Re: If I don't get a dollar, I'll vote my principles

[Paul Walmsley <paul@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The New York Times has a story today that touches on absentee ballot 
fraud and recent vote-buying.  The following excerpt is from:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/politics/campaign/13vote.html 


- Paul



...  Mr. Pabey lost the race. Last month, the state Supreme Court voided
the election after a judge found that the "zealotry to promote absentee
voting" resulted in residents being coerced into voting with offers of
jobs and other assistance.

There are now criminal investigations of the election by local, state and 
federal authorities, with five people already charged. Some voters who 
agreed to vote absentee in return for polling-place jobs say they had no 
idea this was improper.

"That's how I thought it was, you get paid to vote," Larry Ellison of East 
Chicago, 32, said in a recent interview, adding that he needed the $100 he 
received for his vote to buy medicine for his seizures.

In North Carolina, three university students were charged with felonies 
last year, accused of voting both absentee and at the polls after they 
responded to campus fliers that offered free concert tickets worth $22.50 
for voting absentee. ...