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April 22, 2006

Let's do the election corruption boogie. . . . .

Today, New Orleans voters (and others as I'll show in a moment) will be casting ballots for the Mayor of New Orleans. It's no secret that Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin is hoping that this election will come down to race based politics rather than doing what's best for the city, but that's not what this post is about.

As voters go to the polls, I want to share something with you, my tiny readership, in the hopes that you'll share it far and wide.

So here we go. . . .

A few weeks ago, the Louisians Secretary of State's office sent out a 4 page document entitled "Municipal Elections Information" within the document was a form to request an absentee ballot by mail.

I've scanned the document and offer it here Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

First I'd like to take issue with Page 1, please notice this:

Now we had a number of evacuees come through Birmingham and we provided aid and shelter to family members and friends in the aftermath of the storm, but I find this shotgun approach to locating voters rather . . . . inappropriate. The mailing came to us because various Katrina evacuees used our mailing address in the immediate aftermath for FEMA registrations, contact info and the like. So our address got on the list and this ballot request made it's way to my hands. Now that's not all that bad, I just thought it was worthy of note.

Here's where things get, in my opinion, VERY BAD. Take a look at page three, here's an excerpt:

Do yo see it?

Take a look again. . . .

Do you see it now????

Ok here you go:

Anything that would positively establish identity is OPTIONAL INFORMATION. Yep, that's right, optional. I could easily fill out this form, get my ballot, send it in; and I haven't lived in New Orleans in over a decade. Furthermore, I can make as many copies of this form as I'd like:

Instructions (NOTE: You may copy this form for outher Louisiana Displaced Registered Voters.)

Given the track record of Louisiana Government in the past say, um . . . well . . . FOREVER, I don't have much confidence that the Sec State will be able to provide for a legitimate election given that anything that could be used to positively identify a voter as a legitimate voter is *Optional.

I'm going to refrain from any more commentary about this, I think that by merely presenting this I'm giving enough condemnation to it. I hope if you have any opinions, you'll share them with me, and further, please feel free to lift these scanned images and repost them whereever you'd like. I'll even go the extra step of saying it's ok to hotlink these for those who may use blogger or other shared hosting resources. However, if you have the bandwidth, I'd appreciate it if you save copies for yourself and don't hotlink. OK???

So here's a final question. How many of those 16,000 absentee ballots already received for the New Orleans municipal election do you think were sent out with no positive identification of the voter based on this form????? I'm guessing it's significantly more than a few.

--Jason

PS You might also find something of interest in my -Katrina Category. Like maybe this.

Posted by JasonColeman at April 22, 2006 1:40 PM

Comments

Posted by: Shosh at April 22, 2006 9:06 PM

Posted by: Ike at April 22, 2006 11:14 PM

Posted by: jwookie at April 24, 2006 12:04 PM