The latest from Kari Chisholm at
http://www.polstate.com:
Last night, right here at Political State Report, we broke the news of the SEIU fraud and forgery investigation into Nader's petition for the Oregon ballot. At a press conference this morning, SEIU released more evidence. The key item: SEIU Local 49 contacted 269 people whose names were on petition sheets - and only 32% report that they actually signed the petitions. The key quote, from SEIU veep Alice Dale: "This fraud is too pervasive to have been committed without at least the complicity of the signature gatherers."
Here's the full press announcement...
Widespread Forgery Shown on Nader for President Petitions
Evidence of overwhelming and systemic fraud in the Ralph Nader for President petitions was released today by the Service Employees International Union. An analysis of the petition sheets and a direct survey of people whose names appear on the petition suggests at least two-thirds of all signatures turned in by the Nader campaign to date are fraudulent.
Alice Dale, Vice-President of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was joined by Ellen Lowe, the chief petitioner of the Initiative Integrity Act, as she released preliminary findings of an investigation into the quality of the first round of signature sheets turned into Multnomah and Washington Counties of the Ralph Nader for President petition.
As part of the investigation, 269 people whose names were on petition sheets have been contacted face to face through SEIU's research project. Out of those contacts, it was learned that 27% of the addresses do not exist, 22% of the names belong to people who are deceased or do not live at the address, and 17% of the people contacted reported they did not sign the petition. Only 32% of the people contacted whose names appear on the Nader petition report actually signing the petition.
"Based on our experience fighting signature fraud in the past, we believe the problem originates from the circulators themselves," says Alice Dale, Service Employees Union International Vice President. "This fraud is too pervasive to have been committed without at least the complicity of the signature gatherers. Furthermore, looking at the sheets for any length of time raises the question of whether campaign officials knew or at the very least should have known about the false signatures."
Adding to the evidence is the testimonial of a man who witnessed Nader petitioners copying names from a phone book, and another man whose name was forged. Today he will be filing a complaint about the forgery with the Oregon State Elections Division.
"If you look at a copy of my real signature and a copy of the signature on the petition, it is clear that the two don't match," he says. "The bottom line is that my signature was forged and there are two things I want done about it. I want the Oregon State Elections Division to immediately investigate my complaint of fraud and I join the others in calling on the Ralph Nader campaign not to attempt to qualify for the Oregon ballot using illegal means."
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Press links will be posted as they become available.