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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (313683)	11/2/2002 1:31:21 PM
From: JEB	Respond to of 769670

Absentee forms found burned Staff & Wire Reports published: 11/1/2002 Barnett: Flandreau woman tried to destroy originals Investigators have recovered charred pieces of absentee ballot applications from a Flandreau woman suspected of forging voters' names on such forms. Attorney General Mark Barnett said Becky Red Earth-Villeda apparently tried to burn the original applications but then decided to retrieve them. Investigators suspect Red Earth-Villeda tried to copy information including signatures onto new applications. "It gets stranger every day," Barnett said. "She claims they are the legitimate signatures (on the charred paper). The Flandreau woman told Barnett that she copied the names of the applicants from the real documents in order to comply with instructions from Democratic Party officials. Barnett said the woman was told that she could not turn in ballot applications that had been signed but not filled out correctly. "Many hundreds of those absentee ballot applications that were turned in by her, in fact were her signature, attempting to trace or duplicate the signature on the original form, which was rejected by the party," he said. Red-Earth-Villeda was hired as an independent contractor by the state Democratic Party. She was fired after a county auditor alerted party officials that forged signatures were showing up on applications for absentee ballots. Barnett said last week that authorities had found 15 absentee ballot applications with apparently forged signatures. Those documents were discovered during an investigation of voter irregularities in 25 counties. Despite the suspicions of authorities, only those 15 have been verified by contacting the person whose name is on the application, Barnett said. Democratic officials have cooperated with the investigation, Barnett said. The probe has been laborious because of the sheer volume of election documents in question, he said. Each person whose name is on the application must be contacted by investigators to verify whether it is their signature on the form. "I have almost 30 agents on this full time, spread out all over South Dakota, going as fast as we can go. We're doing everything we can to sort it out and advise the county auditors," Barnett said. "We're going to be sorting this out for a long time." No absentee ballots tied to the questionable ballot application forms have been discovered, he stressed. Investigators interrogated Red Earth-Villeda for several hours on Wednesday. She also released a written statement admitting that she had duplicated signatures but denying wrongdoing. Kea Warne, state election supervisor, said county auditors are being advised to set aside any absentee ballots that look suspicious. "If the signatures on the envelopes containing absentee ballots don't match up with the signatures on the applications for those ballots, we're telling auditors to set the ballots aside," she said. Joyce Hazeltine, secretary of state, said she thinks the election will go smoothly and there will be no problems if questionable absentee ballots are rejected. "If there's any question, I'm not taking any chances on having a contested election. Let's just not use them," she said. If absentee ballots are set aside, they would only be considered if any races are within vote margins that allow for recount requests, Warne said. "The recount board would have the authority to review those uncounted ballots," she said. Red Earth-Villeda worked in several counties that encompass or border Indian reservations, he said. "In Buffalo County alone, we probably have 80 or 100 absentee ballot applications that she signed instead of the voter," Barnett said, adding that forgery charges likely would be filed soon in Minnehaha County because that's where the election forms were turned over to the Democratic Party. argusleader.com

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (313683)	11/2/2002 2:36:26 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769670

Maybe the Russians can keep things in Florida under control.....JEB can't Published on Thursday, October 31, 2002 by the lndependent/UK Albanian and Russian Observers Sent to Monitor American Elections by Andrew Gumbel The joke, during the endless presidential election recounts in Florida two years ago, was that Russia and Albania would send poll monitors to help the United States with its unexpected bump on the road to democracy. Now, the joke has become reality. A high-level delegation of European and North American election observers – including members from Russia and Albania – arrived yesterday for a week-long mission to watch Florida's mid-term elections, which take place on Tuesday. Their task: to see if the world's most powerful democracy has learned anything from the disastrous 36-day showdown between George Bush and Al Gore in 2000, in which the world saw every wart in Florida's deeply flawed electoral system without ever discovering for sure who had won. Certainly, the Russians and Albanians know a thing or two about flawed, rigged or fraudulent elections. After receiving a decade of lectures from Western democracies about overhauling their own systems, they also have a good idea how to overcome them. It remains to be seen whether Florida isn't too tough a nut to crack, even for them. "Whatever else it is, it will be an experience," said a tight-lipped Ilirjan Celibashi, head of Albania's Central Electoral Committee. Mandated by the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the 10-man delegation will not be manning polling stations. However, that might not have been a bad idea, given the experience of the presidential election and the more recent Democratic primary, when voting machines again malfunctioned and hundreds of people complained of being disenfranchised. Rather, the team will look at the broader picture of Florida's electoral laws, how they are applied, and the ways in which US practices fall short of the stringent requirements imposed on emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. This is the first time international monitors have gone to the United States. The OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights has been campaigning for some time to improve electoral standards in some of the older, established democracies. CC

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (313683)	11/2/2002 3:06:39 PM
From: CYBERKEN	Respond to of 769670

The Dems can deny all they want. But their only long-shot chance to preserve Johnson was fabricated votes from Indian reservations. The JD and FBI are supposed to protect the public from this form of attempted tyranny. There will still be fabricated Indian votes Tuesday, but perhaps they have minimized them enough for the voice of the people of S.Dakota to be heard for the first time in many Senate elections. S. Dakota was only the first step. Democrats in Missouri, Florida, Pennsylvania, and many other states will find it harder in the future to squat down every two years and DUMP on our republic's democratic process. John Ashcroft is one of the great heros of American history, and he's just getting started...

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (313683)	11/2/2002 3:12:51 PM
From: CYBERKEN	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Minnesota Democrats should try to raise their flagging hopes with a radio contest: "WHO WILL CAST THE BALLOTS OF THE LATE WELLSTONE'S ON TUESDAY!?! YOU AND A FRIEND CAN BE THE NINTH CALLER AND WIN THE REGISTRATIONS OF SEN. AND MRS. WELLSTONE. THEY CAN'T VOTE, BUT YOU CAN USE THEIR NAMES TO HELP WALTER MONDALE TAKE PAUL WELLSTONE'S PLACE IN THE SENATE. THE PRIZE IS TWO TICKETS TO THE NEXT MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR ANY MAJOR DEMOCRAT WHO PASSES AWAY IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS. WILL IT BE LAUTENBERG? KENNEDY? PERHAPS FRITZIE HIMSELF? WE HAD A GREAT TIME THE OTHER NIGHT, DON'T MISS THE NEXT ONE! AFTER ALL. PAUL WELLSTONE WANTED YOU TO VOTE FOR HIM. NOW, YOU CAN VOTE INSTEAD OF HIM! AND THAT'S NOT ALL! YOU CAN STILL CAST YOU OWN VOTE, WHEREVER YOU LIVE IN MINNESOTA! SO COME JOIN THE FUN, AND WIN THE WELLSTONE VOTE CONTEST!!!"...

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (313683)	11/2/2002 5:53:00 PM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Wow. You screw up and then you apologize. Must seem like the work of an alien intelligence to a democrat. Here's how the Clinton/Carvile democrats would handle that situation. Reps: Our opponents have sent out a mailer full of inaccuracies. dems. Our opponents have sent out a mailer full of inaccuracies. We call on them to desist. Reps: What are they talking about, it was their mailer. dems: We again call on our opponents to apologize for their inaccurate mailer. Reps: Here are the facts. This is the mailer the democrats sent out. Here is what it said. These are the facts that are in error. dems: We call on our worth opponents to stop the negative campaigning and join us in a fair airing of the issues.