Democratic Vote Fraud in West Virginia
Posted by Jim Hoft on Tuesday, June 21, 2005, 5:03 AM
The Democrats in East St. Louis ought to be furious with this story about Democratic vote fraud in West Virginia. After all, in East St. Louis they’re only paid $5-$10!
As with past election fraud probes, the latest case targets solely Democrats, who dominate the voter rolls and local governments through the region. In Lincoln County, population 22,100, Democrats outnumber Republicans 4-to-1; the indictment focuses largely on the party’s primary elections, going back to 1990.
Funny that they have to bring up a Republican corruption charge from 1990! I thought this was about voter fraud?
Not that the GOP has clean hands. Republican former Gov. Arch Moore pleaded guilty to five corruption-related charges in 1990, including one that alleged he spent $100,000 in unreported campaign cash during his successful 1984 campaign.
In the 1990s, politicians in neighboring Logan County found themselves on the defensive. Two state legislators, the county assessor and a Circuit Court judge, among others, went to jail on corruption charges that included vote-buying.
The current case targets Circuit Court clerk Greg Stowers, 48, the son of Lincoln County’s longtime Democratic Party chairman; his deputy, Clifford Odell “Groundhog” Vance, 49; Jackie David Adkins, 36, a state highway worker; Wandell “Rocky” Adkins, 49, no relation; and Toney “Zeke” Dingess, 34.
All five have pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors allege the defendants enlisted precinct captains to pay off voters and hand out slates listing the preferred candidates. Most votes were bought for $20 apiece, prosecutors said. The indictment also said Stowers drove to Kentucky and filled his pickup truck with booze for distribution to voters during the 1994 primary.
The indictment cites 16 voters who were allegedly paid off. Prosecutors have not said just how many voters, all told, were supposedly bought or how much was spent, but said the conspirators assembled $25,000 for one election alone to bribe voters.
So, their Democratic Party Representatives received $25,000. Well in East St. Louis they recieved $67,000 ! So what happened to all of the extra cash on the east side if they were only paying $5-$10 for votes?
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Anonymous commented:
Wow! $42,000.00 goes a long ways at one of those finer ESL establishments like Larry Flint’s, Miss Kitty’s, Hollywood’s, to name a few. What are these Illinios politicians thinkning?
Ryan White commented:
Actually, I live in Logan County and the political corruption remains very prevalent in my county. My county is so highly Democrat that the general elections are all but trivial at the local level.
Logan has had a long history of political corruption. In the 70s, some office-holders were arrested for election fraud. I believe it was in the early 80s that several Board of Education members were also arrested for election fraud. As you said, some arrests were made for vote-buying in the 90s. Near 2002, a former mayor was arrested for accepting bribes in return for “looking the other way” while drugs were brought into the county. Finally, there have been more arrests for vote-buying during the past several months. The problem is that the only people who have been being arrested are the relatively insignificant “players” in the scandal. In other words, the authorities arrest a couple unimportant people, the public outcry (however small) ends, and everything goes back to the way it was.