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It was a happy scene Tuesday outside the voting precinct in Greensboro, and quite telling. Gathered under a tent Tuesday afternoon, during the intermittent rain, were Johnnie Washington — counted as the winner in the election for mayor — and three of his pals: Aaron Evans, Gay Nell Tinker and Valada Paige Banks.

It was telling because Washington’s margin of victory — 42 votes — was within the range of absentee ballots. Washington got 61 of the 90 absentee ballots cast for mayor.

It was also telling because Evans is a former Greensboro city councilman convicted of 15 counts of voting fraud in 1998, while Tinker and Banks are under indictment for voter fraud involving absentee ballots.

Washington had counted himself the winner of the mayoral election in Greensboro in 2004. An investigation found absentee ballots had been cast using the names of people who had no idea they were on the absentee list and many of the addresses used were false. In several cases, two absentee ballots had the same voter’s name. Courts ultimately awarded the contest to his challenger, Vanessa Hill, halfway through the office term.

‘I really wish better for the people of Greensboro,’ Hill said Tuesday, after the unofficial tally indicted she would lose her bid for re-election.

We also hope for a better future for the people of Greensboro and other communities across West Alabama, where democracy is undermined by election fraud.

Many of these voters, or their parents, were part of the civil rights struggle that won access to the ballot box. It is a cruel irony that some elections continue to be called into question, not through the efforts of a minority of white voters to re-establish illegitimate control, but by a handful of black leaders who seek to maintain their power.

This is not to say that Washington did not win legitimately. He had a narrow nine-vote margin among the votes cast at Greensboro’s polling place Tuesday, before absentee votes were counted.

It is, however, fair to say that absentee ballots — which can be manipulated with more impunity than votes cast in person — play too great a role in elections across West Alabama. Greensboro’s absentee ballots in this election represented almost 14 percent of the total, while across the state they typically account for less than 5 percent of the total.

The issue is not being ignored.

Investigators from the U.S. Justice Department were in Marion, in neighboring Perry County, to monitor elections Tuesday.

Grassroots organizations such as Greensboro Citizens for Fair Elections have begun to press for criminal investigations of voting fraud and educate citizens about their rights and responsibilities.

Still, through apathy, ignorance or intimidation, the problem continues. And those who benefit from and perpetrate voter fraud continue to enjoy a good time under the tent together.

Tom Gordon
News staff writer
http://al.com

In the Black Belt towns of Marion and Greensboro, today’s mayoral elections basically will be a rerun of what they were four years ago, and voters are waiting to see if they will be settled just as the 2004 mayoral elections were – after a protracted legal dispute over absentee ballots.

If the number of absentee ballot applications is any indication, absentee votes will again play a big role in determining Marion’s next mayor, but they may not figure as prominently this time in Greensboro.

In the Perry County seat of Marion, a town of 3,800, Mayor Tony Long is facing another challenge from a local attorney, Robert Bryant. By last week’s deadline, the city clerk’s office had received 903 absentee ballot applications. Nearly 830 ballots were cast in the 2004 mayoral election.

In the Hale County seat of Greensboro, a town of 2,800, incumbent Vanessa Hill is again facing local funeral home operator Johnnie B. Washington. By the close of business Thursday, the city clerk had received 131 absentee applications. More than 300 ballots were cast in 2004.

Absentee ballots have long been a big election-year factor in much of Alabama’s Black Belt. While the statewide average has been around 3 percent, in counties such as Perry absentees have sometimes amounted to a third of the total vote, or higher.

“I think it’s an effort by certain people to control the vote,” said UAB history professor Sam Webb. “They get people to vote absentee and they may be legitimately voting absentee, but … as they collect their ballot, (they) kind of tell them how to vote.”

The Justice Department said it is dispatching observers to monitor elections in Marion, as well as Bayou La Batre in Mobile County, today.

Time and again, absentee ballots have been the difference between winning and losing for Black Belt political candidates. Political activists have been tried and in some cases convicted of vote fraud in connection with the casting of questionable absentee ballots. Earlier this year, the state attorney general’s office launched an investigation of absentee voting in Perry County’s June 3 primary. In Hale County, a grand jury this year indicted former Circuit Clerk Gay Nell Tinker on vote fraud charges linked to absentee ballots in a 2005 special election.

In the Black Belt, it is not unusual for losing candidates to contest their defeats by challenging the winner’s absentee votes. Election challenges over absentee votes followed the Aug. 24, 2004, mayoral election in Marion and the Sept. 15, 2004, mayoral runoff in Greensboro.

In the Marion mayor’s race, nearly 40 percent of the 2,156 votes cast were absentee and Long and Bryant were the dominant candidates in a three-man field. Long led Bryant by a margin of 1,120 votes to 997 and was subsequently declared the winner. Absentees made up 471 of Long’s votes, or 42 percent. Absentees made up 357, or 36 percent of Bryant’s votes.

Bryant contested the result, a trial resulted and nearly two years later, Circuit Judge Marvin Wiggins ordered a new mayoral runoff, declaring that neither Long nor Bryant had received the necessary majority of legal votes.

The biggest part of Wiggins’ ruling was his decision that 153 of Long’s absentee votes could not be counted because of irregularities, and 96 of those were tossed out because the applications did not bear proper addresses. The address on a number of applications was the same post office box. Last April, the state Supreme Court upheld Wiggins’ order for a new election, and it took place June 10. Long finished ahead, 948 to 680, and nearly half of his votes were absentees. Bryant’s supporters have questioned the legality of some of them.

It took more than two years for Greensboro to settle its mayoral dispute.

Hill, after spending years in Nashville in the recording business, returned to Greensboro to care for her ailing mother and decided to run for mayor. In the Sept. 15, 2004, runoff, she trailed Washington by 90 votes, and Washington’s apparent victory was due to 251 absentee votes, five times the number Hill received.

While Hill challenged the runoff outcome, Washington was sworn in and began to serve as Greensboro’s mayor.

During the dispute, Montgomery County Circuit Judge William Shashy ordered the attorney general’s office to take charge of the runoff ballots. He appointed Montgomery lawyer James Anderson, an expert in election law, as a special master to hear the case. On Jan. 23, 2006, Anderson ruled that Washington had received at least 148 illegal absentee votes and Hill at least eight. With the absentee votes removed, Anderson said, Hill had won the runoff, with 664 votes to 614 for Washington.

Shashy upheld Anderson’s findings, and the Alabama Supreme Court upheld him the following December. More than 102 of Washington’s absentee votes were thrown out because they bore no required postmark, and 17 more were tossed after testimony from a handwriting expert that the voter signatures were forged.

Voters can vote absentee if they will be out of their home county on election day, if an illness or physical disability will keep them from the polls, or if they have a work shift of at least 10 hours that corresponds with polling place hours. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Secretary of State Beth Chapman is calling on all secretaries of state across the nation to form Voter Fraud Units in their states.

Chapman, who has led the effort in stopping voter fraud in Alabama, has received many comments from other secretaries of state and citizens outside of Alabama about experiencing some of the same problems Alabama has recently had with voter fraud. Chapman is working with the state Attorney General’s Office and the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate voter fraud in several Black Belt counties.

“We have a voter registration office to assist and encourage all eligible citizens in our states to vote. It only makes sense that we should work to protect that right by making every attempt to stop those who would attempt to cheat the very system we encourage all citizens to use,” Chapman said. “Therefore, there is a definite need for a Voter Fraud Unit to exist in the Secretary of State’s Office.”

Chapman was the first secretary of state in the nation to organize such a unit and has since been followed by other states.

The Voter Fraud Unit in Chapman’s office has received numerous allegations from across the state and has presented valuable information and is assisting the Department of Justice and the Attorney General’s Office in “every possible effort to stop voter fraud.”

Chapman’s Voter Fraud Unit can be reached by calling 1-800-274-VOTE or by visiting www.stopvoterfraudnow.com.

–posted by Markeshia Ricks