Wednesday, October 29, 2008

GOP Targets Voter Fraud with Lawsuit in Lake County (UPDATED WITH VIDEO)

Yesterday, Lake County GOP officials, along with the Illinois Republicans, filed a suit aimed at combating voter fraud in Lake County. You can download a copy of the Complaint here.

The lawsuit cites numerous instances of fraudulent voter registrations that have been submitted to the Lake County clerk, fictitious names at both fraudulent and legitimate addresses, multiple registrations for the same individual (with different signatures every time), real people who live in other districts, and (to top it off) a Lake County Most Wanted Gang Member (ineligible to vote because he's a felon).

The suit alleges that this is evidence of a coordinated effort to perpetrate voter fraud on the part of a group called Citizen Action/Illinois, and the Lake County clerk's office must be ordered by the court to take measure to ensure that actual votes cast on Election Day are valid. The suit requests that newly-registered voters be required to show ID, as well as specially code the registrations submitted by Citizen Action/Illinois to require such voter to cast a provisional ballot, which gives the Lake County Clerk up to two weeks to check the legitimacy of each vote.

Dan Venturi, Lake County GOP Chairman told the Daily Herald, "We need to restore confidence in the electoral process in Lake County and across the country." According to the Lake County News-Sun, Venturi also cited the recent petition fraud problems with Dem Party Chairman and State Sentator Terry Link's nominating petitions.

The Dems will no doubt scream voter intimidation and disenfranchisement. But I still don't see how requiring someone to show an ID when voting for the first time in the face of the orchestrated attempts to defraud the electorate is unreasonable or unduly burdensome in this day and age. The GOP has asked for a quick ruling on this, so we'll see what happens.

UPDATED: Watch ABC-7's coverage of the GOP press conference down below:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I hope that others take a look at some of these "new" voters in our district. Requiring a valid ID won't necessarily guarantee that we've stopped the fraud. You know as well as I do that fake driver's licenses are an easy buy all over this area. We need to have more than just a driver's license to verify the new voter's legality. Times sure have changed here in the 10th District. If this is what 'change' is all about I want no part of it.