Did Obama supporter vote 6 times in 2012? Ohio poll worker target of investigation

By Eric Shawn

Published February 19, 2013 FoxNews.com

The Obama/Biden lawn sign remains proudly planted in front of Melowese Richardson's Cincinnati home, three months after the presidential election.

It seems that President Obama has an especially ardent supporter in the veteran Ohio poll worker.

Richardson told a local television station this month that she voted twice for Obama last November. She cast an absentee ballot and then voted at the polls as well.

"Yes, I voted twice," Richardson told WCPO-TV. "I, after registering thousands of people, certainly wanted my vote to count, so I voted. I voted at the polls."

Authorities also are investigating if she voted in the names of four other people, too, for a total of six votes in the 2012 presidential election.

"I'll fight it for Mr. Obama and for Mr. Obama's right to sit as president of the United States," Richardson vowed when asked about the voter fraud investigation that is now under way.

Richardson is one of 19 people suspected of illegal voting by the Hamilton County Board of Elections in the last election.

"I'm outraged, and every voter, regardless of their political affiliation, should be outraged," said Hamilton County Board of Elections member Alex Triantafilou, who is also chairman of the county Republican Party. "It causes folks to have real doubts about the fabric of our very democratic process, and it's dangerous. It is disconcerting that someone would be so bold as to admit their conduct in such a fashion ... We fully intend to prosecute these cases."

Richardson claimed she had submitted an absentee ballot, but was afraid her vote would not count so she also voted in person. She also said she voted in the name of her granddaughter and yet another person.

"There was absolutely no intent on my part to commit any voter fraud," she insisted.

Richardson's granddaughter, India Richardson, confirmed to Fox News that her grandmother voted for her, by submitting an absentee ballot in her name. India told Fox News that she is not angry, and gave her permission to cast her absentee ballot.

"It wasn't a big deal," she said.

But election authorities say voting more than once, or in someone else's name, is a big deal because it is illegal and threatens the credibility of the nation's election system.

"It appears she not only attempted to vote more than once, but was actually successful at it and having those additional votes counted," Ohio Secretary of State John Husted, who is in charge of the state's elections, told Fox News.

"She appears to have used her position as a poll worker to cover her tracks. That would be someone who is an official in the elections process, using that position to commit a fraud. That is especially troubling to me, as the chief elections officer of the state, because it is my responsibility to make sure the system runs effectively, that it has integrity. When I find issues like this, I know that it undermines voter confidence in our elections, and we must pursue it."

Three other absentee ballots in the names of different people were submitted to the Board of Elections from Richardson's address on Nov. 1. Officials say the handwriting on those ballots is similar and that they were all received together, on the same day that Richardson's absentee ballot arrived at the office. Richardson maintains that some of the other voters live at her house.

Attempts by Fox News to reach Richardson were unsuccessful, but she claimed to the local station that the votes were "absolutely legal votes."

In written reports detailing the 19 cases, Board of Elections investigators described their findings. In one instance, an investigator called a suspected double voter and was hung up on.

"I explained that she voted twice and she told me not to bother her and get off her phone and she hung up," the investigator wrote.

Another voter admitted to double voting, but did not think it was an issue.

"The voter said yes she 'voted early' and then voted again, then she asked 'what's the problem?'" according to the report.

Yet another voter was at a loss for explaining why he voted more than once.

"Voter said he remembered both times. He doesn't know why he voted twice," the report said.

The documents show that another voter said he had received a phone call before Election Day telling him his absentee ballot would not count. When investigators questioned him about voting two times, the voter replied "'as usual, you guys are wrong.' ... he was curious about the investigation and asked 'Now what will you do' and 'are you taping me now?"

The Hamilton County Board of Elections is holding hearings to further investigate these cases.

"It is so fundamental to people's faith in the democratic process, that we need to act very strong to make sure that we are doing everything we can to keep people's faith," declared Triantafilou. "There is always the concern, though, that there are those situations where we didn't catch folks."

As part of a new effort to root out any voter fraud, Secretary of State Husted has ordered all 88 of the state's county Board of Elections to hold public hearings on any credible voter fraud allegations or claims of voter disenfranchisement during the 2012 election. He said any substantiated allegations should be turned over to prosecutors.

"Once the election is over, and once the winner is declared, everybody forgets about it. I want to make sure that we don't forget about it, that we make sure we do, essentially, an audit of that process to ensure that we know what happened, and then use that evidence to guide us going forward. ... We need to learn from that last election so that we can be better before the next one gets here."

"Fraud does happen," noted Husted. "Most attempts are caught by the system. But there are cases that do slip through, as this one does, and we need to make sure that we really send a strong message, that if you do this, you are going to be held accountable. It might mean fines, it might mean jail time."

Voter fraud, said Husted, "undermines public confidence in democracy, and that's why we need, whether you are a Democrat or Republican, to root out all cases of voter fraud."

If you suspect voter fraud where you live, tell us: Voterfraud@Foxnews.com
Meredith Amor contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/19/ohio-poll-worker-obama-supporter-investigated-for-potentially-voting-six-times/

Only six times? Slacker! ;)

I can only imagine how many other people voted more than once. It is amazing to me how this can even happen with the technologies we have today. It's no wonder he got re-elected.

Not amazing to me. No requirements in many places for ID to vote. No cross checks made between absentee rolls and who actually showed up to vote at a particular polling place, much less cross-precinct or even cross-state. To do so would be discriminatory, racist, and "disenfranchising." The technology doesn't even begin to enter into the picture. We don't even use the "old" technology of insisting on a photo ID. (Not that that is foolproof - but it at least requires the would-be cheater to make an effort).

And the technology is not foolproof either. Far from it. Do you use electronic voting machines? If so, do they generate a paper ballot after you vote that you then put into a ballot box? If not, how do you really know that you voted for whom you think you voted? Do you know how they count the number of votes for each candidate on those machines? They push a button and it spits out a piece of paper that lists the candidates and how many votes they got. Do you know how they do a recount? They push the button again. Bottom line, the vote is what the machine says it is. Period.

Do you know how the machine was programmed? Do you trust the programmers? Do you know how a touch screen goes about registering a vote? Did you know that the part of the screen that registers for a particular candidate is programmable? Heck, the whole thing is programmable. Any possibility someone introduced a virus somewhere along the way that changes the outcome? Malicious code? Backdoors? These can be introduced via a thumb drive plugged into a USB slot. There are other ways as well. What if for every 2-3 votes for candidate A, candidate B gets an "extra" vote? Or perhaps a vote is subtracted from candidate A. As long as the numbers tally up (i.e, there are not more votes cast than people casting them), how would you be able to tell? And does anyone really cross-check? That is, count up the number of people who voted on each machine and make sure that it adds up to (or is less than - not everyone votes for every candidate) the number of people who entered the polling place? And if you did find a discrepancy, how on earth could you possibly fix it?

Technology just makes it easier for people who know how to cheat. Without a paper trail (and alert voters) there is no way to do a recount. There is no way to tell if anything has been tampered with or that the machine is outputting the "correct" results. There are times when the polling place is empty. What's to stop an election judge from cranking out a few extra votes for their favorite candidate? After it is all over they can find someone on the election rolls who didn't vote and "check them off" as having voted.

And don't tell me that can't happen because someone will rat them out. What about those polling locations where the Democrats threw out all the Republican election judges? I am sure there were inner city locations around the country, heavily Obama (like those where Obama got 100% of the vote), where such could have been done openly.

"There was absolutely no intent on my part to commit any voter fraud," she
insisted.

If you are so stupid that you think this action is not an attempt at voter fraud, then at the least she should loose her right to vote.

CITEX wrote:

If you are so stupid that you think this action is not an attempt at voter fraud, then at the least she should loose her right to vote.

Amen to that. Shows how totally ignorant people in this country are. Sad state of affairs. Stupid, stupid people.

Bamadiva I saw that on the news,and she did say she voted the way she thought they should have voted.All the ballots came to her home in the mail,plus she voted again in person at the poll.I hope that something will be done about this,but Obama will most likely pardon her anyway.

CITEX wrote:

If you are so stupid that you think this action is not an attempt at voter fraud, then at the least she should loose her right to vote.

I wouldn't be so sure she actually understands the meaning of the term. She probably thinks she wasn't trying to defraud anyone: she was given the "opportunity" to vote six times, so she did. And surely, if those she voted in place of had actually voted, they would have voted the same way she did - she was just making sure that "their" votes counted!

elandur wrote:


I wouldn't be so sure she actually understands the meaning of the term. She probably thinks she wasn't trying to defraud anyone: she was given the "opportunity" to vote six times, so she did. And surely, if those she voted in place of had actually voted, they would have voted the same way she did - she was just making sure that "their" votes counted!

Ok thats funny!!