So, now that a Republican has been arrested and charged with voter registration fraud, I'm sure that the GOP will be claiming that Republicans are trying to "rig the election," right?
SACRAMENTO -- The owner of a firm that the California Republican Party hired to register tens of thousands of voters this year was arrested in Ontario late last night on suspicion of voter registration fraud.
State and local investigators allege that Mark Jacoby fraudulently registered himself to vote at a childhood California address where he no longer lives so he would appear to meet the legal requirement that signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California.
Jacoby's arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department comes after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by his firm, Young Political Majors, or YPM. The voters said YPM tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters. The firm was paid $7 to $12 for every Californian it registered as a member of the GOP.
Oh, that's right. When fraud is committed against ACORN, that's Democrats trying to steal an election. When Republicans are arrested for voter registration fraud, that's a different story...
Calitics has more:
This arrest comes on the heels of recent media coverage of YPM's fraudulent tactics sometimes known as "slamming" - where voters are duped into changing their party registrations, or where their registration is simply changed by YPM without the voter's knowledge.
This is how the GOP scheme is orchestrated:
SACRAMENTO -- Dozens of newly minted Republican voters say they were duped into joining the party by a GOP contractor with a trail of fraud complaints stretching across the country.
Voters contacted by The Times said they were tricked into switching parties while signing what they believed were petitions for tougher penalties against child molesters. Some said they were told that they had to become Republicans to sign the petition, contrary to California initiative law. Others had no idea their registration was being changed.
"I am not a Republican," insisted Karen Ashcraft, 47, a pet-clinic manager and former Democrat from Ventura who said she was duped by a signature gatherer into joining the GOP. "I certainly . . . won't sign anything in front of a grocery store ever again."
It is a bait-and-switch scheme familiar to election experts. The firm hired by the California Republican Party -- a small company called Young Political Majors, or YPM, which operates in several states -- has been accused of using the tactic across the country.
The Times randomly interviewed 46 of the hundreds of voters whose election records show they were recently re-registered as Republicans by YPM, and 37 of them -- more than 80% -- said that they were misled into making the change or that it was done without their knowledge.
As Calitics notes, "Jacoby's arrest does not stem from those specific charges, which are still under investigation, but the fact that Jacoby himself was fraudulently registered is damning."
So, let's recap.
- Number of Democrats arrested on voter registration fraud: 0
- Number of Republicans arrested on voter registration fraud: 1
Not that facts matter to the GOP, which is clinging to the ACORN faux scandal in an attempt to delegitimatize a possible Obama victory.