A Louisiana mayor whose son is Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's chief of staff told voters at a private event to vote twice, speaking to a partisan crowd 24 hours before Election Day last month. Video of Opelousas, Louisiana Mayor Don Cravins Sr.'s Nov. 3 remarks show him telling a crowd in his home town that "if you 'early voted,' go vote again tomorrow. One more time’s not going to hurt."  Louisianans, like Americans in many states, had the option of either voting 'early' or showing up on Election Day. Taking advantage of both options would be a crime.

And for voters worried about criminal fraud charges, Cravins said he had an insurance policy – the re-election of a Democratic district attorney. "Tomorrow we’re gonna elect Earl Taylor as the D.A. so he won’t prosecute you if you vote twice," Cravins said.

Taylor won a fourth term on Nov. 4.

Cravins' remarks were met first by laughs and then by wild cheers as he told the crowd to 'vote number 99' – Mary Landrieu's ballot-line number. (Source)


December 19, 2014: Two Pa. Legislators Indicted for Voter ID Bribes in a Case the State AG Refused to Prosecute
A grand jury convened by Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams has indicted two Democratic state legislators for accepting bribes in exchange for voting against a voter ID bill, among other legislative actions.

The grand jury findings also represent a withering rejection of the unjustifiable behavior of Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who shut down the three-year investigation that caught state Democratic legislators on video and audio tapes taking bribes. Williams stepped in and successfully prosecuted the case.

As the grand jury reported, it had 26 recordings featuring Rep. Ronald G. Waters, who accepted nine cash payments from a confidential informant  totaling $8,750. The grand jury had 24 recordings of Rep. Vanessa Lowery Brown accepting five cash payments totaling $4,000. Waters agreed to vote against Pennsylvania House Bill 934, a voter ID bill, in exchange for $2,000. Brown also agreed to vote against House Bill 934 for the same amount.

Brown was so eager to vote the way she had been paid by the informant that she offered to “get up and speak” on the floor of the Pennsylvania House in opposition to the bill. Both “representatives testified before this Grand Jury and admitted their criminal conduct.”

Waters, who currently serves as the Secretary for the House Democratic Caucus, was “ecstatic” about receiving the cash bribes and told the CI “I’m going to tell you the f*****g truth. You have money, then you can get something done.” Brown told the grand jury she took the money because of financial pressures, including being told that if she didn’t raise $100,000 for her next election, “the Democratic Party would run someone against her in a primary.”

Because Waters, Brown and other legislators involved in the bribery scheme are black, Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane shut down the investigation in March. She claimed that the investigation was “poorly conceived, badly managed and tainted by racism…[and] had targeted African-Americans.” Williams, who also is black, was particularly incensed by this claim, saying that he was “disgusted that the attorney general would bring racism into this case. It’s like pouring gasoline on a fire for no reason, no reason at all.” (Source)


September 3, 2015: Guilty Verdict in Alabama Vote Fraud Case
A Houston County jury found Olivia Reynolds guilty Wednesday afternoon for her role in a voter fraud case.

Assistant District Attorney Banks Smith said the jury found 66-year-old Olivia Reynolds guilty of 24 felony counts of absentee ballot fraud. Smith said the jury deliberated for less than an hour before returning with the guilty verdicts.
Houston County Sheriff’s investigators arrested Reynolds in May 2014. She was one of three women charged who worked on the 2013 campaign for District 2 City Commissioner Amos Newsome.
In the August election, Newsome beat challenger Lamesa Danzey by 14 votes. Newsome received 119 of the 124 absentee votes that were cast. Danzey received more votes than Newsome at the polls.
Reynolds is the third suspect in the election fraud investigation to go to trial.
Smith argued to jurors during his closing Wednesday morning that investigators with the Houston County Sheriff’s Office found evidence of widespread voter fraud during the District 2 race for the City of Dothan election in the summer of 2013.
Smith said some of the voters testified at trial how they never wanted to vote for Newsome yet their ballot was cast for Newsome anyway.
“This case is about the sanctity of the ballot,” Smith said. (Source)

September 2, 2015: Eight Texas Counties List More Voters Than Residents
No law prevents localities from having more registered voters than voting-age residents, and eight Texas counties do. Now a vote-watch group accuses the counties of violating the National Voting Rights Act by failing to purge dead and ineligible voters. “We are deeply concerned (that) voter rolls contain substantial numbers of ineligible voters,” True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht stated in a letter to the eight Texas counties.

The counties — Loving, Brooks, McMullen, Roberts, Irion, Jim Hogg, Culberson and Polk — list a combined 52,298 registered voters. But the latest U.S. Census data show only 49,457 voting-age residents in those counties.

County officials told Watchdog.org they are reviewing their voter lists in response to TTV’s threat of legal action.... TTV spokesman Logan Churchwell said some of the bloating of voter rolls could be due to simple clerical errors. “Duplicate registrations occur when there are slight differences in names — such as ‘McDougle’ versus ‘Mc Dougle,’” he noted. (Source)

May 23, 2016: Investigation Uncovers Votes Being Cast from Grave Year After Year in Southern California
A comparison of records by David Goldstein, investigative reporter for CBS2/KCAL9, has revealed hundreds of so-called dead voters in Southern California, a vast majority of them in Los Angeles County... CBS2 compared millions of voting records from the California Secretary of State’s office with death records from the Social Security Administration and found hundreds of so-called dead voters. Specifically, 265 in Southern California and a vast majority of them, 215, in Los Angeles County alone. The numbers come from state records that show votes were cast in that person’s name after they died. In some cases, Goldstein discovered that they voted year after year. Across all counties, Goldstein uncovered 32 dead voters who cast ballots in eight elections apiece, including a woman who died in 1988. Records show she somehow voted in 2014, 26 years after she passed away. It remains unclear how the dead voters voted but 86 were registered Republicans, 146 were Democrats ... (Source)