The new Republican Secretary of State in Indiana has been indicted for voter fraud. His fraudulent voting behavior was not prevented by the state's photo ID law. By the way, here's his photo ID now:
Actually I don't know if he showed his ID card when he voted, but it is required by Indiana law.
Secretary White simply did not live where his vote was cast. But he needed to appear to live there because he was getting paid to represent his old neighborhood on the city council!
Now that this fraud has apparently been perpetrated on the Republican Party of Indiana (it happened in the primary election), what does the man's attorney have to say about it?
“I'm confident that this doesn't rise to the level of a criminal offense. … He had kind of a chaotic personal living situation at the time.”
Money may be the mother's milk of politics, but double standards are the sine qua non. . . . . .also posted at IowaVoters.
11 Comments
by the way
White’s attorney (who discounts the seriousness of this alleged fraud) is James Bopp. He’s a member of the Republican National Committee from Indiana and frequent plaintiff’s attorney in lawsuits challenging campaign finance restrictions. He is also representing Iowans who claim our state’s judicial nominating system violates their civil rights.
desmoinesdem Fri 4 Mar 1:05 PM
The excuse of a "chaotic" life
Charlie White is blaming this “oversight” on his chaotic life (getting divorced, trying to find a new place to live, etc. etc.). The truth is that most of the middle class faces this type of “chaos” on a regular basis. People need to move to save money, people move for jobs. It’s hard to keep up with local election laws, the rules, the deadlines. How many regular citizens known the boundaries of their districts? Hell i’m pretty astute and I have no clue.
That being said, White was an elected official, and it’s pretty damn likely he knew the districts, and he also got over $7,000 by still living in that district and staying in his office.
I haven’t seen any references to how FAR outside White was living outside his district. If White moved half a mile outside his district to a condo to save money, I don’t want to see the book thrown at him. If the book is thrown at him, it gives him an opening, as Indiana SOS, to “strengthen” the campaign finance laws to prevent this type of thing from happening in the future — it sets him up perfectly to make it more difficult to vote. If he is kicked out of office, the Republican who replaces him does the same thing.
The average citizen sees this type of story and it scares them into thinking that if they screw up their oftentimes complicated voter registration laws, they could face huge fines or jail time. This is why it still works to post police officers outside polling locations — it traditionally scares away low-information voters, and to a greater extend, minorities.
Voter ID laws are about scaring people into not voting. The efforts to raise the profile of this silly local voting issue which is based on district boundaries is bad for our democracy, and bad for democrats efforts to stop voter ID.
samueljkirkwood Sat 5 Mar 9:59 AM
Your last point is good
I concede that the more we talk about Republican plans, the more our talk is dominated by Republican ideas. Your diary on Jeff Danielson is a welcome change in that regard.
But if we don’t try to embarrass them, they will try to sneak bills into the hopper Friday for passage the next week, a la Walker. Many of their ideas sound OK if voters don’t delve into them.
The point here is that voter ID laws are not effective against fraud. They have a different objective. Even so, politicians don’t think the law applies to them.
iowavoter Tue 8 Mar 8:59 AM
thanks
for the compliment.
I agree that we need to keep on exposing the Republicans and their true motives. The way I would have approached this was that the current Indiana SOS is a liar and lied to get a government check.
Making it all about voter fraud might be how to get it in the news, but the messaging needs to be about what personal defects make him unfit for office.
samueljkirkwood Thu 10 Mar 1:01 PM
Does this really mean the law didn't work?
Most laws have two goals:
1. Prevent a certain behavior
2. Punish those who choose to behave in that way.
It seems as if the first goal wasn’t achieved here. So, we should move on to goal #2…punishment. Is this not the goal of pretty much every law?
Are anti-murder laws a failure because people still commit murder? Or do they work because if someone does murder, that person is punished with prison.
For those who do not like Indiana’s Voter ID law…should this man be punished for voter fraud?
ghbraves Mon 7 Mar 1:14 PM
I think what the diarist means
is that voter ID laws don’t prevent various forms of voter fraud that occasionally happen.
Voter ID advocates have searched and searched for evidence of widespread fraud that photo id would prevent (someone impersonating another voter at a polling station on election day). They’ve basically come up empty. These laws are mostly about making it harder for certain groups of people to vote.
desmoinesdem Mon 7 Mar 1:19 PM
One could argue
that these laws are meant to punish
While I understand the diarists point about the intent of laws such as this, that’s not the issue at hand.
The issue at hand is that this gentleman has broken the law. Should he not be punished, Republican or not?
ghbraves Mon 7 Mar 10:43 PM
I'm not against laws banning voter fraud
or punishing people for violating those laws. I am against photo ID requirements being sold as fraud prevention acts, when they are primarily voter suppression acts.
desmoinesdem Mon 7 Mar 10:57 PM
Righto
I just thought it was humorous that the above criticized voter fraud law was used to indict a man who broke said voter fraud law, and he was a man who supported said voter fraud law.
As for the ID situation, clearly someone dropped the ball, according to state law, that is…or else he would have been stopped there. I agree with you…clearly the voter ID law failed here, or else it wouldn’t be a story.
After all, we only know that a law was broken when someone gets caught, right?
ghbraves Mon 7 Mar 11:16 PM
photo ID wouldn't have stopped this
He wasn’t pretending to be someone else, he was lying about where he lived. Presumably he did show photo ID when voting at his old precinct.
desmoinesdem Tue 8 Mar 7:18 AM
Did I imply he should go free?
I don’t think I did. I show the law–which is a barrier to some voters–did not lead to his indictment. He would have been indicted anyway.
The law did not prevent the very fraud it is alleged to prevent because his ID showed an address within the district and showed his own face. Maybe we ought to require everyone show their current utility bill as proof they still live at the address on their photo ID? Or maybe they could show some mail they received at their home with a three day old postmark? Where will this end?
iowavoter Tue 8 Mar 9:10 AM