There was a hysterical diary here a couple of weeks ago, screaming about how vote fraud was documented in Shelby County (Memphis), Tennessee in recent August elections.
Bev Harris, infamous leader of BlackBoxVoting.org, filed suit, alleging all manner of problematic behavior that demonstrated, according to her, intent to disenfranchise voters, especially Democrats, and help Republicans win elections.
Except there was no evidence of any election fraud. There was no evidence of vote fraud either.
And a local Democrat who is on the Shelby County Election Commission, Myra Stiles, states categorically that
We have carefully considered all the charges contained in the complaints and are confident that no election fraud or conspiracy occurred.
In this diary from September 17th, the diarist praised Bev Harris as so valuable to our democracy that she's another "St Georges" on her trusty steed, "stick(ing) it to vote-fraud dragons big time."
Except she's never done that. And she didn't do it in this case. As other posters and I repeatedly explained in that diary and to the diarist, contrary to the assertion in that diary that
Shelby County TN vote fraud documented
it was, in fact, not documented at all!
Now, she has alleged that she's done that multiple times. But what she really finds is the potential for vote fraud and election fraud. She's never once uncovered actual fraud.
And, of course, even potential election fraud or vote fraud or voter registration fraud needs to be a warning to us that election commissioners need to tighten up their processes to prevent the potential election fraud from happening! Honest elections are incredibly important. There's no doubt about that.
But crying wolf and outright lying about what is happening is counter-productive.
And a Democrat on the Shelby County Election Commission has published a letter to The Commercial Appeal, the Memphis newspaper.
Here's some snippets from her letter that they published. Please go to the link to read the full piece.
As a Democratic member of the Shelby County Election Commission, I have been particularly concerned about the charges levied against the commission by Democratic candidates in the Aug. 5 election. Those charges have led to lawsuits and have seriously damaged the public's confidence in Shelby County elections.
Changes are being made so that the mistake that resulted in confusion election morning as to whether some voters had voted early will not happen again. Of the other matters alleged by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, we can explain the real circumstances of each. We look forward to our day in court and the opportunity to begin restoring confidence in Shelby County elections and the Shelby County Election Commission.
Bev Harris is a discredited person who's been banned from multiple progresive sites because of her behavior. Her sockpuppets and supporters have been banned too. There are multiple links on that previous diary that document her disreputable behavior.
And this Democrat from Shelby County provides yet more evidence that those screeching about alleged (documented, according to the previous diarist) vote fraud in Memphis in the August elections is solely about self-promotion and not about actually protecting us from actual vote fraud!
Please, read that previous diary, with all the reasons we provided as to why there was not documented vote fraud in Tennessee.
There was some human error in the election. That's not evidence of intentional vote fraud. There can be human error with paper ballots too!
Election Commission chairman Bill Giannini has said a worker mistakenly put the wrong set of data into electronic poll books used to determine voter eligibility. The result was that poll workers told some people they couldn't cast ballots because it appeared they had already voted.
Giannini said the commission started fixing the problem on Election Day and that it didn't change the outcome of polling that saw Democrats lose nine countywide races.
And there was some evidence of a discrepancy
between two vote counts, but that is due to a misinterpretation of information by Bev Harris! It's not an actual discrepancy that documents any election fraud whatsoever.
The lawsuit says there were big discrepancies in vote totals: Democrats allege that the Election Commission's count of participating voters shows 176,119 people, but the certified statement of votes cast lists a different number: 182,921.
"Thus according to (the Election Commission's) own records, 6,802 more votes were cast than individuals who participated in the August 2010 election," the lawsuit states.
John Ryder, an Election Commission attorney, says the plaintiffs have their numbers wrong.
"I've talked to the administrator and they have misinterpreted data that they have observed, which is a consistent pattern in the course of their complaint," he said.