it would be up to the commission, where Republicans hold a 7-6 majority, to appoint an interim senator.
Both Ford and Republican challenger Terry Roland, who lost by just 13 votes in the disputed Sept. 15 election, would be pushed as candidates by commission members to serve until the Nov. 7 general election.
Roland told reporters Tuesday evening he would like the commission appointment, while Ford said she might, too. "We're going to see what the federal courts say, but probably," Ford said.
And with Republican commissioners in control of seven votes -- the number needed to select a new senator -- Roland could land in the Senate seat through a commission appointment.
Shelby County Atty. Brian Kuhn said Wednesday it would be up to the commission to act or not act to fill the seat. There is no legal requirement that the commission name an interim senator, he said.
If the commission decides to act, it would first need a letter from the Senate officially announcing a vacancy, Kuhn said. Then the commission would have to provide public notice in a newspaper at least seven days in advance of a commission election to pick a new senator.
On the meeting day, each commissioner would have the opportunity to nominate a candidate, and members of the public in the audience could make nominations, as well.
Republican Tom Moss, the commission's chairman, said he believes the commission would ultimately seat Roland, who Moss says deserves the appointment.
"Even if I wasn't a friend, a fellow Republican, he's done more to bring some of the foils or problems with our internal election process to light that I think we're going to have better elections in May and better elections in August," Moss said.
At this point, Moss said he doesn't think a compromise candidate would be selected. He expects the vote, which could come at the earliest in late February, to be down party lines.
Bill Giannini, chair of the local GOP, said it's the position of the party that Roland should be seated.
"We are going to encourage our Republican commissioners to seat Terry Roland, and the Democratic commissioners should do so, as well, because Terry Roland won that race," Giannini said.
Commissioner Cleo Kirk, a Democrat, disagreed, saying Ford "was the winner, so I think she should be seated."
Kirk said he would hope the commission sticks to its tradition of filling vacant Democratic seats with Democrats and vacant Republican seats with Republicans. The District 29 seat, long held by Ophelia Ford's brother John Ford before his indictment as a result of the Tennessee Waltz public corruption sting, has been a Democratic seat.
But Kirk acknowledged a contentious debate could be coming if the commission has to make an appointment.
"What makes it, I think, even worse is that this is an election year. In this community, we play partisan politics and I think we play racial politics too much," Kirk said.
Another of Ophelia Ford's brothers, Joe Ford, sits on the County Commission as one of six Democrats.
Joe Ford said he doesn't plan to vote or do any lobbying of his colleagues, even though he believes his sister should be seated.
"I'll be very low-key. I won't nominate. I won't speak on the matter," he said. "It's a delicate issue. ... I'm going to leave it up to my colleagues."
Ford's court hearing today
ReplyDeleteSenate panel confirms 9 bad votes, holds off on report
By Richard Locker
Contact
January 25, 2006
NASHVILLE -- A Senate committee postponed a final recommendation Tuesday on the disputed District 29 election to avoid running afoul of a federal judge, who will hold a hearing on the issue today.
U.S. Dist. Judge Bernice Donald's last week banned "any action to affirm or void" the election before this morning's hearing.
The Senate committee investigating election irregularities did confirm Tuesday that nine illegal votes were cast in the September election that saw Democrat Ophelia Ford narrowly defeat Republican Terry Roland.
Today's hearing in Donald's Memphis courtroom is now the focal point in the long-running dispute over the Sept. 15 special election that Ford won by 13 votes.
Three senators are subpoenaed to testify, and so many others plan to attend that today's Senate session in Nashville has been canceled.
The committee, appointed to investigate the election after Roland contested the election Sept. 23, quickly agreed Tuesday that nine illegal votes were cast in the election. None was attributed to either candidate.
But when the panel of three Democrats and three Republicans began to disagree over another 170 votes that Roland's lawyers contend are illegal, it voted to adjourn.
The committee went through a series of unanimous votes, on motions by Senate Democratic Leader Jim Kyle of Memphis, declaring the nine votes as illegal. Then Senate Republican Leader Ron Ramsey of Blountville moved to throw out all 31 votes in a North Memphis precinct that Ford carried 30-1 because a poll worker there was in New York on election day and her sister signed the missing worker's name on documents certifying the precinct's results.
When Democrats raised concerns about continuing to vote in light of Donald's restraining order, the panel recessed until sometime after today's hearing.
The judge issued her order after Ford filed a lawsuit last week just before the Senate was set to void the election, unseat her and ask the Shelby County Commission to appoint an interim senator until the Nov. 7 general election.
The lawsuit to be argued today contends that voiding the election would violate the equal protection and due process rights of Ford and several voters in the district, as well as the federal Voting Rights Act.
Earlier in Tuesday's committee hearing, state Election Coordinator Brook Thompson said an analysis of Social Security numbers of people who voted Sept. 15 found no more instances of fraudulent voting using the identities of dead people, beyond the two already confirmed.
Lawyers for Roland and Ford presented their final arguments.
Roland's lawyer, Maclin Davis, told the panel that state law requires the Senate to void the election because at least 138 and possibly 179 illegal votes were cast -- far more than Ford's 13-vote margin over Roland. Most of the votes Davis cited are for violations such as living outside the district and failing to sign all required documents at the polling place.
Davis also said all 31 votes in Precinct 27-1, where the poll worker was absent, should be thrown out but added it's not necessary because the number of other illegal votes exceeds the 13-vote margin.
But Ford's attorney, David Cocke, said the Precinct 27-1 votes should not be discounted based on The Commercial Appeal's disclosure of the missing poll worker. He said the newspaper "has been terribly unfair in doling out" reports of irregularities and "it's clear to me what their agenda is."
Previewing the arguments he will make in court today, Cocke said there's no evidence of any illegal votes beyond the nine identified by the committee. He said most of the votes cited by Republicans fall into two categories: those who failed to sign all required documents, for which he blamed election workers; and those who show up on Internet databases as living outside the district.
State law is vague on residency, and throwing out the mostly black voters under challenge by the GOP would subject them to a different standard than exists outside District 29 in Tennessee and would violate federal law, Cocke argued.
After the meeting, Ford said she "was a little bit harsh" last week when she said the effort to remove her was racially motivated, but her district is 70 percent black and most of the voters under challenge are black.
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