The only real election fraud perpetrated en masse in our country over the last few decades has been by conservative operators working to legislate voter suppression laws or their satellite scam artist middle class that works to misinform, threaten, and scare people into either not voting, or believing someone is stealing elections. Two such conmen are 24-year-old Jacob Wohl and 56-year-old Jack Burkman.
Wohl and Burkman have been facing two cases for their part in creating, funding, and promoting a racist robocall campaign that targeted Black voting constituencies in New York, Michigan, and Ohio during the 2020 election cycle. On Monday, Wohl and Burkman got something of a break when the two men plead guilty in Cleveland, to a single fifth-degree felony charge of telecommunications fraud. As part of their plea deal, Cuyahoga County prosecutors dropped 14 other counts of telecommunications and bribery.
RELATED STORY: Right-wing fraudster allegedly behind series of robocalls spreading voting misinformation in Detroit
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While Burkman and Kohl’s attempted defense of their actions, under the First Amendment, was dismissed easily months ago, Ohio prosecutors seem to have felt that the speediest course of action was getting this deal that includes the two losers to pay the $2,500 fine they were facing as well as agree to a charge that could result in a maximum of one year in prison. Fingers crossed!
RELATED STORY: FCC hands down $5 million fine against right-wing fraudsters Wohl and Burkman
Wohl and Burkman are still facing a similar set of charges in Michigan in a separate case, as well as a civil charge in New York, under the Key Klux Klan Act. The calls which targeted voters in Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City, and Cleveland, included claims that registering to vote could lead to debt collection, outstanding warrant prosecution, and police arrests. It was gross, and as email correspondence between the two men and others has shown, intended to be exactly as racist as it sounds.
In August of last year, the FCC handed down a $5.1 million fine against the fraudsters for not simply being racist liar dirtbags. The fine came after an investigation showed that the two scumbags couldn’t even be bothered to get the correct permissions to make any robocalls in the first place. As anyone with a phone can attest, it is hard to be so incompetent you can’t be bothered to get over the clearly low bar needed to make robocalls these days. The two men will be sentenced in an Ohio court on Nov. 29.
Here’s a reminder of one of the purposely deceitful robocalls Wohl and Burkman created and sent out to tens of thousands of potential Democratic voters.
How should we be reading the 2022 polls, in light of shifting margins and past misses? In this week’s episode of The Downballot Public Policy Polling's Tom Jensen joins us to explain how his firm weights polls to reflect the likely electorate; why Democratic leads in most surveys this year should be treated as smaller than they appear because undecided voters lean heavily anti-Biden; and the surprisingly potent impact abortion has had on moving the needle with voters despite our deep polarization.
Here’s a reminder concerning justice in America.
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