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Indiana’s Republican Chief Election Officer Charged With Voter Fraud

By: Sarah JonesDec. 23rd, 2011more from Sarah Jones

In the midst of John Boehner’s head-long dramatic crash into his own ineptitude, you might have missed the Republicans Party jumping the voter fraud shark yesterday.

We all know that the voter ID laws Republicans are pushing in the name of virtually non-existent voter fraud are actually successful attempts to disenfranchise minority and poor voters. You know, those Americans who don’t deserve to vote because they aren’t voting the right way. Rah-rah democracy.

Well, yesterday, in the flagship state for Republican Voter ID laws, Indiana’s Republican Sec. of State and chief election officer Charlie White was ordered to be removed from office after an Indiana judge ruled that he was ineligible for the office. White is also being charged in a separate matter with seven criminal felony charges, including three counts of “voter fraud” and charges of theft and perjury.

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, representing the Recount Commission, says White will stay in office (because voting laws are for the other people?). The Indy Star noted wryly that “His criminal trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 30. Felons are ineligible to serve as Secretary of State.”

Republican Charlie White ordered out of office and replaced by his Democratic opponent with the next highest votes:

The Brad Blog broke it down :

Some remarkable news late today. Finding he was not eligible to be a candidate on the ballot in the November 2010 election, a Marion County Circuit judge has ordered Indiana’s Republican Sec. of State Charlie White removed from office and replaced by his Democratic challenger Vop Isili, the second highest vote getter in that election.

The order comes as part of a civil suit brought by the state Democratic Party which has long charged, both before and ever since the election, that White was not eligible to be a candidate on the ballot….

Separately, White still faces seven criminal felony charges, including three of them for voter fraud, related to the fact that he did not live at the address where he was registered to vote in the 2010 election. As he was not a properly registered Indiana voter, he was not eligible to be a candidate on the ballot, Rosenberg has ruled. Moreover, at the time of his election, White was a member of the Fishers Town Council — a town in which he no longer lived since separating from his wife and moving out of her house, where he remained registered to vote, several years earlier. Democrats charge he retained his registration at the house so that he could continue to collect his salary as a Council Member.

Since divorcing his wife White had remarried and purchased a condominium in a different town, but claimed the reason he stayed registered at his former wife’s house was because he had hoped to move back some day. The Indiana Recount Commission accepted that explanation. The Marion County Circuit judge, apparently, did not.

Mr. White further explained that he was living at his ex-wife’s house to avoid living with his new wife until they were married. Can you say family values?

A pause while we digest the raw truth.

This is the predictable result of projection. They accuse the other “side” of what they are doing. This is a form of mental illness, a coping strategy involving denial and projection that stem from massive fears and refusal to face the self.

Mr. White embodies the truth behind family values preachers and voter ID screechers.

You can no doubt appreciate that last April when Mr. White was first indicted, Governor Mitch Daniels wanted to be granted the power to replace him with an appointee, because nothing says democracy like replacing an elected official from your party who is under indictment for felony charges with an appointee. Not exactly the way Daniels should have been distance himself from his Voter ID law protege.

Voter fraud is already a crime, a fact with which Mr. White is now personally acquainted. It is subject to five years in jail, which manages to deter most people from even trying it. Voter ID laws are meant to keep people from voting as another person, however contrary to Republican fear tactics of projection, there are already laws and procedures in place to verify addresses and identities of voters. Photo ID laws as Mr. White championed in Indiana hit poor and minority voters the hardest and can function (even if unintentionally) as a poll tax. They are, quite frankly, unAmerican.

How likely is voter fraud? As we have mentioned here before, it’s as likely as being struck by lightning. In fact, to get to the heart of the matter, I’d like to see the statistics on voter impersonation versus Republican elected officials charged with voter fraud (see 2008 Republican operative charged with voter and election fraud).

Any takers?

Mr. White’s only hope of staying in office will probably depend upon the Indiana Supreme Court, as his case will be appealed. Late this afternoon, the order to remove him from office was put on hold, but he must still face the seven felony counts even if the Supreme Court decides that he was indeed eligible to be on the ballot.

Indiana’s Republican Chief Election Officer Charged With Voter Fraud was written by Sarah Jones for PoliticusUSA.
© PoliticusUSA, Dec. 23rd, 2011. All Rights Reserved

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