The case couldn't be more clear than this. Tampa Bay Times and other media outlets, this time around, are actually looking into the actions of a supervisor of election.
On election day, according to the Times, and other outlets, the supervisor of elections sent out more than 12,000 robocalls alerting voters that the polls would be open the following day. Only trouble was, the day referenced in the calls was on Wednesday Nov. 8, 2012. Yes, the day AFTER the election.
It seems that back in October, the Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner sent out a mass mailing to the 67 election supervisors in the state for public dissemination warning us all to be on the lookout for suspicious activity and to report such cases: he even specifically mentions robocalls feeding voters bum information.
What makes the Pinellas Case particularly suspicious is the information found in this article. Of course, before editors get a case of the cowards and destroy the link, I have taken the liberty to also do a couple of screen shots of the news story.
By the way, nice job TBT.
Not to praise them too highly; we'll get to that earlier story involving Pinellas. Anyway, this is precisely the sort of thing that Secretary of State warned all of us to report to his office IMMEDIATELY when it seemed a citizen of the state of Florida, or elsewhere was doing voter fraud, as evidenced by Ken's letter to the supers. Once again, knowing how things disappear in this state, never to be seen again, I am using the screen shot as well as the link. Here's Ken's letter. (LINK)
And the screen shot.
Of course this is no laughing matter. This is very serious business. If you read the article, and several others, you see Ms. Clarke blithely assuring us that the robocalls were handled through a vendor, so on and so forth, with numerous inconsistencies in the story noted by the reporters. But, that's only the beginning. If we were a law enforcement agency, we would also like to have reasonable suspicion that Ms. Clark had done something, possibly illegal, and did it knowingly before we brought the case forward. What cops look for is a pattern consistent with suspicious behavior. And it turns out, we have it.
In the primary election back in August there was another suspicious "glitch" in Pinellas County a total breakdown in telecommunications and power, that was never adequately explained; nor was this experienced anywhere else but within her offices, as far as can be discerned. Highly improbable.
Story 1: The initial Glitch. (LINK HERE)
Story 2: They refused to answer questions about chain of custody of every ballot cast on election day. (LINK HERE)
Story 3: A week later they refuse to say this won't happen again in the general election because they have no idea what happened! (LINK HERE)
Story 4: Here is a blog post with my video taped interviews with Ms. Nancy Whitlock, spokesperson for the election supervisor. (LINK HERE) Round and round we go.
The behavior of this office screams "reasonable suspicion" and as such, it is our duty as citizens to look at what we have here.
The counties around the Tampa Bay area make up 25 percent of the electorate in the state of Florida. Hillsborough and Pinellas have had numerous problems running a clean election. It's time to stop burying our heads in the sand. This is in your face. This is reasonable suspicion for election fraud.
Thousands of voters ON ELECTION DAY were told they should report to vote, the next day. Had any one group, or individual done this, the secretary of state and the attorney general of Florida would be hunting these people down. It happened already. Both made a show of outrage and vowed to get to the bottom of an effort on the part of someone in Washington State to send letters to some voters in Florida, many white, many republicans, informing them they had been removed from the voter rolls.
The secretary of state cannot have it both ways. Simply because the supervisor of elections chooses to hide in plain sight with this obvious ploy, it doesn't excuse the State Division of Elections from pursuing it. Nor does it prevent us from reporting it. It has gotten way too obvious that our officials in Florida are corrupt and attempting to confuse voters on the day of election, along with a myriad of other sins.
We only ended up with Rick Scott in our governor's mansion through irregularities in the voting systems of Florida. And while the Presidential election was not an issue, the congressional races, the senatorial races, may well have been. This can affect the balance of power in both houses of congress.
This certainly can impact the composition of the Florida legislature where for the last two years, the citizens have received an all out attack on our rights and institutions from a partisan, runaway, hyper-conservative agenda that diminishes our quality of life, and the opportunities of our children.
These rules made here in Florida have only been one voice in a chorus of evil sprung from conservative think-tanks such as ALEC which are funded by Koch Industries and other enemies of democracy.
Witness the high speed rail initiative killed here in Florida. Voted on by a partisan legislature, killed by a partisan governor who cited a report bearing his name, completed by a conservative think tank, Reason Foundation, whose board of trustees includes David Koch.
Florida's high speed rail project could have been the first step in a connecting system all over the southeast. Bringing jobs everywhere in those states. The issues is now dead. This is only one way in which the actions of a few corrupt officials in the offices of Florida's supervisor of elections, can impact the entire country.
Please use the links, use the phone numbers, make the call. It's time we take off the "citizen journalist/observer caps, and put on our actual citizen caps. It's time we don't just decry, but we actually do something to stop these people from stealing democracy.
Report it! What was done was a crime against democracy, and we damned well know it.
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