I got an email from an Obama Republican regarding this:
Wendy Rosen, a Democratic congressional candidate challenging Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), withdrew from the race on Monday after the state party confronted her with evidence she voted in both Maryland and Florida in 2006 and 2008.
Matthew Verghese of the Maryland Democratic Party told TPM that officials were alerted to the potential issue by someone within the party on Friday. After verifying the allegations by checking Rosen’s voter files, Verghese said, party officials confronted her on Monday morning after she returned from the Democratic convention in Charlotte. She offered her resignation shortly thereafter and the state party referred the allegations to law enforcement authorities.
Maryland Democratic Party Chairwoman Yvette Lewis wrote a letter on Monday alerting the state attorney general and a state prosecutor to the issue.
“The Maryland Democratic Party has discovered that Ms. Rosen has been registered to vote in both Florida and Maryland since at least 2006; that she in fact voted in the 2006 general election both in Florida and Maryland; and that she voted in the presidential preference primaries held in both Florida and Maryland in 2008,” Lewis wrote.
I replied to the reader’s email but I thought I’d expand on it here. I agree with him.
This will, as he wrote, “(unfortunately) fuel the fire” for overly restrictive measures to prevent voter fraud. I know states have a process to remove voters from the rolls after a set period of “inactive” status, but that wouldn’t apply to Rosen, because she (allegedly!) was voting in two states, so was “active” in both states.
Registration in more than one state is an incredibly common situation. I get asked about it all the time. As I wrote here, I’ve been registered to vote in 5 different states over my adult life and I have never rescinded a registration when I moved to the new state and registered there. Of course, I only voted in one state at a time.
When my daughter moved from Ohio to Pennsylvania I (eventually) called the Board of Elections and they sent her a form to sign to remove her name from the Ohio voter rolls, so there is a process in place to do this but I don’t think most people go to all that trouble. I think most people just register in the new state and vote in the new state and eventually fall off the voter list in the old state.
Why Rosen would risk a felony and what may be the permanent loss of the right to vote in order to add one vote in Florida I do not know, but it seems Rosen believed it was worth the risk.
rlrr
Is it possible Romney may be guilty of this?
cervantes
Note, however, that voter ID would do nothing to prevent this. It’s a completely unrelated problem — and also, obviously, quite rare and not a concern to the people who promote voter ID laws because only affluent people have more than one residence.
Butch
I know that when I left Colorado I got a letter from the county clerk asking whether my voters registration should be terminated, and I believe I was automatically dropped from the rolls if I didn’t respond.
Warren Terra
It’s possible she simply thought that as someone privileged to own homes in both places she was entitled to vote in both places.
In any case, it’s not clear to me how essentially any of the “voter fraud” crackdown legislation would address her actions. But it’ll sure help keep the poor folks from voting …
Villago Delenda Est
You are an honorable person.
I, too, have been registered to vote in two states, and didn’t formally rescind my registration. I simply only voted once, this in 1992.
That is playing by the rules. It’s asking yourself the question, “what if everyone didn’t play by the rules?” It’s the classic situation of doing the right thing.
A lot of Americans simply do NOT do the right thing, I fear.
I don’t know what was going through Ms. Rosen’s head, but the fact that she did not offer any sort of moronic defense when confronted with her actions bodes fair for her. She apparently at least as a few neurons still working properly, unlike, say, Anthony Weiner or Paul Ryan and their impulses to dig even deeper when their indiscretions are revealed.
catclub
@rlrr: Magic eight ball says:
Obama oppo research team has either a)not found it or b) is waiting to release at suitable time/
I vote for (a). Note that Rosen was found by ‘examining voting records’ – which could be done in all the possible jurisdictions that Romney was likely to vote in (MASS, NH, CALI).
Villago Delenda Est
@Warren Terra:
This, and Cervantes in the second post.
The ‘voter fraud’ crackdowns don’t even address registrations. It’s like the idiotic ACORN scandal, in which ACORN, required by law to submit the registration applications they collect, turn them in in two piles: the ones that seem legit, and the ones that seem bogus. It’s up to the county elections office to make the determination, not ACORN. They can just point the way and make it easier on the elections office.
The ‘voter fraud’ wave is about the WRONG PEOPLE voting for the WRONG PARTY. Pure and simple.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
The only way to prevent this type of voter fraud would be to have the federal government handle people’s voter registration.
seeker6079
Well, don’t forget this one:
“Canadian the only illegal alien caught in U.S. fake-voter dragnet“.
Mark
“but it seems Rosen believed it was worth the risk”
It seems more likely that she was too dim-witted to understand the risk.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I saw that and thought she was a total fool (duh). And then I wondered about Romney and his 5 home states. But the restrictive state laws will of course not prevent any of this kind of fraud.
Which will not prevent its use to argue for the need for voter suppression. For those who can only afford to be registered in one state, of course.
BGinCHI
This is an easy one, Kay:
She got caught.
The answer to “see, someone voted more than once” is “yes, and look what happened to her.”
We don’t need more laws or bigger government to fix this.
MobiusKlein
Hey, maybe there could be some National voting roll?
And some unified, country wide rules for eligibility.
And then have some standardized voting technology.
If we as a country can afford to have pavement going up to the front door of nearly every house, we can afford to have free voter ID cards for (nearly) every single person.
Joel
Too bad she won the primary. Would have been great if they crushed her earlier.
Kay
@BGinCHI:
I AM sort of curious about the details, because she somehow voted in Florida with ID laws in place. Absentee ballot?
Matt McIrvin
I got put on the Massachusetts inactive roll this year because I’d forgotten to send in my town census form. I found out when I went to vote in the state primary. I knew the rules and it’s a fair cop, but I do wonder how many people this happens to and if it’s an effective vote suppressor.
I had to show ID; I’m not sure exactly what sorts of ID would have sufficed. But I got a real ballot, not a provisional one.
I don’t think I did anything to remove myself from the Virginia voter rolls when I registered in Massachusetts. It never would have occurred to me to vote in both jurisdictions.
Steve
I doubt very many people vote in two states, but I have absolutely no problem with taking steps to prevent it. Voter ID would not help in the slightest, however.
Kay
@rlrr:
Oh, probably.
McCain, too, I bet, with all those houses :)
Nylund
I’m probably still on the rolls in at least three states due to my two moves in the last decade. I’ve never voted more than once in any election though. I’d never consider doing anything that morally or legally wrong, but I really don’t know what could stop me. Voter ID laws definitely couldn’t. I could prove my identity in any of those three states no problem. That isn’t an issue.
Villago Delenda Est
@Steve:
DING DING DING DING DING
As I said before, the WRONG people are voting for the WRONG party.
That’s what voter ID is all about.
West of the Cascades
@catclub: or is Rosen part of an elaborate setup wherein (a) Democrats have known for six years that Romney voted in multiple states, (b) recruited a sacrificial lamb to perpetrate this sort of fraud, so that (c) they can announce Romney’s felony based on the “hightened scrutiny” that has to be paid now that Rosen has been found out?
Forgot to put my tin foil hat on before breakfast this morning.
Cassidy
It’s not voter fraud if they aren’t brown.
David Hunt
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I simply don’t believe that Romney would have voted in more than one place in any election. I’d be more likely to believe that in any particular election, he didn’t vote in any jurisdiction. That one vote takes up a lot of time and he could spend the same amount of time writing a checks for things that will influence the election instead.
Now, I actually believe that Romney goes through the time and trouble to vote. He a professional politician. When you’re running for things, you vote. You going to the polls is a photo op.
Cassidy
@West of the Cascades: Forgot? You may have evolved past the need for one.
dr. bloor
Fucking moron has no place in government. Our loss, obviously, in terms of the seat, but certainly not in terms of the quality of representation. As they say in baseball, get’em next time.
Suffern ACE
@Mark: Yep. Although this goes to as another example of the fact taht in general, our citizens are more honest than our politicians when it comes to abiding by the laws. I’m like many here who probably at some point was registered in more than one district. In my case, due to the timing of moves. But I would not think of trying to sneak in a vote someplace I wasn’t living.
Politicians…not so much.
jwb
I have no doubt that a number of snow birds do this. Is it a large number or a small number? That’s harder to say.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
I would add – if you have any doubt about this, go to PJM and read the comments sections full of people fantasizing about a world in which people who don’t pay income tax, people who live overseas, people who have dual citizenship, people who were born to illegal immigrants, and a whole variety of other people who just happen to vote Democrat are stripped of their citizenship.
They hate the fact that you’re allowed to vote at all, period. As far as they’re concerned, the Democratic Party is a fundamentally un-American thing and in any just world, membership in it or voting for it would strip you of your citizenship just as surely as being convicted of espionage. Since they can’t actually do that (fucking liberal activists and their “First Amendment” “rights”), this is the next best thing.
jayackroyd
@Kay: Voter ID or no, one of the votes would have had to have been absentee. Voter ID, via the biometric signature method, is widespread. Even getting checked off the roll requires one’s physical presence. So it’s either absentee, or, (oh wait) worse, someone else voting in her place–which voter ID should stop and would be exactly the voter fraud we haven’t been able to find yet.
jayackroyd
What I didn’t make clear is that it would take actual planning to do this–it’s not an oopsie! kind of thing. Perhaps she routinely obtained both states’ absentee ballots, but whatever she did, it was premeditated.
Incredibly stupid.
Raven
Eric the Red just said Romney has to win “outside of the margin of fraud”. And so on and so forth and scooby dooby doo dah. . l.
khead
Great.
Andy Harris is a dolt (where’s my health care?) and the best MD Dems can come up with is someone that doesn’t live here.
Probably still better than Kratovil though.
Chris
@Suffern ACE:
Not to diminish what you’re saying (for the record I’m another one of these people and would never vote in more than one state at once either). But I think a big reason citizens obey the laws more scrupulously than politicians is that citizens are more afraid of getting caught and not having any strings to pull to get out of jail free. Power corrupts because power opens up possibilities that Joe Q. Sixpack doesn’t have.
The Other Chuck
Thanks a fuckload Wendy. You do realize that one offense by a Democrat cancels out approximately 2,753 abuses of power by any number of Republicans because “both sides”, right?
Cassidy
@The Other Chuck: Yup. The really sick part is if what was one of them, they wouldn’t have said shit.
Villago Delenda Est
@David Hunt:
He may well have voted in a jurisdiction other than the one he told the IRS he was living in.
THAT is the problem for him. The problem with his taxes may be that simple. It demonstrates, conclusively, that he committed the very voter fraud that his party wails about.
jibeaux
@jayackroyd: Why? There are flights, I believe, and if you have more than one legal residence you can certainly have more than one identification that would pass voter ID scrutiny.
As belafon said, I’ve been pondering how you would crack down on something like this and the only thing I can think of is if the federal government took over voter registration.
But thanks, Wendy, for being stupid as all hell.
ribber
Romney voted via absentee ballot in the January 2010 special election for Scott Brown despite not owning a MA residence at the time (he had sold his MA house). The ballot was sent to his son’s house in Belmont,MA. I’ve seen some obscure speculation that this may be a reason why he doesn’t want to release his tax return from 2009, though I’m not sure what it would show (a partial-year resident MA return would suggest he had given up his MA citizenship, do they release state taxes too?).
eyelessgame
One person voting who isn’t allowed to vote provides exactly the same distortion to the outcome – and exactly the same undermining of democracy – as one person who is legally allowed to vote but prevented from voting.
That’s from a utilitarian viewpoint. But from a moral viewpoint, voting is a *right*, not a privilege (look up how much of the text of the Constitution deals with voting, and count how many constitutional amendments define or expand the right to vote, if you don’t believe how important a right it is). A person exercising a right to which he should not be entitled is a _lesser_ offense against morals than a person being prevented from exercising his rights.
[/rant]
Another Halocene Human
@Matt McIrvin: In Massachusetts when I was a voter there I was ID’d by the little old retired ladies who had nothing better to do than to watch out their curtains all day long. They had a big roll with addresses and they knew EXACTLY who I was.
All of these problems now happen because we have thousands of people jammed into a giant precinct, people moving constantly, and no legion of elderly folk watching their neighbors for entertainment.
(Ballot stuffing is an entirely different issue. Of course, what my quaint old tale DOESN’T mention is that we were using those paper roll machines which it turns out, after they junked them, were infamous for spoiling not just one but ballot after ballot. WTF!)
Villago Delenda Est
@jibeaux:
Well, one could have a nationwide database of tied together registered voter rolls to check. To assure us that each individual is registered to vote in one jurisdiction, only, across all fifty states (and DC and Puerto Rico etc etc)
However, then you face the very real possibility of discovering massive id theft, opening up a huge can of worms. How many of me, with my SSN (which is not supposed to be used for identification, you know, even though the entire time I was in the Army it was…) are there out there? How much confusion do you want? I mean, in my case, it wouldn’t be a big deal, because the Rethugs don’t want me to vote, I’ll vote against their vile fascist asses every single time. However, when it comes to proper white people like Dubya Mitt Rmoney voting in a jurisdiction that they don’t actually reside in, well, that’s not a problem, really, because he will vote the right way, reliably, not the wrong way, like I will. Even though I put my life on the line for my country once, unlike Paris party boy OvenMitt.
seeker6079
@jwb: jwb, if the huge number of Canadians in Florida all voted you’d have a permanent majority of Democrats.
J. Michael Neal
@jibeaux: If you look rich enough to own property in multiple places, you should be required to show proof that you are not registered in any other precinct in the country.
Another Halocene Human
@Steve:
I hate to be the naysayer here, but if you apply for a new state ID using your old state ID, your new state could easily (if they care) confiscate the old ID AND send a letter back to your old state. Your old state could receive it, remove you from their records or add your forwarding addy or whatever they do, and send a letter to your city or county telling them that you’ve moved.
Some state voter registrations have an option to scrub your old registration behind you, but why make it optional?
Since people with multiple houses are more likely to feel entitled and try shenanigans, this would stop more of these multiple voters. It might stop some of the other state registration fraud where they go registration shopping from state to state.
And it wouldn’t actually require you to proffer state ID when you vote, either. You’re basically hitting people with jobs/money who move.
jayackroyd
@jibeaux: Right, she could have structured her election day around being physically present at both jurisdictions, by flying in between. That, of course, speaks to even MORE premeditation and borderline insanity.
Villago Delenda Est
@J. Michael Neal:
I see what you did there.
Another Halocene Human
@khead: You’d think the national and state Democratic parties could do some basic vetting of their OWN candidates, just to make sure.
If those Dem central committees did anything useful, I’d send them money. So far, haven’t seen it.
And the local party is a joke.
Btw, I said VET, not GIVE MONEY TO OUR BUDDY JOE, HE GOES TO ALL THE RIGHT PARTIES.
phoebes-in-santa fe
I know Wendy Rosen because she heads the largest wholesale handmade crafts exposition in the United States. I used to own a craft gallery and would go to “her” show – “the Rosen show” twice every year. She was incredibly important in that industry. I always knew her as an honorable person who ran a hell of trade show and published two magazines aimed at the handmade crafts industry.
I was curious when I received a campaign solicitation from her this year. I visited her website and saw nothing that indicated she was running as a Democrat on that site. I did contribute but wrote her a note saying I was disappointed that she was not proud enough of being a Democrat to actually announce it on her website. (She did have an ActBlue page, which has now been taken down.) Anyway, she answered my email by saying this was her first run for elective office and she was running because she was concerned about so much industry being moved off-shore. She also stated she used to be a Republican.
I’m conflicted on whether she voted twice in two spots, knowing it was wrong. She may have felt/thought that if you owned two properties, you could vote in two places. As I have said, on a professional level, I was very impressed by her leadership in the handmade crafts industry and her commitment to “sell American”.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@seeker6079: Unless of course they were in Florida to get as far away from their healthcare as possible.
Bobby Thomson
@Kay: All real election fraud is committed via absentee ballot. That’s how Ann Coulter did it.
jayackroyd
@Another Halocene Human:
This is actually a serious issue, in-state as well as out. People with second homes frequently (I think, anyway) represent a force against education resources, voting in local elections on issues involving school expenditures and local property taxes. This is at its most serious in states that assess property taxes at the municipal level, rather than the county level, but it’s still a problem in Suffolk County in NY. That voting bloc matters in setting local taxation policy, and I’m sure some people vote both in NYC, and in the Hamptons, on local issues. Or in NY and FL. These are votes involving thousands of voters, not tens or hundreds of thousands.
Another Halocene Human
@Chris:
This country has never had TRUE universal suffrage.
In universal suffrage countries they don’t ask your name. They dip your hand in ink so you can’t vote twice.
Another Halocene Human
I also think the US needs to start allowing international ballot monitors in. Our system isn’t working. And this Diebold shit is a joke.
Another Halocene Human
@jayackroyd: I guess that’s why it hasn’t happened, but wouldn’t it be delicious if the DMV in NYS were to send a letter out to the second home jurisdiction and inform them that so and so doesn’t live there…
Now, I believe some local election races have their own rules and don’t care if you’re voting somewhere else.
David Hunt
@Villago Delenda Est:
I don’t know how residency is figured for voter registration, but I’m pretty sure that your tax home is where your main residence is on December 31. Voting in one jurisdiction but listing another on your taxes might fit the legal definition of fraud or not. I can imagine situations where that could be legal, although my utter ignorance of voter residency would hamper me. I’ve lived in and attended college in the same community all my life.
However, I will concede that Romney voting if a different state than his tax home could be something of a political embarrassment even if it is legal.
Still, my pet theory on his reluctance to release his returns is that he took advantage of that amnesty that tax cheats got to declare their foreign bank accounts when the Swiss were being strong-armed to release the data to the U.S. Government. Even though he wasn’t charged with any crime, actual evidence that he’d been a tax cheat for years is the type of thing that I don’t think would go over with the American public. That’s something I think would stick in their craw more than “he voted in one state and his tax return say his main address is in another state.”
Kay
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
Thanks. I guess it’s possible.
Calouste
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Anyone who talks about voter fraud without mentioning a national solution is just doing it to suppress the vote of undesirables. Why, for example, is there so much talk about voter ID laws in swing states and not, by my knowledge, in the state with the longest border with Mexico and probably the largest number of undocumented immigrants, Texas?
catclub
@David Hunt: Why not both?!
Floor wax and a dessert topping.
catclub
@Calouste: Umm, Texas just had its Voter ID law challenged by the DOJ. So they are doing it too, or trying.
Kay
The Moar You Know
I would normally be sad to lose any Democrat challenging a Republican for a seat, but this woman is a class-A idiot and needs to be removed from the party ASAP.
I hope to God she’s white, or the GOP press is going to be plastering her mug over the front page of every paper in America.
smintheus
@Suffern ACE: Well, it was Democratic Party officials who forced her to resign and are helping authorities to prosecute her.
FWIW, I’m not sure Republicans would do the same with one of their own.
Misterpuff
@khead: Andy Harris slips through again.
So Ms Rosen voted in one state jumped on a plane and then voted in the other state
-or-
Requested an absentee ballot in one state filled it out, mailed it, and then sauntered down to the polling place in the state she really resides in and physically voted.
No mistaking it here.
Calling he a Stupid Dem is correct…..But calling he a Stupid Entitled Asshole is more correct.
khead
@Kay:
Tough shit Jim.
A few old white folks being denied their vote doesn’t mean shit as long as a lot more “others” are right there with him.
In the correct states, of course.
smintheus
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
Did she say when she was a Republican? She may have voted twice as a Republican rather than as a Democrat (?).
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Calouste: Texas did pass one. It had things like not allowing you to use your student ID but allowing you to use your concealed handgun permit. It closed places close to the border where people could get IDs, requiring some to drive more than 100 miles to get an ID if they could drive.
David Hunt
@catclub:
He’s been a professional politician for years. More importantly for my argument, he’s been running for high offices like senator, governor, and POTUS. In those elections, you go to polls and make a show of voting. It’s of photo op. He’s not going to vote in person in more than one place.
As to before then, or the idea of absentee voting in any circumstance, I don’t believe he’d have taken the risk. Everything I’ve read about his time at Bain indicates someone who’s highly risk adverse on a personal level. It’s my understanding that deals were arranged so that he would personally profit regardless of the fate of the companies he was loading up with mountains of junk debt. I simply don’t think he’d take the risk. He was running for office for Pete’s sake!
Also, it take time to fill out those ballots. He’s a big, important man with demands on his time. My feel is he’d think he could influence elections with more efficient uses of his time than voting.
Rob in Buffalo
How many times will Glenn Reynolds mention this in the next year? 10? 20? 50?
Cmm
I think it is worth pointing out that according to the news stories, she was found out by a Dem party review, and it was brought to public attention and she was ousted because the Dems confronted her. Now maybe they would have been more inclined to hush it up if there hadn’t been all the screeching about voter fraud the last few years, but nevertheless she was caught by due diligence by her own party and not by any of the new voter ID laws. When people inevitably point to her case as evidence that fraud exists, that point should be emphasized.
cervantes
@Kay: Voter ID is irrelevant. She was registered in both places, her ID matched in both places, ergo she can vote in multiple places with Voter ID.
This is a completely different kind of voter fraud.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Cmm: We’re Dems, we do this kind of thing.
Humanities Grad
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
Not buying the explanation that she legitimately believed she could vote more than once. Anybody who’s ever taken so much as a high school civics course has heard the phrase “one (wo)man, one vote.” Anybody who’s managed to become a national bigwig in just about anything has to be smart enough to wrap their brain around that one.
Seems to me this is more a case of arrogance and stupidity in action. And a horrifically ill-timed one, because even though it does nothing to make the case for Voter ID laws, it’s still going to be used (a LOT) to make exactly that argument.
khead
@Rob in Buffalo:
Over
jayackroyd
@Another Halocene Human:
You can also make the argument that someone who owns property in a jurisdiction should be able to vote there because they’re affected by issues related to property–zoning, taxes etc.
But that’s not how it works here. You’ve got one voting residence. If you care enough about the property taxes on your vacation home to want to be able to vote for local elected officials, declare your residence there.
Or in your son’s basement.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@smintheus: I got the impression that she had been a Republican who was very disillusioned with the way her party was going and changed to our side. I think we all know former Republicans who have become Democrats and I – for one – always welcome them to our inclusive party.
The more I think about it – and I’m not trying to excuse her actions about voting twice – but I came out of my correspondence with her thinking she was politically naive. I’d have been very surprised if she had won her race as she seemed to be a very one-issue candidate. But, who knows…
I will also add that the handmade craft industry – as a whole, including both artisans and gallery owners – is VERY Blue. If I had known Wendy Rosen was Republican, I’d have thought she was one of the few Republicans in the industry.
Chris
@Another Halocene Human:
As I understand it, what this country’s had for most of its history was the “those who vote don’t matter those who count the votes matter” system. Where the country is basically made up of a bunch of little fiefdoms where between ballot stuffing, voter intimidation, bribery via the spoils system and patronage to make sure the political system was properly under your thumb… the local Boss Hogg/Mister Potter has final say. (“Smoke filled rooms” being the places where all the nation’s people like that got together).
Matt McIrvin
@Another Halocene Human: Oh, those little old retired ladies were there, and they’d seen me vote many times before and probably recognized me (they ask my wife where my daughter is when she doesn’t tag along), but they still weren’t going to let me vote without showing ID. It was the rules.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Humanities Grad: I am not defending her actions, Grad. I was just trying to put a “face” to a name.
Todd
The intersection between motor voter and that ubiquitous “stay here 30 days or more, and you have to get a new operators license” bites yet another one in the ass.
Matt McIrvin
…to be clear, if I hadn’t been on the inactive roll, I would not have had to show ID.
kimiko
I live in her district. Let me say, on behalf of ordinary dems in Baltimore County:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!
*le sigh*
We had Kratovil, who voted against health care. (dammit).
We then kicked him out, because he was either too liberal (not republican) or too conservative (no healthcare.)
We got Harris (R) instead, who at least has had the good sense to keep his head down. And this is what we get for a replacement?
Inside baseball: this district includes the eastern shore (looks like, polls like Indiana) and part of Baltimore County. Which is populated by old white people who fled Baltimore City during desegregation. The further out in the county you drive, the more people you find who look like, and vote like John McCain. Meanwhile the city starves for property tax income to improve schools, etc. Does okay with convention and tourism. We do one hell of a job with Anime and Comics conventions.
Anyway, blue dog Dems is what we’ll get until we get redistricted, or until the old people age out. Not much chance of that happening quickly, most people who live here retire here, due to good infrastructure (public transport, really good nursing homes, temperate weather). Obama is a perfect choice for them, though, most aren’t committed racists, but Eisenhower-type Republicans. We still might abolish our death penalty, legalize gay marriage, and go for medical MJ.
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
It’s weird. We were driving home from my mother’s yesterday, through the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and I happened to see a big billboard with Wendy Rosen’s name on it. I think it had her picture, too. This was outside Salisbury. I’d never heard of her before. Then, not long after, we turned on the radio, and withinan hour of seeing the billboard, we heard about this. I turned to my wife and said, “That’s the woman we saw on the billboard 40 miles back.” Odd timing…
One thing I wondered, though. On the news, it said she’d voted in primaries in Maryland and Florida in the same year. Is that against the law? I mean, I know it looks bad, and it’s a dumb thing to do even if you aren’t looking to run for office yourself, but what if youo voted in a primary in Florida in, say, March, and then moved to Maryland in May, registered there, and voted in the primary there in, like September or something? Is that against the law?
lou
Didn’t Ann Coulter get in trouble for doing this too? She voted in both NY and Fla?
I think Fla is generally on top of it because they have to be, with all the New Yorkers with second homes.
I moved from Fla to DC and got a letter right after I registered to vote in DC warning me that they were notified of my new residence and unless I explained why, they were taking me off the rolls. I thought it was awesomely efficient.
gene108
@cervantes:
Depends, if you need proof of address on your ID or not. I think there was a case of a WW2 vet, who got turned away in PA during the primaries, because he had his VA ID, but it didn’t have an address on it.
On the whole a handful of people doing this is not significant enough to warrant the attention it has received.
Humanities Grad
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
Oh, I understand that. You were perfectly clear about it. And I suppose it is a possible explanation, it’s just not one that I’m inclined to believe.
Maybe this is just my lingering naivete as someone who teaches history and political science for a living–I find it inconceivable (*) that an educated person in the U.S. wouldn’t be aware of the idea of “one person, one vote.”
(*) Insert obligatory “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Vico
@Bobby Thomson: That’s what I was thinking: Didn’t Ann Coulter do the same thing? And didn’t she get away with it?
artem1s
shortly after the 2000 debacle in FL, I asked my city councilwoman whether this exact thing was possible – voting absentee in FL and actually showing up on polling day in OH or visa versa. She never gave me a satisfactory answer. She wasn’t trying to obfuscate, it had just never occurred to her that someone who owns a home in 2 states might have a golden opportunity to commit voter fraud.
It always seemed that the Republican Party was frantic to the point of being panicked about a recount in the whole state of FL. I’ve always believed there was more going on than hanging chads and voting rolls getting purged.
Bill Murray
@lou: well it seems there are a couple of things Ann C. did wrt voter fraud.
1. when she moved to Florida she stayed registered in Connecticut for a while. There was a request to look into this but for a variety of reasons no charges were filed.
2. at some point her drivers license may have changed from her being born in 1961 to 1963
3. When she registered in Florida she used her realtor’s address instead of her own. She went to the polling place for her real address, was told she could have a provisional ballot but left for the polling place of the residence she claimed for voting purposes. She made a claim about being stalked, but all the materials related to buying the house were directly in her name, which usually isn’t how people keep stalkers from finding them. She also identified the stalker but never filed any charges. She was never charged with the two felonies and 1 misdemeanor from these hijinx.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6046
ellennelle
if memory serves, coulter did get off the hook, through some state trooper friend or some such. the case against her was dropped. but it dogged her for a while, which was of course fun to watch.